A Manner for Modernism

Fernand Mourlot inherited his family’s Parisian printing business in the 1920s and transformed it into one of the most important fine art print studios of the twentieth century. Originally specialising in commercial printing, Mourlot became fascinated by the artistic possibilities of lithography and began collaborating with many of the leading figures of European Modernism. By the 1930s, Atelier Mourlot was producing exhibition posters and original lithographs for artists including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall and Georges Braque.

In 1945, Braque and Matisse introduced Picasso to Mourlot’s studio, beginning one of the most celebrated artistic collaborations of the post-war period. Picasso became deeply engaged with the lithographic process, often spending extended periods at the atelier experimenting directly on the stone alongside Mourlot’s master printers. Over the following decades, Mourlot Editions produced some of the most iconic graphic works of the twentieth century.