Lot Essay
Early in his career, Picasso had mastered the traditional printmaking techniques of intaglio and lithography, integrating these techniques into his artistic output. While he remained based in Paris, the workshops of Mourlot and Lacourire were close at hand for the proofing of lithographs and etchings respectively. However, in 1955, he moved with Jacqueline Roque to Cannes and in 1958 to Notre-Dame-de-Vie at Mougins. The distance from his Paris printers obviously detracted from the immediacy of his printmaking and so Picasso returned to linocut. In this endeavor he was assisted by the master printer Arnera who was living nearby at Vallauris. Until the Crommelynck brothers opened their intaglio press in Mougins in 1964, Picasso's printmaking concentrated on linocut.
The image of the artist's second wife, Jacqueline Roque, haunts Picasso's artistic production from the time of their meeting in 1953 and nowhere is this more apparent than in the great series of linocut portraits of 1962 (Bloch 1063-1082). The present example is based on two preliminary drawings (Zervos, vol. 10, nos. 196-197) and is printed in four colors which are overlaid, yellow, red, green and finally black, portions of each pass through the press showing as the block was gradually gouged away.
Prior to the two large dispersals of prints from the Collection of Victor and Sally Ganz in 1965 and 1967, the Collection contained the entire series of portraits of Jacqueline.
The image of the artist's second wife, Jacqueline Roque, haunts Picasso's artistic production from the time of their meeting in 1953 and nowhere is this more apparent than in the great series of linocut portraits of 1962 (Bloch 1063-1082). The present example is based on two preliminary drawings (Zervos, vol. 10, nos. 196-197) and is printed in four colors which are overlaid, yellow, red, green and finally black, portions of each pass through the press showing as the block was gradually gouged away.
Prior to the two large dispersals of prints from the Collection of Victor and Sally Ganz in 1965 and 1967, the Collection contained the entire series of portraits of Jacqueline.