
A
Guide to Collecting Picasso's Prints
Copyright
Kobi Ledor, MD, 2005. All rights reserved.
Chapter 6: A Survey
of Picasso’s Prints:
The Vollard Suite was named for its publisher, the famous Parisian art dealer and critic, Ambroise Vollard. Vollard gave Picasso his first show and served as his art dealer early on. In later years, he published two of Picasso’s illustrated books, and, emboldened by the success of those projects, commissioned Picasso in 1930 to create The Vollard Suite, a group of 100 prints which became Picasso’s most celebrated series. Picasso began creating these prints in 1933 and topped the series off in 1937 with three portraits of Vollard, who narcissistically insured that every one of his stable of artists created his portrait. Picasso turned the completed copper plates over to his master printer Roger Lacourière, who printed them in 1939. Vollard met an untimely death in a car accident that same year, and the print dealer Henri Petiet purchased the edition from Vollard’s estate. Petiet acquired the entirety of the edition with the exception of the three portraits of Vollard, which may not have been delivered to Vollard at the same time as the rest, and, more accidently than otherwise, were not included in Petiet’s purchase. (The only other prints that didn’t go to Petiet were the few trial proofs, which had been retained by Lacourière and not delivered to Vollard.) Petiet convinced Picasso to start signing The Suite in the 1950s, which Picasso did sporadically for many years, probably up until 1969, when he was overwhelmed with the task of signing of The 347 Series. Although The Vollard
Suite is
Picasso’s most famous print
series, it is important for a collector to understand
that Picasso created most of his prints as individual works of art rather than as parts of any series. Furthermore, acknowledging The Vollard Suite as his most famous series does not imply
that the prints
it comprises are his best prints. Some of his best
prints are indeed found within The Suite, but a number of other Suite prints are, frankly, not all that accomplished.
Other
contemporaneously created prints are just as beautiful but, because
they don’t bear the cachet of being a part of The Vollard
Suite,
sell for a fraction of the price. And that, even though they are in general around five times rarer than The Vollard
Suite prints! A discerning collector should pick and choose
carefully,
but at the very least should think twice before limiting his collection,
or even just his collection of prints of the ‘thirties, to The
Vollard Suite. Table 8A. The Vollard Suite, 1930-37
(Note: Cost estimates in The Vollard
Suite are for signed impressions.)
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