Description

The works in this exhibition are early proofs printed before their respective editions were pulled, and are richer in contrasts. They are before steel facing of the plate and were kept by Picasso for his personal collection in the course of creating his 156 and 60 Series, between 1966 and 1971. During his seven decades of printmaking, Picasso created five major sets of etchings, a tour de force unrivaled in this medium. This is evidenced by his Saltimbanques Suite of 1904 to 1905 (15 works), Vollard Suite of 1930 to 1937 (100 works), 347 Series of 1968 (347 works), Series 60 of 1966 to 1968 (60 works) and, finally, his 156 Series of 1969 to 1971 (156 works). Totaling 678 individual images for these suites alone, Picasso’s output far surpassed Rembrandt’s oeuvre of some 300 etchings. For each edition in the 156 and 60 Series there were three proofs before steel facing (see Baer Catalogue Raisonne). These proofs, and the entire gamut of the editions, were pulled by the master printers Aldo and Piero Crommelynck. Examples of these proofs are in the permanent collections of the Bibliotheque Nationale and Musee Picasso, Paris, the Museo Picasso in Barcelona, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Art Institute of Chicago and other major institutions around the world. Of the 648 proofs before steel facing from Series 156 and 60, only forty-two have the Picasso atelier signature and penciled annotation, “epreuve avant acierage” (proof before steel facing). Of these forty-two, seventeen are presented in this exhibition.