A Guide to Collecting Picasso's Prints, Chapter 7

Chapter 7: A Survey of Picasso’s Prints,
1945-1955, Francoise et al.

Fig. 27. Francoise (Bloch 396) Fig. 28. Francoise (Bloch 403)

Despite wartime privations, Picasso began creating lithographs in earnest in 1945. Although their subjects varied, their star was Francoise Gilot, whom he had met two years before. In these early lithographs of his new muse, he famously applied a very spare line, but one nonetheless laden with greatly evocative emotion. These portraits of Francoise are among his finest lithographs.

Table 16. Lithographs 1945-1946, Mostly Francoise

Bloch #	378	379	380	383	384	388	389	390	395	396
Beauty	**	*	***	****	***	*	****	*	****	*****
Significance			***	***	***	*	****	***	***	*****
Rarity	***	***	***	***	***	***		***	***	***
Size	**	***	***	**	**	****	**	**	****	*****
Visibility at a distance	***	***	****	***	***	**	**	*	*****	****
Color
Fading
Cost	*	*	**	**	*	*	*	*	*	***
Desirability to cost ratio			*		**		***		****
Signature	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y

Table 17A. Lithographs 1946-1947, Francoise and Owls

Bloch #	397	398	399	400	401	402	403	404	408	409
Beauty	*****	*****	*****	*****	*****	****	*****	***	*	***
Significance	*****	*****	*****	*****	*****	****	*****	***	*	***
Rarity	***	***	***	***	***	***	***	***	***	***
Size	*****	*****	*****	*****	*****	*****	*****	***	*****	*****
Visibility at a distance	****	****	*****	*****	*****	***	*****	*****	****	*****
Color
Fading
Cost	***	***	***	***	***	***	***	**	*	**
Desirability to cost ratio
Signature	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y

Fig. 29. Les Faunes et la Centauresse (Bloch 413)

Table 17B. Lithographs 1946-1947, continued

Bloch #	397	398	399	400	401	402	403	404	408	409
Beauty	*****	*****	*****	*****	*****	****	*****	***	*	***
Significance	*****	*****	*****	*****	*****	****	*****	***	*	***
Rarity	***	***	***	***	***	***	***	***	***	***
Size	*****	*****	*****	*****	*****	*****	*****	***	*****	*****
Visibility at a distance	****	****	*****	*****	*****	***	*****	*****	****	*****
Color
Fading
Cost	***	***	***	***	***	***	***	**	*	**
Desirability to cost ratio
Signature	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y

Table 18. Assorted media, 1947-1948

Bloch #	442	455	456	457	458	461	463	467	577	581
Beauty	*	*	**	***	*	*	*	*	**	***
Significance	***	*		***
Rarity	***	***	***	***	***		***	***	***	***
Size	*****	*****	****	*****	****	**	**	**	*****	*****
Visibility at a distance	**	***	*****	*****	*****	*	*		***	***
Color
Fading
Cost	***	***	**	***	**	*	*	*	**	*
Desirability to cost ratio										*
Signature	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N	Y	Y

Table 19. Lithographs, 1949

Bloch #

583

586

587

588

589

594

595

596

597

600

601

602

Beauty

****

***

****

***

****

Significance

***

*****

****

Rarity

***

****

Size

*****

***

*****

Visibility at a distance

*****

****

*****

****

Color

Fading

Cost

***

****

***

Desirability to cost ratio

Signature

Table 20. 1949-1950

Bloch #

603

604

611

612

613

614

1835

615-28

1836

664

675

681

Beauty

****

*****

***

*****

Significance

****

*****

****

*****

***

****

Rarity

****

***

Size

*****

***

****

*****

Visibility at a distance

*****

***

*****

***

*****

Color

*****

****

Fading

*****

Cost

***

****

**/set

***

Desirability to cost ratio

*****

Signature

Fig. 29.Venus et l’Amour (B1835 )

Venus et l’Amour, Venus and Cupid (Bloch 1835, Fig. 29) is one of Picasso's greatest prints in general and one of his top five masterpieces in aquatint, as I count them, largely in agreement with Picasso connoisseurship and the marketplace. Not counting La Femme qui Pleure, I (Bloch 1333), since it is mostly an etching, the other four are, in chronological order: Minotaure Aveugle guidé par une Fillete dans la Nuit (1934, Bloch 225), La Femme au Tambourine (1938, Bloch 310), La Femme a la Fenetre (1952, Bloch 695), and L’Egyptienne (1953, Bloch 746). After the last two mentioned, the Venus is also the third largest intaglio print on copper or zinc, or, in other words, his etchings and aquatints. The story of this masterpiece is best told by Brigitte Baer, from whose monograph Picasso the Printmaker: Graphics from the Marina Picasso Collection (1983) I quote liberally:

“ The Galerie Louise Leiris edited this print at the same time they edited the group known as ‘the 156 prints’, although there are only 155, a small copperplate having been somehow mislaid. The artist approved the bon a tirer proofs before he died. The edition was put on the market in 1979….

“ The copperplate is not inscribed on the back, as are most of the others; thus it is difficult to be more precise about the date. In 1949, Picasso made three lithographs of the same subject…. The quality of the print on exhibition [this print] is much finer than that of the lithographs. The first state is done only with aquatint. As the plate was so large, it would not fit in Lacouriere’s dusting-box and so was difficult to grain…. Picasso must have begun the plate around May 1949. It seems probable that he then thought of having it printed, since a small number of proofs were pulled. Then, maybe in the middle of the printing process, he decided to continue working on the plate. He took the trouble to blot out, with drypoint, all the white spots left in the aquatint of the background. Over and again, Venus gets fatter, then thinner, fatter, then thinner. Her arm, on the left of the proof, swells, as if it had been stung by a squadron of wasps, then shrinks again. The artist could not capture the graceful posture he sought, the other arm was too close to the body, the hair was too long, etc. so Picasso worked and reworked the plate at Lacouriere’s. Frelaut printed and reprinted the trial proofs until the masterpiece was achieved….”

Fig. 30. Paloma et Claude (Bloch 664)

Picasso's innovativeness in technique as well as style is unparalleled. True to form, the medium of lithography was no exception, in which he experimented with materials and methods never before used, such as fingerpainting in the case of Paloma et Claude (Bloch 664, Fig. 30). Picasso had said that as a child he could already paint like Delacroix, but it took him all his life to learn how to paint like a child. This tender lithograph of his children was uniquely accomplished by fingerpainting on lithographic transfer paper, thus amusingly adapting a childlike technique to the depiction of children. But, like a poor thief, Picasso interestingly left his inky fingerprints all over the image. Despite the fact that this is one of Picasso's most charming, accomplished, and sought-after prints, and a large print at that, it is quite a bargain. The comparatively large edition size and the absence of a signature contribute to depressing its price.

Table 21A. 1951-1952

Bloch #	684	685	686	687	691	694	695	696	697	713
Beauty	***	***	*	****	****	*	*****	*****	***	**
Significance	**	**	*	****	***		*****	****	***	**
Rarity	***	***	***	**	***	***	***	***
Size	***	****	****	**	*****	*****	*****	*****	*	***
Visibility at a distance	**	***	***	****	*****	*****	*****	*****	**
Color			*
Fading			*
Cost	*	*	**	*	*	**		**	*	*
Desirability to cost ratio	*	*		***	****			***	**
Signature	Y	Y	Y	N	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y/N	ES

Fig. 31. Le Chevalier et le Page (Bloch 684)

In 1951, both before and after the monumental but somber anti-war painting, Massacre in Korea, Picasso also treated the subject of violent conflict in a lighter vein. Having apparently become nostalgic for the pomp and circumstance of chivalry, he created a number of paintings, unique ceramics, and prints with charming scenes of knights in armor. Two examples are pictured: the lithograph Le Chevalier et le Page (The Knight and the Page, Bloch 684, and the related as shown, which resides in the Musée Picasso. Look closer, however, at these works, and you will see the ridiculously elaborate armature of the knight and horse—a mask behind a mask, silly helmet plumage—this dog would certainly not hunt. Picasso was an incisive political commentator to be sure, but, as during the Second World War, he could not stay despondent about the state of world affairs for long. Sooner or later, humor always infected his commentary.

Fig. 32. Le Crane du Chevre sur la Table (Bloch 696)

In the early 1950s, Picasso made a number of works spurred by the suffering in the Korean War, which may have inspired Le Crane de Chevre sur la Table (The Skull of a Goat on the Table, Bloch 696, Fig.32). Alternatively, this print could have been a contemplation of the artist's own mortality in view of his advancing age, as he was seventy-one years old at the time.

The goat's skull is an archetypal symbol of death, and, as such, falls into a time-honored tradition of still life painting of various objects that symbolize the brevity of human life and the transience of earthly pleasures. These still lifes are variably termed vanitas (Latin for vanity) or memento mori (remember you must die). In Picasso's hand, the memento mori also included such gothic icons as human skulls, tomes, and candles.

This beauty of this print, like many other Picasso aquatints, is poorly conveyed photographically. One has to behold the actual image to witness the dramatic silvery gray and black tonality which strengthen it. The gravity of this image, the richness of the printing, and the large scale of the work result in a very powerful and moving work of art. In contradistinction to the starkness of the exfoliated goat's head, the softness of his eye hints at his peacefulness in death.

Fig. 33. Paloma et sa Poupée, Fond Blanc(Bloch 726)

In the words of John Richardson, perhaps Picasso's premier biographer, "Picasso’s Mediterranean happiness was enhanced by the birth of a son, Claude, in 1947, and a daughter called Paloma in 1949. The proud father was 68 when Paloma was born. I think the fact that Picasso hadn’t had a child in his life for 30 years made a huge difference, and having these young children, being by the sea, this spirit is reflected in all the works of Françoise and that period." (Picasso: Magic, Sex, Death, lectures on DVD, 2003)

Table 21B. 1952-1953

Bloch #	714	715-22	723	724	725	726	727	728	731	733
Beauty	****	****	***	*	****	*****	*****	***	**	*
Significance	**	**	**	*	**	****	*****	**	*	*
Rarity		***	***	***	***	***	***	***	***	***
Size	*	*	*****	*****	*****	*****	*****	***	*****	*****
Visibility at a distance	***	***	***	***	***	***	*****	***	****	*
Color	*	*
Fading	*	*
Cost	*	*	*	*	*	**	***	*	**	*
Desirability to cost ratio	****	****	***		****	**	**	***
Signature	P	P	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y

Fig. 34. Balzac (from the Bloch series 715-722)

Picasso once said, " The movement of my thought interests me more than the thought itself." (See the discussion in Chapter 2.) A classic example of the flow of Picasso's creative juices captured on paper is this series of nine wonderfully amusing lithographs of Balzac, eight of which were published in this elegant folio (Bloch numbers 715 through 722). The unusual aspect of this series is that it is otherwise generally impossible to purchase a large group of Picasso's consecutive riffs on a single theme, especially for a rather affordable price (in the very low five figures, that is; these prints are also individually available for around $2000-3000 a pop). Most of Picasso's variations took the form of successive states of the same print. But once he reworked the stone or plate, these variations were lost forever, apart from the one, two or three artist's proofs that were typically pulled of each state. These are usually in museums, are otherwise very hard to find, and are generally pricey.

Balzac's imposing physiognomy must have been artistically compelling. Rodin fell prey to it, and Picasso clearly could not escape its charm. This set of eight lithographs presents a superior example of the easy marriage Picasso had arranged between fine art and caricature. It also displays a charming graphic progression of alternately diminishing and increasing complexity as Picasso plays with different ways of rendering the novelist's face. First he toys with Balzac's coiffure and brow. Then he adds some gravity to Balzac's expression. Next he strips away as much detail as he can while still retaining the essence of "Balzacness". In the last two images, Picasso rebuilds the face with his signature stylizations, now playing the opposite game of how many of them the face could juggle while yet retaining its essential nature. Each portrait of Balzac is marvelous in and of itself, but the set when viewed as a whole is even more riveting than the sum of its parts. It is a truly rare experience to behold at once the consecutive results of the artist's creativity, but this series offers no less than just that.

Here's how these gems came to be. As Mourlot relates, "Picasso arrived in Paris for a few days and I asked him to do a portrait of Balzac for the publisher Sauret.... The following morning....Picasso handed me 8 litho drawings....numbered from I to VIII as well as three large compositions. A few days later, he re-worked a crayon litho [unnumbered by Picasso, Bloch 722]....of the same subject." The lithograph numbered II was chosen as the frontispiece for Sauret's publication of Balzac's Le Pere Goriot, and the remaining eight were later published in the book presented here.

Those who have seen any of the three large lithographs of Balzac and found them wanting because of their unsaturated, faint black line may be pleasantly surprised to behold these eight smaller lithographs. Despite their size, they pack a more powerful punch because of the fully saturated, deep black line with which they were inked, not to mention their rich, yellow background, a not inconsequential bonus for all the color-starved Picasso lovers out there.

Table 22. 1953

Bloch #	735	736	737	738	739	740	741	742	745	746
Beauty	*	*	***	**	**	***	**	***	***	*****
Significance			**	*	*	***	*	**	*	*****
Rarity	***	***	***	***	***	***	***	***	**	***
Size	**	**	**	***	*****	****	*****	*****	**	*****
Visibility at a distance			*	****	*****	*****	****	****	**	*****
Color
Fading
Cost	*	*	**	*	**	***	***	***	*	*****
Desirability to cost ratio			*	*					*
Signature	ES	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N/Y	Y

Fig. 35. L'Egyptienne (B746)

Torse de Femme (L’Egyptienne, Bloch 746) is one of Picasso's best prints and also one of his two largest prints on copper. One of the printers in Lacouriere's studio dubbed it "The Egyptian Woman" as it first came out of the printing press, and the nickname stuck. I’ve given this work five stars in the Blushing Flowers category because I was never that impressed by photoreproductions of it in textbooks, until I finally saw it “in the flesh”, at which point I became utterly transfixed by its beauty. This may be an idiosyncratic reaction, however, (as may all of my Blushing Flower designations) given the fact that I have sold an impression of this print to a collector who first became enamored of it while looking at its image on our website.

Table 23. 1953-1954

Bloch #	747	749	750	751	752	753	754	755	756	757
Beauty	***	**	*	*	***	****	*	*	****	*
Significance	*	*	**	**	***	***	**	**	***
Rarity	***	***	***	***	***	***	***	***	***	***
Size	**	**	*****	*****	*****	*****	*****	*****
Visibility at a distance	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	**	*
Color
Fading
Cost	*	*	**	**	**	**	*	*	**	*
Desirability to cost ratio	***				*	**			**
Signature	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y

Fig. 36. La Famille du Saltimbanque (Bloch 753)

This lithograph harkens back to the circus theme which had figured prominently in Picasso's early work. In 1905, he had created a number of paintings of the acrobat's family, some of which included a monkey, and one of which was a portrait of a monkey alone. There were also a number of prints (see Bloch 4-15) on this subject. In his later years, Picasso's art often wistfully evoked the subjects that had interested him in his youth. Picasso revisited the theme of the acrobat's family in this lithograph, and less fully in several other lithographs in February, 1954. His renewed preoccupation with the Saltimbanques may have heralded the end of his two month depression caused by the departure of Francoise Gilot, his mistress of 10 years, and their two children, Claude and Paloma. Perhaps he sought solace in the memories of his first mistress, Rosita del Oro, a star circus equestrienne in Barcelona. The strength of Picasso's personality as well as his sexual precociousness are nowhere more evident than when, amazingly at age fifteen, he began a relationship with this adult woman, who was already well known enough, as John Richardson records, to have merited her own poster.

This lithograph, La Famille du Saltimbanque, has all the important elements: the horse, the nude equestrienne (albeit with Francoise's visage), the harlequin, the acrobat with his monkey, the mother of the family, and the grandmother. The grandmother perhaps evokes the brothel's madame, another archetype which haunted Picasso's work, especially near the beginning of his career and again near the end of his life. One of the subtexts in the social commentary of this print, the black baby born of a white mother, is unique in Picasso's print oeuvre. The young boy looking inquisitively at the family scene is, we imagine, the older Picasso himself, traveling back in time, bald except for a sprig of hair at the top of his head.

Table 24. 1954-1955

Bloch #	758	764	765	768	769	770	771	772	776	777
Beauty	*	*		**	*	*	**	***	*	*
Significance	*			*			*	*
Rarity	***	***	***	***	***	***	***	***	***	***
Size	*****	****	*****	*****	*****	*****	*****	**	**	**
Visibility at a distance	*	****		****	****	****	**
Color			***	***
Fading			***	*****
Cost	*	*	**	***	***	**	**	*	*	*
Desirability to cost ratio								***
Signature	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y