Pablo Picasso
Sheet: 32.5 x 25 cm
At the age of 86, Picasso produced an explosive body of prints that are mind-boggling in their ambition. Between March and October 1968 he dedicated himself exclusively to the production of etchings, producing 347 original prints in just 204 days. They're known collectively as the 347 Series and are some of his most sought-after works. They read like a personal diary, with each one obsessively dated and annotated. Across these images Picasso records his experiences, desires and imaginings, taking on the shifting guise of artist, buffoon, faun and jester.
Speaking about these works, he claimed that 'Of course, one never knows what's going to come out, but as soon as the drawing gets underway, a story or an idea is born, and that's it. I spend hour after hour while I draw, observing my creatures and thinking about the mad things they're up to. Basically, it's my way of writing fiction.'
Picasso was able to devote himself entirely to this artistic endeavour because of the presence of the brothers Aldo and Piero Crommelynck, master printmakers who had set up their workshop in an old bakery close to Picasso's villa in Mougins. Trained by the legendary Roger Lacourière (who had printed Picasso's earlier Vollard Suite in the 1930s) the brothers were able to accommodate the artist's extraordinary technical demands and facilitate the evolution of the greatest artistic statement of his mature career.
This work belongs to La Célestine, a self-contained suite of 66 etchings that exists within the 347 Series. They are based upon La Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea, a dramatized novel written by Fernando de Rojas and published in 1499. A swaggering tour de force of hedonism and corruption, it appealed to Picasso's sense of the absurdity in the human condition. In some plates, courtiers conduct themselves with perfect manners and poise, while in others they succumb to the most carnal of instincts. High and low-life are mingled together in a sensory overload. Most of the Célestine etchings are tiny, but their execution is revolutionary. In examples such as Petite Enfant accroupie et Courtesan, Picasso applied grease to the etching plate in order to disrupt the sugar-lift aquatint technique and create a beaded texture. This allowed him to create exquisitely varied shades of grey without having to adjust the intensity of the black ink.
Innovations such as this characterise the 347 Series as a whole, and have ensured that it stands as one of Picasso's supreme artistic achievements.
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Framing - This piece has been framed with anti-UV glass.
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