39
Pablo Picasso
Françoise (Bl. 398, M. 42)
- Estimate
- $40,000 - 60,000
Further Details
This print comes from a series of nine lithographs by Picasso of which eight were done in one day, and the ninth done the next day. Created in 1946, the subject is Picasso’s lover at the time, Françoise Gilot. They are all portraits of her face, and they are all made up of elegant mostly simple lines, yet each one is unique and expressive in its own way. These lithographs show the progression and transformation of a single idea as it’s being thought about. Gilot, on explaining Picasso’s passion for lithography, recalled him saying, “I’ve reached the moment...when the movement of my thoughts interests me more than the thought itself.”i
Françoise Gilot, Grimaldi Castle, September 1946. Image: © Michel Sima. All rights reserved 2025 / Bridgeman Images, Artwork: © 2025 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
i Françoise Gilot, Life with Picasso, 1990, p. 118
Full-Cataloguing
Pablo Picasso
Spanish | B. 1881 D. 1973One of the most dominant and influential artists of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso was a master of endless reinvention. While significantly contributing to the movements of Surrealism, Neoclassicism and Expressionism, he is best known for pioneering the groundbreaking movement of Cubism alongside fellow artist Georges Braque in the 1910s. In his practice, he drew on African and Iberian visual culture as well as the developments in the fast-changing world around him.
Throughout his long and prolific career, the Spanish-born artist consistently pushed the boundaries of art to new extremes. Picasso's oeuvre is famously characterized by a radical diversity of styles, ranging from his early forays in Cubism to his Classical Period and his later more gestural expressionist work, and a diverse array of media including printmaking, drawing, ceramics and sculpture as well as theater sets and costumes designs.