Lifetime Experimentation: A Survey of Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso’s lifelong commitment to experimentation was applied to a truly prolific use of theme and media. Freeman’s | Hindman is pleased to offer a fantastic survey of Picasso’s career through a dedicated sale showcasing the artist’s works on September 26. This sale reflects the artist’s particular advancement of prints and ceramics, including examples of etching, drypoint, lithograph, linocut, and various ceramics from plates to vases to pitchers, emphasizing both Picasso’s artistic preoccupations as well as his spirit of collaboration, highlighting lifelong relationships.

Through the prints and ceramics included here, Picasso explored artistic influences and new approaches, including past art historical tradition and mythology as well as new experiments based on the world around him such as those seen during his Blue Period and the development of Cubism.

The artist’s early masterpiece, Le Repas Frugal (1904; printed 1913)—The Frugal Repast—was one of his first etchings. Made during his Blue Period, it echoes the impoverished experiences of the artist at the start of his career, depicting a blind man and the artist's then lover, Madeleine, sitting down to a sparse meal. Meanwhile, the linocut L'Homme à la fraise echoes the Spanish art historical tradition of Golden Age portraits by such artists as Diego Velázquez and El Greco of distinguished men with ruffled collars. Another example of Picasso’s examination of the Spanish Golden Age translated into twentieth-century aesthetics are the two original copper plates for etchings from his 1948 suite illustrating the poems of Luis de Góngora. These plates allow a unique insight into Picasso’s working process for printmaking.

Important among this sale is the role of Picasso’s personal relationships and the subsequent effect on his work. This can be seen in his Cubist works of Jacqueline Roque, his second wife and muse, in both print—including the particularly striking linocut Jacqueline au Bandeau de Face (Grand Tête de Femme) (1962)—and ceramic, such as in Jacqueline au chevalet (1956). But, in addition to Jacqueline, also clearly defined are Picasso’s relationships with the printers, publishers, and ceramists so crucial to the use of this media, a network of friends the artist grew and maintained throughout his career.

For his prints, among Picasso’s most important collaborators represented is Ambroise Vollard, Picasso’s early gallerist and publisher, who published both Le Repas Frugal and the well-known eponymous Vollard Suite in 1939. Works made possible by gallerist and publisher Louise Leiris are highlighted, including examples by printers Hidalgo Arnéra and the brothers Piero and Aldo Crommelynck, such as from Picasso’s late etching series, Séries 347 (1968).

In 1946, Picasso and Louis Fort, the 1913 printer of Le Repas Frugal, were together in Vallauris, France, at a pottery exhibition where, impressed, Picasso asked to be introduced to the owners of Madoura, a local pottery workshop. By the following year, this original meeting with Suzanne and Georges Ramié would lead to a collaboration between Picasso and Madoura for 24 years. In addition to the range of Madoura works presented here which illustrate the fruits of this partnership, a particular highlight is the beautiful ceramic pitcher, Visage au nez noir, offered with the original crate from Madoura, complete with their signature stamps, as acquired by a noted Philadelphia collection directly in 1969.

This amazing selection of works thus embodies Picasso’s artistic vision and development from his twenties to his eighties, especially in highlighting the strength of his close circle of loved ones and collaborators who helped translate this developing vision into print and ceramic.

Featured Images:

Lot 14 | Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
L’Homme à la fraise, 1963
$20,000 - 30,000
Property from a Private Collector, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Lot 15 | Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
Jacqueline au Bandeau de Face (Grand Tête de Femme), 1962
$70,000 - 90,000

Lot 32 | Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
Visage au nez noir (A.R. 609) including original wooden crate from Madoura, 1969
$30,000 - 50,000
Property from a Private Collection, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

INQUIRIES: [email protected]
VIEWING: 23 - 25 September
1550 West Carroll Avenue, Chicago, IL