The 347 Series
"Braggart in his Sunday Best behind the Scenes of a Circus" (1968)
The 347 Series reads like a personal diary, with each etching 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’s smaller social circle in his late years obliged him to reach back into his past and into the work of his favourite artists in order to expand his cast of characters. Circus performers had been a fascination for the artist since the 1890s, and they had been the catalyst for his extraordinary Rose Period beginning in 1904. Here, almost at the end of his life, Picasso invokes these youthful avatars once again, an act of cheerful defiance against the passage of time.
This etching was one of five that Picasso created in just one day, on 21st September 1968.