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Premium PABLO PICASSO (Málaga 1881–1973 Mougins)
Buste de femme d'ap…
PABLO PICASSO (Málaga 1881–1973 Mougins)
Buste de femme d'ap…
Lot no. 3621
Description
PABLO PICASSO
(Málaga 1881–1973 Mougins)
Buste de femme d'après Cranach le Jeune. 1958.
Color linocut in 5 colors. Artist's proof, one of 15 artist's copies outside the edition of 50. Signed in red crayon lower right: Picasso. image 64.5 × 53.5 cm on wove paper by Arches (with the watermark) 76.5 × 56.5 cm. Published by Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris. Printed by Arnéra, Vallauris.
Provenance:
- Artist's studio.
- Acquired directly from the artist by Dr. Julian de Ajuriaguerra ca. 1960.
- Collection, USA (by descent).
Exhibited:
- Baer, no. 1053.C.a.
- Bloch, no. 859.
In the 1950s, Pablo Picasso began to rediscover the linocut as an artistic form of expression. The colour linocuts, created between 1954 and 1963 in collaboration with the printer Hidalgo Arnéra in Vallauris in the south of France, are now considered among the most important graphic works of his late period.
Within the medium of relief printing, Picasso’s work with the ‘lost block’ technique was particularly innovative: he carved all the colours into a single linoleum block, which he worked on in stages. After each colour stage is printed, the plate is cut again, whereby earlier stages are irretrievably lost. Although this method does not allow for corrections or repetitions, it results in exceptionally precise registration and striking intricacy. Picasso mastered this technique with consummate skill, creating works of a great intensity of colour, clear structure and strength of form.
In 1958, with ‘Buste de femme, d'après Cranach le Jeune’, Pablo Picasso took up a motif from the German Renaissance and reinterpreted it using his own modern pictorial language. The inspiration for this colour linocut was a small reproduction: a postcard sent to him from Vienna by his dealer and friend Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. It shows a portrait of a lady by Lucas Cranach the Younger (1515–1586), entitled ‘Portrait of a Woman’, which was created in 1564 and is now housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (see fig. 1).
Like his father, Cranach the Younger was renowned for his depictions of courtly ladies, characterised by idealised, decorative elements, formal rigour and clear compositions. Typical of his style is a linear pictorial language with precise contours, fine modelling and emblematic symbolism, which lend the portraits an effect which is both representative and timeless.
Picasso began with a simple two-colour proof in July 1958. However, he was not satisfied with this. Step by step, he developed a complex composition consisting of five separate colour plates – in ochre, yellow, blue, red and black. Over the course of numerous attempts, he recombined the colours, experimenting with overlays and transparencies. Only after a process of intensive work did he decide on the final colour variant, on which this copy is also based, an artist's proof from the 50-print edition published by Louise Leiris.
The effect of the layering is particularly noteworthy: the colour areas which are printed on top of each other with technical sophistication create an exceptional depth and three-dimensionality. This endows the work with a strong visual presence. Picasso thus radically transformed the original portrait using his own formal language: the elegant, highly detailed depiction has become a strictly frontal, almost mask-like figure. The features are geometrically abstracted, the eyes wide open, the mouth closed. The face is both archaic and modern, reduced to its elemental forms.
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