Georges Bloch, Catalogue de l’\u0153uvre grav\u00e9 et lithographi\u00e9 1904-1967, Bern, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 20-23, nos. 1-15 (other examples illustrated) ; Brigitte Baer, Picasso Peintre-Graveur, Bern, 1986, vol. 1, pp. 18-45, nos. 2-7, 9-15, 17-18 (other examples illustrated).<\/i><\/p>\n
The very rare complete suite known as \u2018<\/span>La Suite des Saltimbanques\u2019<\/span><\/i>, young Picasso\u2019s first serious attempt at printmaking.<\/span><\/p>\n The 15 etchings and drypoints known as \u2018La Suite des Saltimbanques\u2019<\/i>, including Le Repas frugal<\/i>, Salom\u00e9, Les deux Saltimbanques, T\u00eate de femme de profil<\/i> and La toilette de la m\u00e8re<\/i> were made immediately following 22-year-old Pablo Picasso<\/strong>\u2019s move from Spain to France in April 1904. They mark an important period of personal and artistic transition in the artist\u2019s life; created on the cusp of his \u2018blue\u2019 (1901\u201304) and \u2018rose\u2019 (1904\u201306) periods, \u2018La Suite des Saltimbanques<\/i>\u2019 is integrally connected to Picasso\u2019s paintings and drawings of the same period. These prints offer an extraordinary insight into the creative musings of a young artist on the brink of greatness, as well as insights into the social milieu Picasso inhabited after settling into a studio in Le Bateau-Lavoir in Montmartre, Paris.<\/p>\n Picasso received no formal training in the techniques of printmaking, and it was not until August 1904 in Paris, when painter Ricard Canals (1876\u20131931) showed him the etching and drypoint process, that he became captivated by its possibilities. Le Repas frugal<\/i>, created in September that year, was Picasso\u2019s first serious attempt at printmaking \u2014 extraordinary when considered in light of his inexperience \u2014 and is one of the most renowned and frequently reproduced images of the artist\u2019s early career. Depicting an emaciated French couple seated at a caf\u00e9 table, Le Repas frugal<\/i> references the gaunt features and elongated limbs of the subjects painted by Spanish master El Greco (1541\u20131614), who had a profound influence on Picasso\u2019s painting during his \u2018blue\u2019 period. Le Repas frugal<\/i> was a conspicuous attempt to translate this painterly style to the printmaking process, and established a critical link between Picasso\u2019s Spanish past with his French future.<\/p>\n When Picasso made Le Repas frugal<\/i>, it was with the intention of creating an edition of prints that would sell. Due to his poor financial situation, the print was made on a zinc plate that had previously been used for a landscape composition by Joan Gonz\u00e1lez (1868\u20131908), a Spanish artist who resided in the Le Bateau-Lavoir studios. The scraping down of the plate was not completely thorough and the remnants of the earlier composition can be seen in the tuffs of grass at the upper right of the image. Enlisting master printer Auguste Del\u00e2tre (1822\u20131907), a small first edition was pulled, but when no significant commercial interest was shown, Picasso abandoned the idea of printmaking as an alternative income source. Captivated nonetheless by the creative potential of the medium, over the course of 1905, Picasso created a series of delicate, even nominal etchings and drypoints of friends, acquaintances, roaming circus performers and family groups. Immediately recognising the unique qualities inherent to etching and drypoint, he used an economy and elegance of line that testified to his skill as a draftsman and proved his rapidly acquired command of the medium. As with Le Repas frugal<\/i>, old plates were recycled and scraped down, resulting in scratch marks appearing (at times dramatically) throughout the series, inadvertently adding a wonderful modernity to the images.<\/p>\n The order in which the prints were created is well documented. As such we know that, after making the stunning neoclassical portrait T\u00eate de Femme de Profil<\/i> in February, Picasso made Les deux Saltimbanques<\/i> in March. This rare, signed impression is one of 12 printed in 1905 by Del\u00e2tre to be included as an illustration in selected copies of Andr\u00e9 Salmon\u2019s (1881\u20131969) first collection of poetry, Po\u00e8mes <\/i>(1905). Around May, Picasso travelled to Schoorl in the Netherlands to visit Dutch writer Tom Schilperoort for a month, during which time he painted La Belle Hollandaise<\/i>. Back in Paris between June and August, Picasso made the extraordinary Salom\u00e9<\/i>. With its literary subject matter and dynamic composition, this important work reveals Picasso\u2019s propensity for mythology and sexually explicit imagery. Finally, towards the end of the year, Picasso produced La Toilette de la M\u00e8re<\/i> \u2014 one of a charming but wistful group of three delicate and simply rendered images that feature a couple with a baby.<\/p>\n Never intended at the time of their creation to be a formally issued suite, Picasso and Del\u00e2tre produced only a few impressions. In September 1911, influential art dealer Ambroise Vollard bought 15 plates from Picasso, which included these works and others, mostly depicting circus performers. In 1913, Vollard had the 15 plates steelfaced and enlisted printer Louis Fort to print an edition of 27 or 29 on Japon paper and an edition of 250 on Van Gelder Zonen wove paper. It was at this time that Vollard collectively titled the 15 unnamed prints \u2018La Suite des Saltimbanques<\/i>\u2019, and it was only following this that the works became widely collectable.<\/p>\n The mythology and iconography of circus performers, actors, acrobats and harlequins were immensely fascinating for artists and writers in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Identifying with the itinerate lifestyle of the d\u00e9class\u00e9 entertainers, Picasso and his close friends repeatedly used images inspired by this subculture in their art and poetry. More broadly, what can be seen in \u2018La Suite des Saltimbanques<\/i>\u2019 is that Picasso\u2019s life and art were inseparable from the beginning, and throughout his career, friends and the women he had relationships with were an important factor in his creativity, his pictorial approach and his development as an artist. Writing in 1911, the American-born, Paris-based author and modern art collector Gertrude Stein (1874\u20131946) described Picasso in the following terms: \u00ab One whom some were certainly following was one who was completely charming \u00bb. Encapsulating in her opening sentence the dominate paradigm that followed Picasso throughout his life, Stein goes on to describe what Picasso created: \u00ab This one was always having something that was coming out of this one that was a solid thing, a charming thing, a lovely thing, a perplexing thing, a disconcerting thing, a simple thing, a clear thing, a complicated thing, an interesting thing, a disturbing thing, a repellent thing, a very pretty thing \u00bb. This early, enigmatic modernist critique in many ways continues to sum up perfectly the exquisite and accidental \u2018La Suite des Saltimbanques<\/i>\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 15 etchings and drypoints on Van Gelder wove paper, executed in 1904-05, this set is from the edition of 250 (there is also an edition of 27 or 29 on Japan paper), printed by Louis Fort for Vollard in 1913. Smallest sheets (approx.): 330 by 505 mm. 13 by 19\u215e in., largest sheets (approx.): 650 by 505 mm. 25\u215e by 20 in. Each plate framed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":89850,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[544],"product_tag":[1241],"class_list":{"0":"post-89877","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-literature","7":"product_tag-20th-century-illustrations","8":"pa_auteur-picasso-pablo-2","9":"pa_type-de-livre-print","11":"first","12":"instock","13":"shipping-taxable","14":"purchasable","15":"product-type-simple"},"acf":{"artist":" Pablo PICASSO","chapeau":"","adresse_bibliographique":"Paris, Ambroise Vollard, 1913","book_type":"Print","provenance":"","afficher_prix":""},"yoast_head":"\n