L'Homme á la Guitare (B. 30; Ba. 51)

Pablo Picasso executed his first Cubist print in 1907. His final and most complex Cubist graphic to be published was Homme à la Guitare (Man with a Guitar). Beginning in late 1914 through early 1915, he executed six plates in the Analytic Cubist mode. However, he was dissatisfied with the results and only a few impressions of the each state of the plates exist. Frustrated, he set the plates aside only to be lost until 1929. When Picasso rediscovered the plates, most were badly damaged. Homme à la Guitare, however, was able to be salvaged. Picasso returned to the plate and made minor alterations before having the work published. Due to the artist's renewed interest in the plate, Homme à la Guitare is now one a few works initiated in the early World War I years to occasionally become available to collectors.