What Is An authentic Picasso Graphic?

A graphic is an original work of art made in two steps. First, the artist creates a prepared surface with the art design or image; and secondly, that image is inked and transferred straight to paper while using force of the press to push the sheet of art paper firmly from the inked surface that contains the prepared image.

An original graphic may also be known as a print, not to be mistaken with an inexpensively produced reproduction (which is a copy of the work of art which was originally created in another medium).

The types of prints (or original graphics) which are most typical are intaglios such as etchings, engravings, linoleum and wood block prints, and the planographic medium of lithographs. Although Picasso is proven to be the best painter and most innovative sculptor of the Twentieth century, he seemed to be its foremost printer.

The process of printmaking requires a balance of mastery and inventiveness, which Picasso ingeniously employed. He was imaginative towards traditional old masters techniques and in a position to coax new and inventive methods to further his artistic intent in the region of making original graphics.

Le Repas Frugal by Picasso, etching

Picasso’s graphic oeuvre spans a lot more than seven decades, from 1899 to 1972. His published prints total approximately 2,000 different images “pulled” from plates of metal, stone, wood, linoleum, and celluloid. It is these original prints what are primary focus of the Saper Galleries Picasso exhibition.

Note that Picasso prints are not necessary out-of-reach financially because he was very prolific plus some of his graphics come from book editions which are usually a smaller amount expensive than the very limited quantity of prints of some editions. Between 1911 and 1971 Picasso published 163 art books containing his original prints.

The costliest Picasso etching sold at auction was on November 30, 2004 for $1.14 million. That 1904 “Le Repas Frugal” was from the first suite of Picasso etchings that was published in 1913. The earliest signed, original Picasso graphic in this Saper Galleries exhibition is “Femme Couchée” (woman reclining) which will sell for $27,500. It wasn't long ago that “Le Repas Frugal”, created once the artist was 23 years old, also sold for around $20,000.

Femme Couchée, The first Picasso lithograph

The beautiful from the original graphics within this exhibition is they present an autobiographical sketch of Picasso’s life, particularly with respect to the women of his lifewho are depicted in the collection.

Additionally, Picasso’s prints demonstrate his intuitive and characteristic ability to recognize and exploit the options inherent in any medium by which he made a decision to work. Once he'd mastered the traditional methods of creating a particular print medium (for example etching from a flat metal plate), Picasso usually experimented further, pursuing new directions and scarcely known techniques such as “sugar-lift aquatint”.

In this exhibition, there's a clearly defined succession of periods in which certain art painting techniques predominated.

When Picasso gone to live in Paris in 1904 he experimented with more traditional etching, adding the techniques of drypoint and aquatint to the copper plates. He later bought his own press (rather than working in the Parisian ateliers) so he could try their own, making numerous trial proofs and developing new approaches to producing graphics.

La Biche, a sugarlift aquatint and drypoint developed by Picasso

Between 1919 and 1930 Picasso worked more in lithography. In the 1930s he returned to etching, then creating the 100-image Vollard Suite and the etchings to illustrate Buffon’sHistoire Naturelle suite. Following World War II many of his compositions were intended as book illustrations. Within the Vollard Suite the etchings offer understanding of both Picasso’s often tempestuous sex life in addition to his working style in the studio. In a neoclassical style he demonstrated the incredible fluidity of his imagery and ongoing curiosity about Cubism.

Picasso was extremely productive by every measure. At times, he'd have an impulse that could become a frenzy of labor, as happened within the last week of January, 1934 when he created 11 from the Vollard Suite etchings. In 1957 he created 26 aquatints for hisTauromaquia suite in a matter of hours.

The very first linoleum block prints (or linocuts) were first carved by Picasso in 1939. The linocuts really are a relief method of carving and printing similar to a woodcut but using linoleum instead of a wood surface. By 1951, when Picasso was 70 years of age, he renewed his curiosity about the skill of linocuts and continued focusing on them for another Two decades.

Clown for Leiris, lithograph by Picasso

Also by 1951 he had produced some 300 etchings, concerning the number Rembrandt had created in the lifetime. And Picasso had just started!

During his seven decades of printmaking, Picasso created five major sets of etchings, a tour de force unrivaled within this medium. This is evidenced by his Saltimbanques Suite of 1904-1905 (15 works), Vollard Suite of 1930-1937 (100 works), Series 60 of 1966-1968 (60 works), 347 Number of 1968 (347 works) and, finally, his 156 Series of 1969-1971 (156 works). These suites alone total 678 individual images.

Picasso’s achievement in various intaglio media have been extraordinary and may assure his pre-eminence in the history of printmaking.

In 1945 Picasso’s greatest lithographic work is at the atelier of Fernand Mourlot. His growing mastery of the medium and his inventive genius soon enabled him to venture into domains new to lithography and to achieve bold and striking effects. Several of the Mourlot lithographs have been in this Saper Galleries exhibition.

After The second world war Picasso’s production as a printmaker substantially increased and the etching and engraving stayed his favorite medium for graphic expression. The supply of inspiration for his graphic are employed in the 1940s and 1950s were painter and writer Françoise Gilot and Jacqueline Roque (who became his second wife in 1961).

In his 80s Picasso actively resumed etching and engraving. In his last decade about 500 different images were made by using their medium, a testimony to his energy, and prolific output and continued creativity and inspiration.

Picasso has astonished the ablest printmakers again and again. It is not only he mastered the down sides of new techniques with playful ease; he soon continued to obtain results that had been deemed impossible before his successes.

A virtuoso craftsman in engraving, etching, lithography and linocut, Picasso explored their secrets with patience and love and elicits from each medium the subtlest effects it's able to yielding. Picasso cared. It is hardly surprising that five, 10 as well as 30 states (or variances) were sometimes necessary before a masterpiece emerged from his hands.

Georges Bloch, who catalogued Picasso’s graphics observed, “Picasso is really revealed by using the genesis of his work in one date to another. All his phrases and styles, which we use as landmarks, are in reality only successive stages of a continuity that constitutes the phenomenon of Picasso.”

Picasso would be a master from the line along with a great draughtsman, as those who visit this exhibition will observe. Picasso said, “The graphic arts are…my favorite medium.”

In this Saper Galleries exhibition, Picasso: Original Graphics and Ceramics, you are invited to see for yourself that level of creativity and genius that makes Picasso an innovator and master from the medium who will always be regarded as the 20th century’s foremost printmaker and perhaps probably the most legendary artist of all time.

It will be my pleasure to welcome you.