Pablo PicassoPABLO PICASSO “Buste de femme d’après Cranach le Jeune”1958

Executed in 1958; this impression is number 13 from the edition of 50, published by Galerie Louise Leiris.

Catalogue Note
Buste de femme d’apres Cranach le Jeune is Picasso’s earliest and most important linoleum cut in color, translating a past master’s expressive contours and vibrant colors into a witty and modern masterpiece.

When his dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler sent a postcard of Lucas Cranach the Younger’s sixteenth-century Portrait of a Woman, Picasso tacked it to his studio wall and found inspiration in the harmony he observed between the fluid shadows and detailed upper-body. Picasso often reinvigorated existing works by past masters, from Velasquez to Delacroix, metamorphosing them into his own creations. According to Kahnweiler himself, “this need to transform was certainly an important characteristic of Picasso’s genius.”
This print exemplifies the particular joy Picasso found in engaging with the challenges of various mediums, constantly seeking to exploit all their technical and aesthetic possibilities. Having previously experimented with etchings and woodcuts, Picasso turned to the linoleum cut during his time in Vallauris, where he began making ceramics in 1946. He initially used this method to execute graphic posters for the annual Vallauris Exposition, working closely with the young printer Hidalgo Arnéra as he brought color to the forefront of his prints. Eventually exploring the themes of bullfights, bacchanalia, still-lifes, female heads and figure studies, Picasso achieved unparalleled mastery in a series of brilliantly colored and richly textured works on paper.
Picasso rapidly improved his technique and undoubtedly revolutionized the medium, stretching its parameters and boundaries. He first attempted this portrait in two colors on July 3, 1958, but returned the next day to create five intricately cut blocks for distinct colors: sepia, yellow, red, blue, and black. The final version was printed in an edition of 50 signed and numbered copies plus around 15 artist’s proofs, including the present lot. Following the completion of this portrait, Picasso invented what is now known as the “reduction” technique, wherein multiple color planes are incorporated on a single linoleum block. Remaining one of the most technically complex linoleum cuts of his oeuvre as a printmaker, the multi-state and multi-block process behind this portrait’s elaborate layering attests to Picasso’s innovative ingenuity.