Pablo Picasso - Evening Editions New York Thursday, April 21, 2011 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    David Tunick, Inc., New York

  • Literature

    Georges Bloch 1338; Brigitte Baer 654

  • Catalogue Essay

    This [image] is one of a series of seven portraits of [Dora] Maar intended as illustrations for a book project published by Ambroise Vollard. But with Vollard’s death, as the result of a car accident in 1939, the book never appeared. The text was to be the manuscript version of Picasso’s Surrealist-oriented poetry, with corrections and deletions left in place. Deborah Wye, A Picasso Portfolio Ð Prints from the Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2010, p. 132.
    In the early 20th century, Jacques Villon (1875-1963), Mary Cassatt (1844-1926), and a few other artists had used the colored aquatint process with impressive effects. But by the 1930’s, it had lost its status as an art medium in its own right and was used almost exclusively by printmakers for reproductions of paintings. Picasso and Lacourière, however, collaborated to bring it to a technical level that would enable artists to pull final prints with it as a matter of course. Due to Lacourièr’s ingenious combination of techniques, the 1939 colored aquatint portraits of Dora Maar evoke the purity and transparency of watercolor. Emmanuel Benador, Picasso Printmaker: A Perpetual Metamorphosis, The City College of New York, 2008, p. 85

  • Artist Biography

    Pablo Picasso

    Spanish • 1881 - 1973

    One 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. 

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PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION, NEW YORK

10

Tête de femme No. 6: Portrait de Dora Maar

1939-42
Aquatint and drypoint in colors, on cream Montval laid paper watermark Picasso, with full margins,
I. 11 3/4 x 9 3/8 in. (29.8 x 23.8 cm);
S. 17 1/2 x 13 3/8 in. (44.5 x 34 cm)

the only state, one of 106 total impressions pulled in 1939 or 1942 (there were also 11 trial proofs with varying intensity of colors), printed by Lacourière, Paris, the palest mat staining (mainly visible along the left sheet), otherwise in excellent condition, framed.

Estimate
$30,000 - 50,000 

Sold for $37,500

Evening Editions

21 April 2011
New York