Picasso lithographer and activist

PICASSO LITHOGRAPHER AND ACTIVIST Miguel Orozco 1 PICASSO LITHOGRAPHER AND ACTIVIST Miguel Orozco . The present edition is a revised English language version of the book Picasso litógrafo y militante, (WorldCat No. 952991448), published by the Picasso Foundation, Málaga, in 2016. The low quality illustrations in this English version do not coincide with those of the original edition in Spanish Texts can be used and reproduced by citing the source © For Picasso images: Succession Picasso, Paris 2 To Carmen María, Mateo, Miguel, Elisabeth, Alicia Jr, Mamen, Victoria and Alicia 3 Introduction 6 First part: Picasso, Mourlot and 20th century lithography 1. Picasso the precursor 2. Mourlot the magnificent 3. The smokescreen of Kahnweiler's cold theory 4. The pact of silence 16 33 42 52 Second Part: The rebellion against the establishment 5. Braque the boss 6. Nazis and collaborationists against Picasso 7. Working the stone 59 74 107 Third Part: The rebellion against the communist aesthetic 8. The Chant des Morts and its aesthetics 9. The kitchen of all sauces 10. More sequels of the Chant des Morts 11. Figure with Striped Bodice 12. Mourlot insists 149 171 195 219 234 Fourth part: The militant and profane lithographic work 13. Lithographs for progressive causes 14. Return to classicism 15. The study of La Californie 16. The 'emancipation' from Kahnweiler 17. The 'lost' series of Jacqueline 18. More militant work 19. A los toros with Picasso 20. The last lithographic jobs Bibliography 246 282 298 306 327 340 355 381 400 Table of equivalences of Picasso's lithographs in the catalogs of Reuße/Mourlot/Bloch 408 Name Index 4 Introduction On November 2, 1945, Pablo Picasso went to the press works of Fernand Mourlot in Rue Chabrol in Paris, and began a huge lithographic production that, according to all the authors, constitutes an important part of his artistic career, no less important than that of engraver or ceramist. However, apart from quoting and reproducing some of his most impressive lithographs, the treatises on the artist tend to leave aside this aspect of the work of the Andalusian. It is particularly surprising that many monographs of more than 500 pages dedicate so much attention and reproduce minor or repetitive works of the painter and omit to take care of and reproduce lithographic series to which he dedicated much more time and effort and that could be considered, from an artistic point of view, very superior works. Picasso's lithographic work also has a precursor character that leads to the glorious era of artistic lithography, which began precisely with his arrival at the Mourlot workshop. In fact, in the twenty years that follow this event, banal for some critics, the best lithographs of the 20th century are produced, by Picasso, Braque, Matisse, Chagall, Miró, etc. Neither have the circumstances in which Picasso arrives at lithography been studied. And this is surprising, because the treatises focus on insignificant accessory details of other aspects of his work that the painter would have dismissed at a stroke as irrelevant. The dedication, commitment and intensity of the effort that Picasso devotes to this lithographic artistic adventure, of which there are irreproachable testimonies, would undoubtedly justify a greater interest of the researchers. 5 In the same way, critics and art historians do not devote themselves to studying the concrete reasons that pushed Picasso to dedicate himself to this technique. Here we can find some explanation to the silence of the books, because in reality the one who led the effort to hide those reasons was the painter himself, seconded by his faithful Jaime Sabartés, who not only does not speak in his works about the painter's lithographic work, but according to Fernand Mourlot he never set foot in the printer's workshop, despite being often the intermediary between Picasso and the printing press. Picasso tried to hide that it was precisely his friend Georges Braque who had recommended him to try lithography and go to Mourlot's workshop. The Spaniard was in those years irritated by the way he thought he had been treated during the German occupation of France, which contrasted with the deference with which collaborative intellectuals of the time treated Braque and other painters. For the rest, in those years there is a new political fracture of France in two antagonistic blocks, and Braque and Picasso do not opt for the same one. Picasso's contemporary critics and scholars followed the instructions of the Spaniard to the letter, ignoring the circumstances of the beginning of his career as a lithographer, either voluntarily or after submitting his books to Picasso's prior censorship. The Picasso books and studies published after the death of the painter, when the taboo on the introduction of Braque had already been lifted, did not bother to unearth the truth, and continued to use the treatises published in the 1940s, 50s, 60s and early 70s of last century as a basic reference on the subject. It is therefore useful to restore the truth about an aspect of Picasso's artistic life that involved a long-term dedication to lithography, and almost full during several periods of many months. Especially during the five years that followed his first visit to the workshop of Fernand Mourlot, the painter lived pending and surrounded by his lithographic work. Although the work on paper has always been less valued than oil canvases, both because of its multiple nature and its greater fragility to the passage of time, some lithographs by Picasso have reached prices in auctions in the last decades even higher than minor canvases. Hence this attempt to disclose both the reasons, the state of mind of Picasso and the conditions that led him to take the step, as well as the details of the creative process that led him to offer us all that immense and wonderful accomplishment that constitutes his lithographic work. We also refer to the political circumstances of the time when the painter made his lithographic work, because it coincides almost exactly with the most critical period of the cold war, that is, since its gestation before the end of World War II and its formalization in 1947 until the Cuban missile crisis of late 1962. Besides, a considerable part of Picasso's lithographic work is in fact militant and constitutes his main contribution to the Communist 6 Party of France, to which he had affiliated one year before his arrival at the Mourlot workshop. And it is through the lithographic work that he manages to get some of his help to Spanish refugees and the party of the Spanish communists. The generosity of Picasso with his compatriots in exile, with those who fought in Spain for freedom and with the weak in general all over the world is another of the little known aspects of his personality, and through these pages we will see that this ignorance is not due to the contribution being small because of the stinginess often attributed to him, but because of the discretion with which he carried these activities. He wanted to be remembered as a genius of painting, not as a generous man, a reputation that is also dangerous enough. If Picasso's loyalty to the PCF, and especially to his comrades, does not deteriorate over the years, political relations with the party are shaken by the Budapest repression of 1956 and practically disappear from the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. But the tension with the PCF is even greater in the aesthetic field. As early as one year since joining the party, Picasso's art started to be criticized by party ideologues. This struggle will be all-out war and will lead to an open revolt of the painter, who to make it explicit even develops, with the book Le Chant des Morts, a new aesthetic in the antipodes of what is prescribed by the bosses of art in Moscow, aesthetics that he applies to hundreds of works, both in lithography and in painting and ceramics. This aspect, in our opinion relevant in the trajectory of Picasso, has also been ignored by the essays on him. The reason may be that the first works on the painter were always published in the editorial environment of the party, which evidently did not want to air the controversy, and also that what Picasso wanted at that time was not to break with communism, but rather than the PCF will let him create in peace, so even though he struggled in the bosom of the party to enforce his thesis, he had no interest in airing too much outside the communist environment his hard battle for creative freedom. We wanted therefore to explore this episode and bring to light both the ideological battle and its plastic expression. Another object of the present work is to contribute to placing Picasso's lithographic work in the context of his general work, be it in drawing, engraving, painting or sculpture. For this, it is important to be precise in terms of cataloging and dating. Note that we have chosen to preserve the original title in French that Fernand Mourlot gave in his catalog of lithographs by Picasso, without translating it into English. Often, the use of a title in other languages –in translations made on each occasion– makes it difficult to identify the work, since in all the studies, in the auctions, in the galleries, etc., the work is identified by its name in French We keep thus the name in French to facilitate the identification of the works, especially for those who would like to start a collection, which is within reach of more pockets than some dealers want us to believe. Some 7 of Picasso's most beautiful original lithographs can, in fact, be acquired for a few hundred dollars, and even if they are not hand-signed by the painter they have the same authenticity, originality and quality as many signed graphic works. In fact, these original, unsigned lithographs can enjoy a greater guarantee of authenticity than much work signed by Picasso, but in which the participation of the Spaniard was limited to give the go-ahead to the work done by the engraver or chromist and the stamper in the printing press and sign it. This is the case of lithographs and, above all, etchings called "of interpretation" or “after Picasso”, that is, reproductions by third parties of paintings, which have never been cataloged. The characteristic that unites them is that they are all made in color, so demanded by collectors. Some of them, like the etchings executed by the painter Jacques Villon, brother of Marcel Duchamp and probably the best engraver and lithographer of the 20th century, are authentic masterpieces and are worth tens of thousands of euros, but the author was not Picasso did, but the "modest" Villon. The same can be said of the etchings “after” made by Aldo Crommelynck, the woodcuts of Gerard Angiolini or even the pochoirs edited by Guy Spitzer, all numbered and signed by Picasso and that reach at auctions prices of several tens of thousand euros. Not to mention the lithographs printed since 1978 from the paintings in the collection of Marina Picasso, who had the audacity to sign them personally. They were made by a certain Marcel Stanislas, described by the painter's granddaughter as "Picasso's former chromist." Regardless of the beauty of many of these works of interpretation, it is better to have a lithograph made by the hand of Picasso, even if unsigned. For the rest, Picasso never signed his oil paintings until the time of selling them, which often took years. The signature was, then, a way to say goodbye to the work. In terms of cataloging, and in an effort to facilitate the identification of the works, we have decided to use one of several existing methods that we explain below. Fernand Mourlot himself wrote a reasoned catalog of the painter's lithographs, which, as part of Picasso's graphic work, had already been classified since 1933 by Bernhard Geiser. The four volumes of the Picasso Lithographe by Mourlot, in French, were published by André Sauret in the years 1949, 1950, 1956 and 1964 and contained lithographs not registered by Geiser. Some of the illustrations of Mourlot's catalog were re-painted by Picasso's chromist Henri Deschamps in smaller lithographic stones, and printed on high quality wove paper, the others being printed by Atelier Duval. Each volume also included three original lithographs, including the highly valued portraits of the sons of Picasso, Paloma and Claude, always in limited editions. In 1970 the same corrected catalog was published, with 51 additional lithographs that had escaped the original edition, and a very large print run, but made without lithographs, whether originals or “after”. The book 8 was published in French and English by André Sauret, and the publisher Boston Book and Art made published an English edition for distribution in the United States, which had become Picasso's main market for lithographs. The main problem of Mourlot's reasoned catalog, apart from its rarity, is that in some cases he attributes a single number to each series of lithographs, such as the 125 in the book Le Chant des Morts. He also attributes the same number to the different states of the same lithograph, which are often completely different works, regardless of whether they were commercialized or not. This constitutes a major obstacle when it comes to identifying works. Finally, at least in the editions of 1949-1964, lithographs that were commercially published do not appear as having reached the market. In addition, as it has been seen later, some proofs of state escape the printer. They were however picked up by Bernd Rau in his catalog. Before Mourlot and Rau, already in 1933 had appeared the catalog of Bernhard Geiser Picasso peintre-graveur 1899-1933, and in 1968, a year after his death, Picasso peintre-graveur II 1932-1934. Geiser had been introduced to Picasso by Swiss collector Hermann Rupf –the friend who had hosted dealer Kahnweiler in Switzerland in 1914– and he had been working in contact with Picasso, but at a very slow pace, in the cataloging of his graphic work. In those first two volumes he gives importance to the lithographic work of the painter. In 1955 he published an anthology of graphic work, including lithographs, which appeared in simultaneous editions in German (Picasso: Das Graphische Werk published in Stuttgart by Gerd Hatje); French (L'oeuvre gravé de Picasso in Lausanne by Guilde du Livre); and English (Picasso: fifty-five years of his graphic work in London by Thames and Hudson, and in New York by Abrams). This last book carried a chronology of Hans Bolliger. The continuation of this reasoned catalog was no longer made by Geiser, always short of time, but by Hans Bollliger and Kurt Leonhard, who in 1966 produced in simultaneous edition in German Picasso: Das Graphische Werk, 19551965 (Stuttgart, Gerd Hatje) and French L'oeuvre gravé de Picasso (Lausanne, Clairefontaine). The death of Picasso gives a great impulse to the cataloging of his graphic work, since more than 20,000 prints of his personal collection appear in his residences, from what remained of the artist's copies that the printers gave him. The French State and the heirs of Picasso designate Brigitte Baer to repertoriate the whole of the graphic work, thus completing the work of Geiser. The work takes its time, and the first volume (third in the series) is not published until 1986. It is Picasso peintre-graveur. Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre gravé et des monotypes, 1935-1945, edited by Kornfeld et Klipstein of Berne. Volumes IV, V, VI 9 and VII would appear respectively in 1988, 1989, 1994 and 1996, the latter year of publication, also by Kornfeld and Klipstein, of an "Addendum" correcting the errors or inaccuracies of the previous volumes. Unfortunately, Baer is choked by lithographs and does not cover them or does it insufficiently in his five volumes. Covering, this time yes, the whole of Picasso's graphic work appears in 1968, also edited by Kornfeld and Klipstein in Bern, the reasoned catalog by collector Georges Bloch (Pablo Picasso: Catalogue de l'oeuvre gravé et lithographié 1904-1967). The publication was made after an exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Zurich. Bloch, who had only spoken with Picasso on a couple of occasions, completed his work with three other volumes covering the years 1966 to 1969 (Volume II, 1971), 1970 to 1972 (Volume IV, 1979) and one dedicated to ceramics (Volume III, 1972). In terms of lithography, Bloch is essentially based on the work of Mourlot, without incorporating new prints or unknown proofs. The Bloch has become the most widely used reference in galleries and museums. But Bloch’s work is not the most complete on the graphic work of Picasso, nor of course the one that best reflects his lithographic work. This title must correspond to the work of Bernd Rau, who had published in 1974 Pablo Picasso, Das graphische Werk, but who realizes that the main failure are the lithographs. In 1988, on the death of Fernand Mourlot, Rau published his imposing Pablo Picasso. Die Lithographien, with an introduction by Ernst-Gerhard Güse, published by Verlag Gerd Hatje publishing house in Stuttgart for an exhibition at the Kunsthalle in Bremen. The 319-page work contained 710 illustrations, and gave a separate number to each state proof, thus moving from the 407 Mourlot catalog entries to 777 different records, of which only 10 appear in color. In 1994, the publishing house released a second edition of the catalog, on the occasion of an exhibition at the Graphische Sammlung Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart, and in which eleven new states not included until then were added. The cataloging work of Rau was completed in the year 2000 by Felix Reuße, which corrects some errors, adds 35 new states and proofs and also collates all the information of his colleagues with the most important collection of lithographs of the Spanish painter existing in the world (the Huizinga collection, today deposited in the Graphikmuseum Pablo Picasso of Münster). The catalog, directed by Ulrike Gauss, was published in German under the title Pablo Picasso. Die Lithographie. Graphikmuseum Pablo Picasso Münster. Die Sammlung Huizinga. Fortunately, the Hatje Cantz publishing house of Ostfildern published at the same time an edition in English with the prosaic title Pablo Picasso Lithographs. This work, which includes color photographs of all the works, is undoubtedly the most complete ever made and should serve as a 10 reasoned reference. Unfortunately, the book has been out of print for years, both in its English and German versions. But since all work can be completed or improved, two initiatives have recently been launched in the United States. The first is an ambitious project of digitization and cataloging of all the work of Pablo Picasso, launched in 1997 at the initiative of a Sevillian, Dr. Enrique Mallén, professor emeritus of the Sam Houston State University in Texas. Until the end of January 2014, Dr. Mallén's project, called The On-line Picasso Project1, had cataloged 24,154 works of the artist (paintings, drawings, gouaches, pastels, watercolors, sculptures, collages, reliefs, engravings, lithographs, ceramics, etc.). In terms of lithographs, the huge but still incomplete work of Professor Mallén's team incorporates data from Mourlot, Bloch, Rau, Cramer, etc., adds later improvements and completes them with works from various collections that appeared in auctions. From here we have taken a small part of the references to sales of lithographs in the art market, some cataloged and others not, which we quote in the book. Most of the rest we have found in our own archive or by our own means, typical of collectors. Another initiative, called The Picasso Project, was launched by San Francisco editor Alan Wofsy and directed by art critic Herschel Browning Chipp. The project aimed to make a chronological and photographic catalog of all Picasso's works (paintings, watercolors, drawings and sculptures), publishing the first volumes in 1995. In 2004 Wofsy incorporated the graphic work into the project, publishing an English edition of the Bloch catalog in two volumes, with the title Picasso, the Printed Graphic Work. In 2009 it is extended to the lithographic work, publishing Picasso, the Lithographic Work (Revised Mourlot I & II) covering the period 1919-1949 and The Lithographic Work (Revised Mourlot III & IV), covering the years 19491969. Both use Mourlot as a base and incorporate some corrections from previous works, but many states escape them. In 2012, the project incorporated linoleum prints, with The Complete Linoleum Cuts. In total Wofsy has published 28 volumes and there are still a couple of them, Analytic Cubism and Synthetic Cubism, scheduled for 2014 and 2015. The cataloging method we have selected in the present work has been that of Felix Reuße of 2000, to our understanding the most complete and the one that incorporates most of the corrections and new findings made by the different authors that preceded it. We could have used the cataloging of The On-line Picasso Project by Professor Enrique Mallén as a numbering base, but –for reasons of simplicity and accessibility– we decided to use Reuße and as ancillary that of Mourlot, which does not prevent us from having used, thanks to the kind authorization of Professor 1 Mallén, Enrique, ed. Online Picasso Project. Sam Houston State University. Restricted access in https://picasso.shsu.edu/ 11 Mallén to access his files, the magnificent work of his team, which was extremely useful to identify some works, especially some oil paintings and drawings not referenced by Christian Zervos in his catalog raisonné of paintings. For the rest, Mallén's online catalog is not available to the general public. The decision to use the cataloging of Reuße raises, however, a problem, which is that some galleries, since they are specialized in graphic work, use preferably the Georges Bloch reference. To remedy this problem, we have included at the end of the text a table of equivalences of Picasso's lithographs with the references of Reuße, Mourlot and Bloch. It should be noted that the Mourlot numeration followed is the original of the first edition of its reasoned catalogs, and not the slightly modified edition of its 1970 edition. In relation to the lithographs made to illustrate books, apart from the references to Reuße and Mourlot, we include the corresponding citation of the catalog raisonné of Picasso's Illustrated Books, edited by Patrick Cramer in 1983. Note that although we always cite « Cramer» , the author of the catalogue is actually Sebastian Goeppert. Regarding the dates of completion of the works, it must be borne in mind that there may be a discrepancy between the dates cited in this book and the actual realization of the work by Picasso, although we have tried to limit to the maximum the cases in which this occurs. The reason for the divergence is that the essential basis of dating must be the printer Mourlot, who, when the painter has inscribed a date on the stone, zinc plate or report paper, uses this dating. These are the only ones in which we can be absolutely sure of when the painter made the work, or at least its first version, because sometimes he reworks the plate without deleting the initial date or adding another one for the modification. For those that do not contain a date inscribed, Mourlot uses his own files or the annotations in the printer copy, which indicate the time when the proofs were printed, but that is not necessarily the realization of the plate, stone or report paper by the painter. Felix Reuße corrects in some cases dates given by Mourlot and that have been revealed wrong. We follow Reuße here in most of the cases, but we do not hesitate to correct this author when we estimate that his date is not correct, including in these cases the reasons that lead us to disagree. The dating of lithographs is a particularly critical issue when it comes to determining whether or not a graphic work precedes an oil painting, drawing or linoleum cut, since frequently the date indicated for the lithograph not dated by Picasso on the plate is at least a day after the act (when Picasso was in Paris) and several days or weeks when the painter was on the French Riviera. As Picasso used to date his oil paintings on the back of the canvas the same day he painted them, indicating several dates if the work took several days, many times a painting will appear as predating a lithograph conceived and executed by 12 the painter before –and sometimes used as a base or inspiration for the painting– but printed by Mourlot days or weeks later. In the development of the book, and particularly in the detailed description of the lithographs that Picasso did, we have tried in general to follow a chronological order, but sometimes we have been forced to alter it to group some lithographs with thematic criteria. This is especially evident in the long chapter devoted to his production linked to political causes. But we have tried to leave a reference to these works in other parts of the book, in order to maintain coherence over time. And in any case we have not transferred to the chapters of Militant Work all the lithographs he made for publishers, galleries and other institutions owned or intimately linked to the Communist Party in which he militated, because if we did so we would have emptied other parts of the book. As far as possible, we have only grouped the works made with a militant motif, such as lithographs and books dedicated to Peace, leaving other works, such as books on purely artistic themes (eg Les Déjeuners), in the chronological chapters, however much they were released by a party publisher. Let us note finally that, since Picasso made the great majority of his lithographs in black, we have refrained from citing that fact in each of the works, limiting ourselves to indicate when the lithograph is in colors. In a similar way we only indicate the identity of the printer when, exceptionally, this is not Mourlot. All the others were made by the magician of Rue Chabrol. And as for the commercial editions, we only expressly indicate the publisher in those that were not commercialized by the gallery Louise Leiris, this is by his dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, with whom he had an exclusive distribution contract for his graphic work. As we will see throughout the book, Picasso often violated that contract, especially to favor his preferred causes. We have chosen to include in the book references to auctions and the price of adjudication for several reasons: firstly, because the auctions have seen the appearance of new states not cataloged until then and doubts that arose from the imprecision of the treaties have been clarified. Also, in many cases, the proofs that we have found in auctions have allowed us to correct cataloging errors. And given that we are providing new data, it is essential to document them with the corresponding reference to the sale in which they were disclosed. We also found it useful to record the market value that Picasso's lithographs have acquired to serve as a guide for collectors, often confused by the excessive prices practiced by some galleries, which are not very specialized in the painter's graphic work. We must not forget either that the graphic work of Picasso was not intended in principle for museums, although many of 13 these have made the effort recently to acquire it, but for private citizens to enjoy. Finally, let us not forget that this book is written not by an "expert" but by an amateur or lover who became a collector for the love of Picasso's art. The book is, therefore, the result of that hobby, of the research that –as a political scientist and journalist– he has been able to carry out, and of what he has been able to learn during almost twenty years of collecting in his conversations with the main dealers, some experts and other collectors like him. 14 First part: Picasso, Mourlot and 20th century lithography 1. Picasso the precursor Since Picasso discovered this technique, the painter made no less than 861 original lithographs cataloged in only nineteen years (from 1964 until his death he only made five lithographs). If the official Picasso lithographs catalog by Fernand Mourlot 2 only includes four hundred and seven lithographs, and the catalog of the printed graphic work by Bloch 3 has a similar number, this is because many different works appear grouped in a single number. For example, the series of one hundred and twenty-five lithographs made for Pierre Reverdy's book 'Le chant des Morts', from 1948, is referenced in the Mourlot as a single entry, number 117. Bloch also gives them a single number, 524. Much later, the specialists have introduced a greater precision in the classification, attributing a separate number to each different work. Thus, Bernd Rau, in his reasoned catalog of lithographs by Picasso 4, gives the numbers 220 to 344 to the lithographs of this book, while Felix Reuße 5 gives them the numbers 243 to 367. These are, together with the Picasso Painter Engraver of the Geiser-Baer duo, the main reasoned catalogs of Picasso's lithographs, although only that of Mourlot, the Rau of 1988 and the Reuße are limited specifically to the lithographic work. In any case, Picasso's lithographic work is a set of exceptional quality and only surpassed in volume among the great painters of the twentieth 2 Mourlot , Fernand Picasso Lithographe, Andre Sauret, Montecarlo 1949-1964 Bloch, Georges Pablo Picasso. Catalogue of the printed graphic work, Four Volumes, Kornfeld y Klipstein, Bern, 1968 - 1979. 4 Rau, Bernd Pablo Picasso. Die Lithographien. Verlag Gerd Hatje, Stuttgart 19881994 5 Reuße, Felix Pablo Picasso Lithographs, Hatje Cantz Publishers, Ostfildern 2000 15 3 century by Joan Miró, with 1269 works 6 and by the prolific and magnificent lithographer Marc Chagall, who –since he began to work with Mourlot– came to make with the help of Charles Sorlier 1050 original lithographs 7. The other great lithographer of the twentieth century, Georges Braque, only produced 146 works, according to the Mourlot catalog, although the numbering does not include for example twenty-five of the twenty-six monochrome lithographs of the book Une aventure méthodique. The importance that Picasso gives to his lithographic work is not sufficiently reflected in the main works of a general nature that reflect the work of the Andalusian. Many of his masterpieces in this technique do not even appear in the general treaties. The reason must be found in that most of the critics are specialists in painting, and the graphic work takes them a little aside. Undoubtedly, the Vollard Suite of etchings from 19331937 appears in the books, along with other high-impact prints and some lithographs. But, interestingly, one of his transcendental lithographic works, the series of 125 lithographs of the book Le Chant des Morts –to which the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid dedicated a whole wall in the first room of its permanent collection since the reorganization of 2010– appears in virtually no treaty. Lithographs play a much more important role in the life and artistic endeavor of the painter than the books reflect. For many years, many photographers such as Brassai, Man Ray, David Douglas Duncan, Lucien Clergue, Edward Quinn, André Villers and others, spent time sharing the painter's daily life, and left as evidence hundreds of clichés that reflect his work, concerns, his daily life and the spaces in which the painter lived and worked. And in them we observe that lithography occupies an unusually large space. Lithography had been invented by an ingenious German actor and playwright, Aloys Senefelder, who in 1796, in search of a cheap method of reproducing the scores of his songs and plays, develops a printing technique using a Polished limestone painted with a fatty material. The stone is then treated with a mixture of nitric acid and gum arabic, which attacks the stone but not the fatty parts. The stone is then humidified and a hydrophobic ink is passed on, which is only fixed on the greasy parts. It suffices to place a paper on top and press so that the image of the drawing be reflected on the paper. The procedure is applied already in the nineteenth century to printing in colors, needing of course a stone for each color. The same paper is then passed through the successive stones of each color. To match the color impressions, the stones are marked with registration crosses that ensure the centering on the paper. 6 Mourlot, Fernand Miró Lithographer. Editions in French, English, Spanish and German. Maeght Éditeur & Polígrafa, 1972 to 1992. 7 Gauss, Ulrike Marc Chagall The Lithographs, Verlag Gerd Hatje, Stuttgart, 1998 16 The technique was used massively in the second half of the 19th century to produce advertising pamphlets and, above all, multicolored posters for the announcement of events, shows or political propaganda. The development of gravure at the end of the century, however, leads to the gradual abandonment of lithography, although the quality provided by the photomechanical procedure until the second half of the twentieth century was clearly lower than what could be achieved with manual procedures. The advantage of the gravure was its mechanization and the possibility of making massive print runs at a much lower cost than manual procedures such as lithography. Another reason is that in the nineteenth century the cost of the extraordinarily skilled labor required by the lithographic technique was ridiculously low, while the struggles of the workers of the early twentieth century greatly increased this cost. The same equation can be applied to explain the decline of artists' lithography at the end of the century. If Mourlot paid his workers decent wages for the time, they were still only a fraction of what it would cost today to hire and pay the social contributions of a craftsman of great skill and decades of training. Although the lithographic technique had already been the object of interest of great painters of the 19th century, including Goya himself in his series Los Toros de Burdeos of 1825, in the 20th century the great masters had not yet exploited it. It is only after Picasso's lithographic work begins to circulate that the great names of the so-called School of Paris, and after them the best painters in the whole world, start producing lithographs. And all do it, following the steps of the Andalusian, in the workshop of Mourlot. It is precisely the arrival of Picasso to the technique that launches the lithographic frenzy of the 40s and 50s of the last century, always linked to the activity of the printer Fernand Mourlot. Another of Picasso's precursor elements, and perhaps not the least important one, is the fact that, despite making most of his works in black, it was his work that launched color lithography that all the great painters exploit in the second half of the 20th century. Jean Adhémar, who was Head Curator of the National Chalcography of France between 1961 and 1977, points out that when the artist returns "by chance" to lithography, what he does is to reinvent the technique and provide the color that the world would seek after the war, and especially the American market. If the first biennial of color lithography, organized by the collector Albert P. Prietman in 1950, constitutes a resounding failure, in 1956 the biennial is inaugurated by the director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and brings together artists of thirty-four countries. The following year a similar biennial is opened in Tokyo 8. 8 Adhémar, Jean La gravure originale au XXe siècle. Éditions Simery Somogy, París 1967, p. 186. 17 Matisse's case is particularly interesting to illustrate the precursor character of Picasso. Matisse had also had, like Picasso, some lithographic experience at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1906 he made twelve fairly simple lithographs. In 1914 he makes eight or nine somehow more complex. In 1925 more than twenty of a great quality and that include at the end of the series several odalisques. Between 1926 and 1930, Matisse accelerated the production of lithographs, making a series of sixty female nudes, as well as the Ten Dancers series (1927). After 1930, the painter concentrates on etchings and illustrates, perhaps in rivalry with Picasso, two books for publishers who had already requested one from the Spaniard. He also made some lithographs in this period, but never with Mourlot. Matisse and the printer have known each other personally since 1937, when Mourlot went to his residence to take care of the edition of a lithographic poster for an exhibition. Matisse is fully involved in the realization of the poster, which makes Mourlot visit him daily with proofs, which Matisse corrects tirelessly until achieving the desired result. The two meet again on numerous occasions in the tiny offices of publisher Tériade, at number 4 on rue Férou, also in the Latin Quarter, to prepare lithographic reproductions of his works in the Verve magazine9. The haughty Matisse controlled even the smallest detail of the mere reproduction of his works in artistic publications, even when they were by photomechanical procedures. For example, in 1945, Tériade dedicates number 13 of Verve magazine, entitled De la Couleur, exclusively to Matisse. The publication contains, in addition to the magnificent lithograph The fall of Icarus, some color reproductions, that is, simple photos, of Matisse's paintings. Well, the preparation of this issue will take two years because of the meticulousness of the painter, who corrects again and again the printing tests of the four-color prints made by the industrial printer Draeger from these paintings. In a long typed letter, but corrected by hand by the painter, Matisse reiterates to Tériade the importance of controlling each color and each tone, to prevent the printer's colorists from "tracing" the colors to make them more lively 10. Finally, Matisse makes a sketch of each painting that had to be reproduced, indicating in each point the color and tone that should be used. The magazine publishes the outlines, but does not explain the meaning they have, limiting itself to indicating in the publication that the artist has given them "all the elements of his palette". Some did not know how to interpret what Verve indicated and, according to Mourlot, Pierre Reverdy himself even said that Matisse made preparatory sketches of his 9 Mourlot, Fernand, Gravés dans ma mémoire, Éditions Robert Laffont, Paris 1979, p. 105 10 Letter cited in Anthonioz, Michel L’album Verve, Flammarion, Paris 1987, p. 150. 18 paintings in pencil, indicating even all the colors he would use in the canvas he was preparing 11. Matisse does an enormous job for Tériade’s magazine, including many original works, such as the magnificent lithograph for the cover of the first issue, dated at the end of 1937, made as a collage based on papers printed with blue, red and black Mourlot lithographic ink cut out by the artist. The printer then takes care of passing it to lithography. He also makes original works for number 4, dated January-March 1939, for which he does two original linocuts and nothing less than a new gouache version of his painting La danse (the two oil canvas versions are in the MoMA of New York and in the Hermitage of St. Petersburg). Again, Mourlot is in charge of passing this new work to lithography for the magazine, submitting again to the meticulous correction of proofs by the artist. The number 5-6 of Verve, dated in the spring of 1939, includes a magnificent portrait by Matisse, also reproduced in a fine lithograph by Mourlot. Matisse again repeated cover in number 8, dated in the summer of 1940, making another collage based on cut out papers of different colors, reproduced equally in lithography by Mourlot. In addition to the original works, Mourlot also prints for Verve numerous drawings in lithography, discussing every detail with Matisse until achieving in each tiny aspect the approval of the artist. The printer and the painter meet again in 1941 for the preparation of a catalog of the Louis Carré gallery. And in April 1945, France already liberated of the German occupation, Matisse made for the aforementioned number 13 of Verve the cover with cut-out papers, but especially the magnificent lithograph La chute d'Icare, a theme that will later be used in the majestic artist's book Jazz of 1947, also published by Tériade. But this time, perhaps not as it should, as Matisse will later recognize. The "book" will be made not in lithography by Mourlot, but in pochoir (stencil) executed by book illustration specialist of the first half of the 20th century Edmond Vairel. Somehow it can be said that years later Matisse corrects the shot, making in lithography number 35-36 of Verve, Dernières oeuvres de Matisse, which some experts consider, together with Jazz, «an apotheosis» or «the other great masterpiece» illustration by the painter 12. Matisse had been somewhat disappointed of the result of the use of the pochoir in Jazz 13, and for this second work, based on gouaches decoupés, he decided with Tériade that lithography and Mourlot will be used. The painter prepares this number of Verve for several years, making especially for it a cover in two shades of orange, while supervising the preparation and colors of the lithographs reproducing his great gouaches decoupés made between 1950 and 1954. 11 Mourlot 1979, p. 105. Néret, Xavier-Gilles Henri Matisse: Les papiers découpés, Taschen, Köln, 2009, p. 146. 13 Szymusiak, Dominique Matisse et Tériade, Anthese, Arcueil, 2002, p. 69 19 12 Before dying he has time to approve the proofs of the lithographs, some of them spread out over three or four folded pages. Mourlot makes here one of his most celebrated works, also reproducing lithographically black drawings, made in charcoal or brush with Indian ink. The huge work takes several years to complete here, too, and this issue of Verve does not come on the market until 1958, that is, almost four years after the painter's death. As we have seen then, in 1945 Matisse and Mourlot had been working together intensively and with excellent results for years. But the painter had never agreed to return to original lithographs like those he had executed at the beginning of the century and especially in the twenties. However, as happened in the 30s of last century with his first illustrated books, as soon as he knew that Picasso, whom he saw often in the Cote d'Azur, is working in the workshop of Rue Chabrol, Matisse runs to Mourlot. In short: Matisse knows, treats and appreciates Mourlot for many years, but he does not decide to trust him with original lithographs and work with him ... until Picasso takes the step. Of the sixteen artist's books illustrated by Matisse, five contain lithographs, all of them made by Mourlot. And the first one does not see the light until 1946, when they have been working together for nine years. This is Lettres d'une religieuse portugaise, published by Tériade. That same year he illustrated with fourteen lithographs –of course Mourlot’s– Visage, with a text by Pierre Reverdy and published by Les Éditions du Chêne. The following year he illustrated another book, Repli, with lithographs printed by Mourlot. And another year later, in 1948 –when Picasso publishes his Chant des Morts– Matisse brings out his magnificent Florilege des Amours de Ronsard. Already in 1950, Mourlot prints in lithography the precious book of poems by Charles d'Orleans, handwritten and illustrated by Matisse, again published by Tériade. Joan Miró takes a little longer to start working with Mourlot, but this is due solely to the fact that he was not in Paris in the second half of the 40s of the last century. In 1940, before the advance of the German troops, he left for Spain, settling discreetly in Palma de Mallorca. In 1942 he moved to Barcelona, and hardly moved from there until his trip to New York, in 1947. In the presentation of the first volume of the catalog of Joan Miró's original lithographs, Fernand Mourlot explains how it was Georges Braque who incited Miró in 1939 to make lithographs, noting that Joan Miró's first lithograph appeared in Zervos’ Les Cahiers d'Art. Actually, Cahiers d'Art did not include lithographs, but pochoirs. Mourlot also forgot that he had already made with the painter a beautiful interpretation lithograph from a gouache (L'Air) for Verve's first issue, dated in the winter of 1937. Repeat in number 3 of the magazine, with another 20 magnificent lithograph (L'Été). But Miró does not return to lithography for Verve until the number 27-28, dated in the summer of 1952, in which he makes the impressive original lithograph Le chien aboyant à la lune reveille le coq le chant du coq picote le crane du fermier Catalan posé sur la table à côté du pourron, of course also printed by Mourlot. Remember that Miró had settled permanently in Paris in 1929 just after marrying Pilar Juncosa. In 1930, at the request of Tristan Tzara, he made four lithographic compositions in black to illustrate 'L'arbre des Voyageurs'. But the results did not seem to convince the painter. Mourlot points out that, as with Picasso, a time of indifference followed the trials. In 1931, the Miró couple returned to Spain with their newborn daughter, Dolors. But when the Spanish Civil War broke out, and after Miró’s brother in law was murdered bu republican militias, and he was under threat of assassination to, they escaped to Paris14. In 1939 Miró settled with his wife and daughter in Varengeville, Normandy, living in a house called Sansonnet. His neighbor was none other than his friend Georges Braque, who encouraged him to make lithographs and, offering him as an example proofs of the painter Marie Laurencin, advised him to draw as she did on report paper. “Miró procured the necessary material and products, and started working”, recalls Mourlot 15. When Franco wins the Spanish civil war, Miró returns to Spain taking the report paper suggested by Braque and, while working in the gouaches of the Constellations series, uses the paper to make a group of lithographs, which can be considered as a graphic version of the gouaches, and which are published in 1944 with money from his friend Joan Prats. The Barcelona series of 50 lithographs had been printed in the small workshop of Miralles, but only in an edition of five copies. In his first memoir, Souvenirs et Portraits d'artistes, published in 1972, Mourlot says that the Catalan painter returned to Paris in 1946 and began to make lithographs in his workshop in Rue de Chabrol 16. In his second memoir, Mourlot corrects the shot, although he insists that he met Miró in 1946, when he "had already made some lithographs." He adds that the first lithograph done by the painter in the workshop is through gallery owner and publisher Aimé Maeght, who sent him to the printer in 1947 to prepare a first lithograph for a book published by Maeght on the occasion of the exhibition Le surréalisme en 1947 promoted by André Breton and Marcel Duchamp and inaugurated on July 7 17. In fact, both the first contact with Mourlot in 1946 and his visit to the workshop are dubious. 14 See Orozco, Miguel La odisea de Miró y sus Constelaciones, Visor, Madrid 2016 Mourlot, Fernand Miró Litógrafo, Tomo I, Polígrafa, Barcelona 1972, p. 22 16 Mourlot, Fernand Souvenirs et portraits d’artistes, A.C. Mazo , Paris 1973 (The edition with original lithographs had appeared one year earlier) 17 Mourlot, 1979, p.s 143-145. 21 15 On one hand, there is no record of Miró's trip to Paris in 1946, and on the other Miró is in New York from February to November 1947, so he could not be in Paris preparing the lithographs. Yes it is true that the book published by Maeght on the occasion of the exhibition –on the cover of the luxury edition was a female breast designed by Marcel Duchamp with the inscription: "Please touch"– carries a lithograph by Miró as frontispiece ( Mourlot 56), and that the painter also made another for the poster announcing the exhibition (Mourlot 57). But the fact that neither of the two lithographs was printed in a signed edition, as they would be for Maeght from 1948, proves that Miró's first visit to the printer is later, since he is not in Paris nor has until then a gallerist there. Chromist Charles Sorlier confirms in his memoirs that the painter visits the workshop for the first time in 1948 to execute a poster18. Actually, he went first to prepare the lithographs of Album 13 and those of his book Parler Seul, and then on the occasion of the preparation of the catalog of his first exhibition at the Maeght Gallery, inaugurated on November 19th. It is a series of lithographs that will be used as a poster for the exhibition and in the first issue dedicated to the painter of the magnificent publication Derrière Le Miroir 19. We are facing a revolutionary novelty introduced by Maeght, who had a greater commercial and media sense than the other gallerists: on the occasion of each exhibition, Maeght asks the artists to make original lithographs, printed by Mourlot, which will be published in a catalog of large size (28 by 38 cm). By having original graphic work, these catalogs are sold by the publisher at a good price to collectors who could not afford to buy the paintings exhibited, and will reach years later in auctions prices of tens of thousands of euros. In any case, the slightly delayed arrival of Miró to the Mourlot workshop two and a half years after Picasso does not detract from his dedication, since he works there with a regularity compared to that of the Andalusian. In fact, only in 1948, he made more than one hundred lithographs in the Rue Chabrol workshop, all commercialized by Maeght. Among them are those made for the book Parler Seul, which in some way can be considered as Miró's response to Picasso's Chant des Morts. When Miró begins to exhibit regularly in the gallery, the volume of lithographs that Mourlot has to do for Miró on Maeght's account is packed to the point that there is a confrontation between Maeght and Mourlot's chromist, Henri Deschamps. The gallerist and editor estimated that the chromist worked too slowly, and that this cost him money. The reaction of 18 Sorlier, Charles Mémoires d’un homme de couleurs, Le Pré aux Clercs, Paris, 1985, p. 188. 19 Derrière Le Miroir N°14-15, Miró, published in November 1948 for Miró’s first exhibition at Maeght. Texts by Tristan Tzara, Jean Cassou, Raymond Queneau, Paul Eluard and Ernest Hemingway and 7 original lithographs. 22 Deschamps was immediate, dismissing Maeght without any consideration 20 . Of Chagall's immense lithographic work, one thousand fifty lithographs, only thirty-five –all black and white–were made before starting work with Mourlot in 1950. In fact, out of these thirty-five, ten were printed for the first time by Mourlot, in 1956. His late arrival at Mourlot's workshop was also due to the fact that, fearful of persecutions of Jews in occupied France, he had left the country in 1941 and did not return from the United States until seven years later, settling in Saint Paul de Vence, on the Cote d'Azur. Although Mourlot had tried to have the painter make lithographs with him after making an interpretation print in number 3 of Verve published in the summer of 1938, the contact is lost until Aimé Maeght signs Chagall and carries out his first exhibition in March 1950. Even then Mourlot does not print original lithographs by Chagall, but two reproductions in lithography for the magazine Derrière le Miroir and a lithograph of interpretation for the poster announcing the exhibition. But at least the painter makes a visit to the Mourlot workshop, where he meets young chromist Charles Sorlier, who will make all his lithographs until his death, becoming over the years the true 'factotum' of Chagall. And from there he launches his immense production of over a thousand original lithographs until his death in 1985. In all of them the chromist is Sorlier, who will never leave his job in the Mourlot workshop, even when Maeght breaks with him and creates his own lithographic printing. Sorlier knew that working with Mourlot provided him with numerous contacts and benefits that he knew how to take advantage of better than all his colleagues in the workshop. Chagall, like Miró, Braque or Matisse, will continue to demand that all his lithographs continue to be made by Mourlot. In his only lithograph for Maeght, Picasso also demanded the same treatment. The official Picasso explanation on the reasons that prompted the painter to "return" to lithography in 1945 is provided by Jaime Sabartés, the secretary and right hand of Picasso, who clarifies the reason in the prologue of the first volume of Fernand Mourlot’s catalog Picasso Lithographe. According to his secretary, the painter returned to lithography simply because he had to return, because he had not exploited the technique sufficiently, because despite having managed to 20 Mourlot 1979, p. 145 23 make high-quality works, the painter thought there was still much to learn 21 . In fact, his lithographic experience prior to 1945 was limited. His first foray into the medium was made by Picasso in 1919 when he made a small invitation card and the cover of the catalog (Mourlot I and II, Cramer No. 6 22) for an exhibition in the gallery of Jewish art dealer Paul Rosenberg, the grandfather of the wife of Dominique Strauss-Kahn and origin of the fortune that saved him of the bonfire to which his turbid impulses had taken him. He makes it on report paper and prints it in B. Biberon's workshop. In 1920 he made, also on report paper, a portrait of the poet Raymond Radiguet, lover of his friend Jean Cocteau, which is used as frontispiece (Mourlot III) of the book Les joues en feu, published by Grasset in 1925 (Cramer 13). 21 Mourlot, Fernand Picasso Lithographe, André Sauret, Montecarlo 1949, p. 4 Goeppert, Sebastian Pablo Picasso The Illustrated Books: Catalogue Raisonne, Patrick Cramer, Ginebra, 1983, páginas 26-27 24 22 Also in 1920 he made, again on report paper, a portrait of the poet Paul Valéry (Mourlot IV), printed by Marchizet, to be used as a frontispiece in his book La Jeune Parque, published by the Nouvelle Revue Française in 1921 (Cramer 9 ). Two other portraits of Valéry in lithography, also on report paper, probably made as proofs for the book at the same time as the previous one, and like this one based on a photograph, would be published in 1932 in small editions (M. V and VI) . That same year 1921 Picasso also makes, always on report paper, another small drawing entitled Trois chevaux au bord de la mer, and printed at only three copies (M. VII). 25 In 1921 he completed his first 'commercial' lithographic work (the frontispieces he made for his friends' books were for free). This is the Quatre lithographies portfolio (M. VIII to XI), printed by Bruant and published by Mexican critic and gallery owner Marius de Zayas –the introducer of modern art in New York– to fifty copies. Apparently, the painter did not receive the promised money and in 1928 gave the copies that were left to the Galerie Simon, that is his dealer since the beginning of the century, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, who put them on sale with a simple sticker that covers the name of Zayas and correcting the date by hand. These are the first lithographs that Picasso executed directly on the stone. He would not return to the report paper until many years later, with Mourlot. 26 In 1923 Picasso changed again lithographic printer, to Charlot Frères, with which he made a beautiful lithograph (Deux femmes couchées dans les dunes, Mourlot XII) in which he first played with chiaroscuro, but only printed two copies. Another entitled La couronne de fleurs (Mourlot XIII) is printed to 4 copies. In that same year and the next, with the same printer, but already under the patronage of Kahnweiler, he made a series of lithographs with classic drawings of the style of the etchings of the Vollard Series or the illustrations for Ovid's Metamorphoses. They are marketed by the Galerie Simon in editions of fifty numbered and signed copies (Mourlot XIV to XIX). 27 The nine lithographs that the artist does next and until the fifteen-year parenthesis, have a greater artistic and technical interest. The first, used as frontispiece of the book Picasso Dessins of Polish Jewish critic Waldemar George (Cramer 14) is a splendid Tête de femme (Mourlot XX), made in 1925 in the manner of a linoleum or woodcut: Picasso fills the stone with black and obtains white by scraping the surface. He prints it at of 100 copies – of which 25 are numbered and signed– by the Engelmann printing company, founded by Godefroy Engelmann, the inventor of the chromolithography. The following, from 1926, is a beautiful abstract drawing Scène d'intérieur (Mourlot XXI), made with lithographic pencil on stone in the Charlot Frères printing house. It is marketed by Galerie Simon to 100 numbered and signed copies. 28 Picasso again experienced the grattage in La lecture (Mourlot XXII) made in 1926 and printed at 100 numbered and signed copies, half of which included a chamois colored background. In 1928 he made one of the most beautiful lithographs of his career: Visage (Mourlot XXIII). Actually it is a beautiful portrait of Marie-Thérèse Walter, who at 18 years old was already his secret lover for at least a year, and which was probably made during the summer in Dinard along with other sketches and oil paintings that represented also the face of the adolescent (Zervos VII.228-231). The lithograph was used as frontispiece of the 120 luxury copies of the book Picasso, by André Level, the industrialist and collector who founded in 1904 the shopping club La Peau de l'Ours, whose auction of 1914 definitively launches the painter in the market. But the work is so beautiful that, apart from the book (Cramer 16), it is also decided to commercialize an edition with large margins of 100 numbered and signed copies, shot by the printer Marchizet. 29 That same year of 1928 Picasso executed with the printer Duchâtel another beautiful portrait of Marie-Thérèse, discreetly titled Tête de jeune fille (Mourlot XXIV) and which is worked with attention, starting from a drawing with lithographic pencil and brush on the stone. He made four states (Reuße 25 to 28), but only eleven proofs of each state are printed, without being edited commercially. Also in 1928 he made a daring but failed attempt: Figure et profil (Mourlot XXV), which is shot only three times. It is a work with pen and wash on stone. In 1929 he makes another beautiful lithograph, with pencil on stone of abstract nature, Figure (R. 30, Mourlot XXVI) signed and dated by the painter on the stone, shot at 300 unnumbered copies and given to the readers of Le manuscrit autographe, a literary magazine founded three years earlier by Jean Royère and dedicated to publishing facsimiles of original manuscripts by poets, but which in the May-June 1928 issue (Cramer 17) also included an essay by Paul Gsell on Picasso's drawings. The magazine was sold at 20 francs a copy, and the beautiful lithograph is quoted today at thousands of euros for each copy. From this lithograph some copies with large margins on imperial Japan paper were also printed. From this print with margins the Berggruen Gallery sold a copy on the occasion of its exhibition Picasso 85 gravures, in October 1966. Its price was 2,500 Francs or 510 dollars. 30 The last lithograph of the pre-Mourlot period made by Picasso is Le peintre et son modèle (Mourlot XXVII), which is a simple favor to his friend from the Barcelona period Eugenio D'Ors. It is used to accompany the 50 luxury copies of the book entitled Pablo Picasso, published in 1930 by Éditions des Chroniques du Jour (Cramer 18). The main illustrations of the book are several beautiful pochoirs in colors and 37 reproductions of drawings of the 20s on a theme recurrent in the artist: the painter and his model. The lithograph is reminiscent of the etchings of the book Le Chef d'œuvre inconnu or the Vollard Series. Here Picasso changed again of printer: this time it was Edmond Desjobert, who would later make many lithographs of Braque, Dalí, Chagall and Matisse. In the short, two main characteristics of those first 11 years of lithography are probably the experimentation and constant change of printer, not by choice of the artist, but surely because each publisher or gallerist had one and this simply brought to Picasso the stones or the lithographic paper needed to execute the work. There is no evidence either that during the whole period he visited any of the printers of these lithographs. Among the twenty-seven lithographs made in this period, it can only be said that seven are of high quality, the rest are simple drawings on report paper or stone. His great leap to lithography is undoubtedly based on concentrating on a single printer – Mourlot– and on working in his workshops until he manages to master all the stages and procedures of the technique, and also on identifying the collaborators that best adapt to his technique and personality. In his case, it was the chromist Henri Deschamps and the stamper Gaston Tutin. 31 2. Mourlot the magnificent But let's see what is the trajectory in art lithography of the workshop chosen by Picasso to return to the technique. Fernand Mourlot came from a family linked to the graphic arts since the mid-nineteenth century. If his grandfather was devoted to wallpaper, very fashionable among the bourgeoisie of the time, his father Jules Mourlot started as a representative of a printing press, to immediately create his own workshop in the Temple neighborhood in Paris. Father of a large family, every time he had a son Jules bought a new machine to facilitate business growth. As he had nine children, the business soon reached a certain volume. At the end of the 19th century, the Mourlot printing company on Saint-Maur Street in Paris already has a certain prestige. The young Fernand, born in 1895, is sent to the School of Decorative Arts, while he is enrolled as an apprentice in another lithography printing press, where he works on preparing the stones, controlling the printing press and managing the colors. But Fernand is not a school man, and his father ends up incorporating him as an apprentice in his own printing house, where he is entrusted to a worker who teaches him the secrets of the profession. When the First World War broke out, just when his father had just bought a new printing press on Chabrol Street –which would later become the company's legendary headquarters– Fernand joined the army and went to the front, where he was wounded in combat in 1915 losing an eye. After recovering from his injuries, he returns to the front, but this time not as a combatant, but as a draftsman in the topography section. His mission was to draw the contours of the enemy lines. When the war was over and Fernand returned from his last assignment as part of the occupation army in Alsace, his father sent him to the new printing house on Chabrol Street, which was temporarily managed by the brother of the owner of the first printing press bought by Jules. In 1921 his father dies, and along with his older brother, Georges, who deals with 32 commercial issues, Fernand takes the direction of the three printing shops of the family group: Chabrol Street, Saint-Maur Street and other newly purchased in Créteil, which today is a suburb of Paris. Fernand settles on Chabrol Street, trying to get the business off the ground thanks to industry commissions, but also trying to give it a culture varnish by promoting artistic lithography. As recounted by Mourlot in his memoirs of 1979, Georges had met on the front "one Kervel", who when the fight ends launchs in the business of selling motor oil for cars: Kervoline. Mourlot, who writes by heart, is mistaken in name, because Georges should have known one of the Quervel brothers, founders of an oils society that in 1928 passed into the hands of the American Standard Oil of the Rockefellers. In any case, Quervel hires Mourlot to make his labels and also for all their advertising campaigns, which included color albums with the history of cars. Fernand comes to represent the firm at the Paris Motor Show. Thanks to its contract with Kervoline, the printing company obtains numerous industrial clients. In the time and work gaps left by industrial orders, Mourlot opens the press to artistic works. Painters of "second class" come to make small lithographs, illustrations of books and albums. Already in 1926, the publisher of luxury books Les Arts et le Livre commissioned Fernand the first lithographs for the book La Physiologie du goût. That same year he started working for an important publishing house, Éditions de Minuit. The following year, it is a large publisher, Bernard Grasset (now Hachette group), publisher of Proust, Maurois, Mauriac, Montherlant, Radiguet, Cendrars and Malraux, which commissioned Mourlot lithographs by painter Marcel Vertès to illustrate a book by Francis Carco. Immediately other publishers follow. And that same year of 1927, thanks to the publisher Marcel Seheur, a famous painter, Maurice de Vlaminck, went to the workshop to make the 24 lithographs of a book by Georges Duhamel, Les hommes abandonnes. It is a small print run, of only 345 copies, each with 24 lithographs by Vlaminck, but with the suites it involves an order for more than 10,000 lithographs for Mourlot manual presses. Éditions Marcel Seheur asks shortly after Maurice Utrillo to illustrate with a dozen lithographs a reissue of a book about the painter written by Francis Carco, an order that also falls on Mourlot. Shortly after, Fernand meets publisher Henri Jonquières, whose illustrated books were very successful in the happy twenties. Among the painters who worked with Jonquières were Gus Bofa, Chas Laborde, Dignimont, Berthold Mahn, Vertès, etc. Mourlot also begins to make illustrations of children's books. In 1928 he printed the illustrations of Bateau-Lavoir painter Marie Laurencin –whom Picasso introduced to Apollinaire– for a children's book (L'Adroite princesse ou les aventures 33 de Finette). This is appreciated by publisher Paul Hartmann, who asks Mourlot to illustrate his books for young audiences. Gaston Gallimard also calls him for the same sector, for his publishing house La Nouvelle Revue Française. Through this new child-youth vein, Mourlot starts working in the 30s for another powerful editor, who will flood him with work. This is Calmann-Lévy (today Hachette group), founded by Michel and Kalmus Levy, sons of a Jewish street vendor from Alsace, Simon Levy, who moved to Paris in 1825. He soon made progress in publishing the main writers of the 19th century, such as Gautier, Dumas, Baudelaire, Hugo, Balzac or Lamartine. Calmann-Lévy discovered later new authors like Anatole France and Pierre Loti and they were the publishers of Proust, Gorki, Pirandello and D. H. Lawrence. Mourlot's work is limited to illustrating books for children and young people, but this implies a lot of illustration, in runs of several thousand copies, that have him well occupied for a decade. The publishing business begins to weigh in the volume of work of the printing press: it means editions of a few hundred copies, but sometimes more, and they take a lot of illustration, often a score of lithographs, made a little in chain by the painters, who often survived thanks to this income, scarce but safe. We must bear in mind that in the first half of the twentieth century the craft of a painter was rarely enough to make a living. And this can apply to lesser-known artists such as those cited above as well as others that are very celebrated. Take for example the case of Raoul Dufy, the painter of the joie de vivre and one of the most celebrated French artists of the century. Well, Dufy lived practically all his life of the trade of illustrator of luxury editions of books, which sold well among the French bourgeoisie. The same happened with the great Jacques Villon, the surrealist André Masson and many others. At the end of the Second World War, and when Mourlot becomes, thanks to Picasso, the printer of original lithographs par excellence, Fernand does not abandon the 'industrial' business provided by the publishers. Quite the opposite: thanks mainly to André Sauret, he starts printing all the original lithographs that illustrate the books of this publisher. He started working for him in 1945, printing lithographs for books in runs of 1,000 copies, which in 1950 went up to three, four or five thousand. If there are, say, 8 lithographs, we are talking about 25,000 to 45,000 prints per book, and Fernand prints several books each year for Sauret. In 1950, Sauret partners with Calmann Lévy and, using the editorial stock of this publisher in difficulty, launches his collections Grand prix des meilleurs romans du demi-sècle, Grand Prix Des Meilleurs Romans Du XIXe S, Grand Prix des Meilleurs Romans D ' amour, Grand prix des meilleurs romans étranger, La Vie En France Au Debut du XX eme Siecle, Collection Des Meilleurs Romans Policiers, Prix littéraire Prince Pierre de Monaco, etc. From 1960, and up to the seventies, Sauret publishes, 34 with illustrations printed by Mourlot, the Complete Works of Malraux, Hemingway, Sartre or Camus. These are editions of at least 3,000 copies and the lithographs are by painters of different status, but they include Picasso himself, although they are usually less known, such as Van Dongen, Dunoyer De Segonzac, Vlaminck, Masson, Francisco Bores, Bernard Buffet, Minaux, Carzou, the printer’s brother Maurice Mourlot, or other less prestigious painters. But let’s go back to the thirties: At the end of 1929, Fernand, Mourlot came into contact with the advertising department of the National Museums of France, to which he shows the few exhibition posters that he had made until then. And the institution commissioned him to print his posters, the first, in 1930, for an exhibition by Delacroix. For 25 years, and until 1955, it is the Mourlot Frères printing company that makes all the posters of the exhibitions of the National Museums. And the artists, anxious that the lithographic reproductions of their works be of the best quality, begin already in the 30s to visit the printing press to supervise the works. When the time comes for the International Exhibition of 1937, for which Picasso painted the Guernica, the organization asks Mourlot to make two posters for a show made in the framework of the celebration. It is the exhibition of l'Art Indépendant at the Petit Palais in Paris and the paintings chosen for the posters are the Petit Déjeuner by Pierre Bonnard and Le rêve by Matisse. This is how Mourlot meets Matisse: even if it was a 'commercial' order, Mourlot takes it very seriously and shows up at Matisse's residence on the boulevard du Montparnasse. The painter was an extremely meticulous man who demanded to see every proof of color state and imposed constant corrections, even for photographic reproductions. From that moment, Mourlot becomes the printer of almost all the exhibition posters in France, and not only of the National Museums, but for almost all the art galleries of some importance, especially those of Paris. Even the National Gallery in London asks Mourlot to work for them. A new essential stage in the progression of Mourlot's prestige among the great masters of painting also comes in 1937 from the hand of Efstathios (Stratis) Eleftheriades (Ευσταθιος Στρατης Ελευθεριαδης), better known by the pseudonym with which he signed: Tériade. Born in 1897 on the island of Lesbos, the future publisher leaves at 18 for Paris with the intention of studying law. The modest monthly allowance of his father, 35 soap manufacturer in Mytilenos, allows him to live for a decade without going to the faculty much, but introducing himself in artistic circles, where he meets poets, painters and gallerists like Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, the dealer of cubism. In 1926, his compatriot Christian Zervos, publisher who would later produce Picasso's first catalog of paintings, offers hom to join the magazine he has just created: Cahiers d'art. Tériade will be responsible for the modern painting section. Five years later, in 1931, Tériade abandons Cahiers d'art to join the Sephardic Jew Albert Skira, who until then was no more than a young librarian. Picasso told Françoise Gilot how a young man of about 20 years old once showed up at his house and suggested that he illustrate a book about Napoleon, which he opposed. Years later, Skira's mother showed up at the door of Picasso's house in Juan-les-Pins, asking him to welcome her son back. The painter accepted, on the condition that Skira did not mention the name of Napoleon, and proposed a mythological theme. When the young man returned to the painter's studio, he proposed to illustrate Ovid's Metamorphoses, which the artist accepted 23. Between Skira and Tériade they plan and carry out the edition of two of the most beautiful artist's books of the 20th century: the Metamorphoses illustrated with Picasso's etchings and the Poems of Mallarmé, illustrated with Matisse etchings. Shortly after, Skira and Tériade launched the magazine 'Minotaure', which between 1933 and 1936 gave voice to Surrealist artists and writers. But in 1937, Tériade sells its share of Albert Skira editeur and launches his most ambitious project: the Verve magazine and publishing house. The designer Coco Chanel had met Tériade through her ex-lover, the poet Pierre Reverdy (true author of her famous aphorisms such as Fashion changes, but style endures) who had founded the magazine Nord-Sud with money from Chilean poet Vicente Huidobro and collaborated in Cahiers d'Art and Minotaure. And Coco Chanel introduced the publisher to David Smart, founder and Director of the prestigious magazines 23 Gilot, Françoise y Lake, Carlton “Vida con Picasso”, Ediciones B, Barcelona 1998, p. 256. Original edition in English Life with Picasso, McGraw-Hill Inc., 1964. 36 'Esquire' and 'Coronet' of the Hearst Corporation, the conglomerate of the mythical William Randolph Hearst (Citizen Kane). The Americans wanted to publish 'the most beautiful magazine in the world' and provided the necessary funds so that the publisher can unleash his imagination and realize his dream. The Verve magazine will be published in French and English versions, both printed in France. The idea of Tériade was to associate the strongest artistic and literary movements of the time, using the most advanced printing techniques of the moment. He get thanks to his secretary Angèle Lamotte the help of the best emerging writers, the surrealists and revolutionaries like Bataille and Sartre, young people like Malraux, and the classics such as Gide, Claudel and Valéry. Tériade also obtains the collaboration of the best painters of the time, whom he has met in the cafes since 1915 and with whom he has collaborated since 1931 in Cahiers d'art and Minotaure. So artists like Matisse, Braque, Chagall, Borés, Masson, Picasso and many others, who then do their best painting, are directly involved in the success of the Verve adventure. The best photographers of the time, such as Brassai, Man Ray or Cartier-Bresson, also join the team. To satisfy the enormous demands of painters and photographers, Tériade goes to a monument of the time: the Draeger printer, who had revolutionized the publishing and advertising world with his new '301 procedure' and printed the best photos in black and color. His technique is still used today in the facsimile editions of medieval books. The quality of reproduction of Draeger in the 30s has not even been surpassed today. But the boldest option of Tériade, and the most surprising for its American partners, is to use lithography in a magazine. Draeger will deal with the typography and reproduction of classic works of art and photographs of works by contemporary artists, but Tériade looks for someone to multiply the value of the publication, which he wants to go beyond being a magazine to becoming a object of great beauty, and with its own intrinsic value. To do this, he looks for the best possible lithographer to convince the artists to come with him and cooperate in the lithographs of interpretation or even make original lithographs for the magazine. The leap from photogravure to lithography is fundamental for painters: in gravure, artists can correct proofs, request that a color be debased or enhanced, or choose colors from a sample (as Matisse would do in number 13 of Verve). But in the lithograph in painter chooses and directly touches the color that is going to be applied by a merely mechanical procedure. While a painter can never accept a photogravure reproduction as his own, they could, and did recognize lithographs as their own original work. When Georges Braque sees the first lithograph made by Mourlot after one of his works for Verve, the painter's comment 37 is significant: "It's not bad. With your procedure that is not photography, and all the better, you have made a Braque! I will make some small observations, but I am happy to see this result” 24. There is a qualitative leap between photography and lithography, and the latter can be designated as an own work by the artist. The printer chosen by Tériade could not be other than Fernand Mourlot. He had the best lithography workshop in France, extensive relations with the editors and was well known to the artists for having made for them or with them the posters of the National Museums and their exhibitions in various galleries. In his memoirs, Mourlot pretends to have resisted the commission at the beginning, indicating that he only did it because Tériade was a 'nice guy' and because what he was really looking for was to return the prestige lost by 25 lithography . But undoubtedly his association with Tériade was precisely what he had been seeking for 10 years. For Verve he will print hundreds of original and interpretation lithographs 26 in runs of several thousand copies if we count the French and English editions, both printed in Paris. This work for Tériade will allow Mourlot to know intimately the artistic medium and the artists themselves. It was a splendid letter of introduction for Braque, Picasso and other great 24 Mourlot 1979, p. 118 Mourlot 1979, p. 117 26 In an original lithograph it is the painter himself who draws on the stones -one for each color- while in a lithograph of interpretation, used above all to reproduce previous works, it is the chromist who is responsible for moving the painting to the stone, normally under the supervision of the painter. This explains for example that Picasso let co-sign many of his works to his chromist Henri Deschamps or that Chagall did the same with Charles Sorlier, also employed by Mourlot. 38 25 masters, and it was undoubtedly this association that allowed him to make the next qualitative leap: to launch himself as publisher and printer of original lithographs for the main French publishers and galleries. The first issue of Verve, dated in the 'Winter of 1937' is presided over on its cover by a magnificent original composition by Matisse, made by cutting samples of lithographic color that Mourlot provides, in the manner of the gouaches decoupés of his last period. Matisse pays special attention to this work, instructing publisher and printer not to touch the collages, that he sends pressed between two glasses, 'supplicating' –a word unknown in the vocabulary of the proud Matisse– them that if a piece of the collage were to come off he should be warned to replace it personally. In view of the historical circumstances in which it appears, Verve's first issue has a significant Spanish content, with a text by José Bergamín, a photo of Picasso's Guernica by Dora Maar, a splendid lithograph by Francisco Borés and a magnificent lithograph by Miró. Picasso appears therefore represented by the photo of his partner and will not do any work for Verve until eleven years later, that is, until much later than he began to collaborate with Mourlot. And this despite the friendship that united him with the publisher. The number 19-20 of Verve of April 1948, Couleur de Picasso is entirely dedicated to him. Follow number 25-26 of October 1951 Picasso à Vallauris and nº 29-30 of the autumn of 1954 entitled Suite of cent quatre-vingts dessins de Picasso. The employees of Mourlot, coauthors of artistic feats so admired and who are ultimately responsible for the success of their employer, were a separate race among the printers. They knew that they worked in the best lithographic printing company in the country and tended to remain faithful to their boss Fernand. Some because they felt safer there and earned a little more than in the printing presses of the competition, although they were still workers' salaries of a time when they earned very little. Others, more educated or more savvy, knew how to take advantage of the perks that 39 working in the printing press could provide them and even get other jobs after hours. Some, like Charles Sorlier, used their employment in Mourlot’s as a platform for social ascension, assiduously treating and even making friends with the main painters, dealers and publishers of the time. Henri Deschamps was the favorite chromist of Georges Braque, the one who had executed the first lithograph of interpretation for the painter in 1938 and made all of the book Braque le Patron between 1943 and 1945. Deschamps, probably the best chromist of the 20th century, felt an admiration and a boundless love for Braque, to whom he wanted to offer shortly before his death the splendid general catalog of lithographs Braque Lithographe, for which Deschamps had to execute – by hand and with the salary of a worker– hundreds of new lithographic stones. Braque supervised the work day by day and made several original lithographs for the work, but he did not see it finished, since he died months before it was put together in 1963. Picasso 'displaces' Braque in the workshop of Mourlot, and knew without a doubt that Braque’s chromist was Deschamps and his stamper Tutin. He went straight for them and filled them with flattery, so that they loved him more than Braque. But he did not get it. With his great stature, air and elegant dress and his gentle condescension, Braque seduced better than the easy-going Picasso, always willing to make jokes to be nice. An anecdote illustrates the opportunities provided by the work in the Mourlot workshop. Sorlier recounts that at the beginning of working in the printing press, Picasso gave his admired pressier Gaston Tutin a dedicated and signed proof of each plate he printed. But Tutin did not appreciate this gift at all, because in spite of working thoroughly to satisfy the painter in all his technical desires, he did not stop considering what Picasso did as 'stupidities' without any value. On one occasion he told Sorlier: "They won’t cheat me, Mr. Charles. You have to be credulous to think that these things are worth a lot. These are things that are said, and you may believe them, but they do not cheat me. Of course 40 they do not cheat me ...”27. Consistent with this opinion, the printer broke into pieces the lithographs dedicated by Picasso again and again, until in the end he got Picasso to stop giving them, offering him instead bottles of port wine, what the stamper interpreted as a sign that Picasso was becoming less stingy. If he had kept the tests that the painter had dedicated to him, most of which were not published commercially and can only be admired now in one lucky museum, Tutin would have become a millionaire. 27 Sorlier 1985, p. 135. 41 3. The smokescreen of Kahnweiler's cold theory Among the reasons that could impel Picasso to 'go back' to lithography, we can suppose that one is that the technique provides the painter with an opportunity. The critic Kurt Leonhard recalls an aspect of Picasso's personality: his 'conservative' character, which urges him to keep everything, not to throw anything away 28. That could have driven him to dedicate himself to lithography. This procedure allowed him to preserve every stage of the creative work, as he did in some way asking DoraMaar to photograph each stage of his work in Guernica. The Spaniard had also pointed out to Zervos that "it would be interesting to fix the evolution of a painting on film". The problem is that in oil painting, and leaving aside the preparatory studies in another medium or size, each stage of the creative work is buried in the final work. However, in lithography it is possible to record each phase of the painter's work, because he can print, as Picasso often did, 'state proofs' of each modification made to the lithographic stone or zinc plate. After each change, the stone or plate remain irremediably changed, but the state proofs preserve what was each previous stage. In the case of Picasso, the lithographic technique allows him to keep samples of each step of his work. Françoise, who was also a painter, also remembers that he asked her from time to time to make copies of his 28 Leonhard, Kurt L’oeuvre gravé de Picasso 1955-1966, Guilde du Livre, Lausana, 1966, p. V) 42 paintings in the process of execution, so that even though the artist transformed it later, he could return to any of the intermediate states if the final result did not satisfy him 29. For Picasso, the lithographic state proofs are much more than witnesses of the evolution of the work, which will then lead to a final result, the desired one. If we look at the number of impressions he will make of his lithographs, we realize that there is a clear contradiction, at least from the commercial point of view. In a natural way, we should suppose that the object of the painter's work is, through a series of stages, to produce a final work that will be commercialized by Kahnweiler. Well, if we take for example the case of his famous 'decomposition of the bull' that he realizes shortly after settling in Mourlot's workshop, we will observe that of the eleven states that Mourlot registers (later we will see that he actually did some more), only one, the last, was published commercially, but from the artistic point of view they are all independent works and have a similar –or greater– value. In short, the fruit of the entire process will be only one edition of fifty numbered and signed copies of the final state, which is actually the least elaborate of the entire series. But Picasso ordered to print –to take them home– 18 artist proofs from each of the states. Knowing Mourlot and adding some more copies for the printer himself, those he always reserved for Tutin, Sabartés, etc., we can count up to 300 copies of the artist proofs. In total, the final commercial product of the six long weeks in which the painter focuses on this project between Wednesday, December 5, 1945 and Thursday, January 17, 1946 is only 50 prints. But there is still a by-product that the painter remains, without sharing it with the Galerie Louise: about 300 artist proofs of completely different lithographs. In any case, it seems clear that the successive states are not only stages in the way of obtaining the final result, but works worthy of being appreciated independently, even if they are part of a whole. It seems clear that Picasso's objective in making this series is not to produce the commercial lithograph known as the eleventh state, but the very exercise of the production of the series. The painter has fun, he challenges himself and the lithographic technique and his compensation for so much effort is not the last state and the money that its marketing will provide, but the own path traveled and what it produces: the artist proofs that he appropriates, shows those he authorizes to penetrate his studio and eventually commercializes under the table to pay for favors or services. Also useful to illustrate what the lithographic technique offers to the painter is the work Les deux femmes nues, in which Picasso worked between November 10, 1945 and February 12, 1946. That is, he started it a month before the decomposition of the bull and finished a month after 29 Gilot & Lake 1998, p. 298 43 ending that series. Observing each one of the states 30 we have before us an impressive sample of the creative process of the painter, and of which there would be no trace if it were a painting. For the rest, it seems absurd to imagine that the 24 states referenced by Reuße had been nothing but failed trials on the way to achieving status number 25, which is the only one that is published commercially. The last state is of a nature completely different from the first few states and it could be said that these are more beautiful. And again, the final state is printed at 50 numbered and signed copies. Against that, 19 artist proofs of each intermediate state have been produced, this is more than 400 lithographs that Picasso keeps and that, in one way or another, will end up in museums or in the market. In addition, as Jean Adhemar recalls, above all other graphic techniques (etching, aquatint, drypoint, linoleum), lithography offers Picasso the broadest field of action and the greatest creative possibilities. The lithographic stone offers the supreme suppleness to combine lines and colors, designs or impressions of colors or shapes. Even if you use zinc plates instead of stones, as Picasso is often forced to do when he left Paris for the Cote d'Azur, the plates can be treated with lithographic ink or even be 'bitten' by the acid, in the manner of etchings. The painter can even use transfer or report paper, which also offers unique possibilities and which Picasso often uses. All lithographs in which the date prewritten by the painter is read from left to right have been made using transfer paper. The other dates, as in etchings, have been naturally 'turned' only once when printed and can not therefore be read naturally, while with the transfer paper they are turned twice, the first time going from the transfer paper to the stone and the second from the stone to the paper, which returns the left-right sense that Picasso originally used. Another reason that could theoretically have prompted the painter to make lithographs, as he had previously done etchings, is to 'popularize art. The critic and collector Castor Seibel remembers that he acquired his first lithographs of Braque in 1958, when he was only 24 years old, and studied and worked at the same time. The price was so reasonable that he could afford it with just a few extra hours in his work 31. But despite the fact that Picasso declared in 1946 to art critic Anatole Jakovsky that he was dissatisfied with the limited number that was printed of his lithographs and that he was soon to execute prints with a larger print run that would be sold at an affordable price to reach an audience that could 30 Reuße 2000, p. 42 to 47. Interview published in Bärmann, Matthias Georges Braque: Obra gráfica. Colección C.S., Fundación Bancaja, Valencia 2002 44 31 never buy his paintings 32, his exclusive contract with Kahnweiler prevented that desire from being realized. None of the lithographs marketed by his dealer were printed to more than 50 numbered and signed copies. The person who decided which plates should be printed or not was Picasso himself, without Kahnweiler being able to influence the decision. In fact, this was taken in the same Mourlot workshop by the painter, or in his residence when Mourlot gave him the proofs printed the previous day or weeks before. The Andalusian simply gave the order to print the 50 copies. Once printed, Mourlot took them to Picasso to be signed and then they were delivered to Kahnweiler, who then paid painter and printer the agreed amounts. In this sense there is no doubt that it was Picasso himself who deliberately decided the limitation on the number of lithographic works that came out onto the market. But Kahnweiler or his successor and stepdaughter Louise (Zette) Leiris –single Louise Godon, married in 1926 to ethnologist and poet Michel Leiris, a friend of Picasso's since his youth– did the same with his graphic work as with his paintings: they did not put the specimens on sale until past years and at high prices, which limited even more their diffusion. But this probably did not displease Picasso at all, who like every painter preferred that his works sell expensive, independently of what he charged for them. Mourlot tells how on one occasion Matisse wanted to double the price he had agreed for some drawings with gallery owner Louis Carré. Faced with the protest of the dealer, Matisse agreed to return to the initial price in exchange for Carré's promise that he would sell them as expensive as if he had paid the double to the painter33. Only the lithographs of Picasso made around the French Communist Party, notably for the newspaper Le Patriote of Nice, with the theme of the dove of peace or others, came to have a wide dissemination and were sold at 'democratic' prices , although they ended up mostly in the hands of dealers. It could be said that Picasso uses the lithographic technique to satisfy four main objectives. In the first place it is, as we have seen, to explore a means of expression that will allow him to make some of his masterpieces, with the additional advantage of being able to follow and 'preserve' the stages that lead to the final work. Second, this technique provides him with regular income. It is not that the painter makes lithographs to earn money that he did not obtain from paintings, but rather that his investment of time and effort in lithography, which is often –as we will see later– very considerable, is compensated with a regular and adequate remuneration. And this is achieved because Kahnweiler 32 Cited in Cabanne, Pierre Le siècle de Picasso. Vol 3 Guernica et la guerre, Denoël, 1992, p. 241 33 Mourlot 1979, p. 106 y 107. 45 always has clients for the graphic work of Picasso, including at times when it is very frequent. These two aspects constitute what the technique contributes to Picasso, artistically and economically. But the painter also uses it to fulfill other altruistic objectives. On the one hand, he uses lithography, in the same way he has used etching before, to contribute to books of friends, especially poets, such as Reverdy or Cocteau, greatly facilitating their sale and popularity. The friendship with intellectuals has been a constant of Picasso both in Spain and especially since he moved to Paris at the beginning of the 20th century. Apart from the fascination produced by the overflowing verb of writers, especially the French, given his limited command of this language. To Picasso, aspiring bard who admires this ability as an art as powerful as painting, poets provide not only the spiritual nourishment that allows him to learn and advance, but also essential contacts to be present in the French art scene. His first friend in Paris was the poet Max Jacob, who was joined in 1904 by André Salmon, Gillaume Apollinaire, Pierre Reverdy and Gertrude Stein. Later came Jean Cocteau, André Breton, Paul Éluard, Jacques Prévert, Georges Hugnet, Louis Aragon, Michel Leiris, etc. During the first half of the 20th century, poets are the intellectual vanguard of France, and their social leadership is unquestionable. And since liberation, in 1944, communist intellectuals dominate the French cultural scene, and Picasso is very close to them. Fourth, the lithographic technique is the most used by the painter to offer his solidarity to the causes that matter to him, mostly linked to his militancy in the French Communist Party. In fact, the last two utilities, books and militancy, are linked, since many of the books he illustrates are from friends and will be published by publishers owned by or closely linked to the party, such as the Bibliothèque Française, Editeurs Français Réunis, Cercle d 'Art, or Au Vent d'Arles. Some of these initiatives undoubtedly had as final recipient of the funds the Spanish exile. In addition, lithography is just another form of engraving, and we know that Picasso uses this artistic technique to relax, to overcome the stress caused by painting. The person who was his secretary in his last years gives us evidence of that when he tells us that when the painter dedicated his time to making prints he remained accessible and in a good mood, he talked with anyone who passes by his side and accepted willingly to interrupt his work to attend to whatever they ask, whether to receive a visit or give instructions on how to react to a phone call. However, when he paints he is another man, he remains locked in himself, does not accept any interruption and is not in the mood to chat. In those moments, his secretary must act as an 'invisible man' until the painter has solved the artistic puzzle that occupies his mind 34. 34 Miguel Montañés, Mariano. Pablo Picasso: The Last Years, Assouline Publishing, New York, 2004, p. 49-50 46 None of the numerous studies on the painter, not even those dedicated especially to his graphic work, explain the circumstances or the reasons that prompted Picasso to explore the lithographic technique. Perhaps the specialists considered that the interest to know the details of the reason of the sudden impulse of Picasso to come to the Rue Chabrol was purely anecdotal, without any academic interest. They saw no reason to dig further into the matter given its lack of transcendence. In fact, Kurt Leonhard dismisses the matter saying that the circumstances that motivate the interest of the painter for one or another graphic technique in different periods are “often very banal” 35. However, two elements suggest that the interest in knowing the profound reasons that drive the painter to develop a lithographic career and the circumstances in which this occurs goes beyond the simple anecdote. The first is the intensity of Picasso's effort in his new technique. In fact, the painter turned literally from November 2, 1945 into lithographic production. The second element that justifies the search is the precursor character of Picasso in the matter. For Carsten-Peter Warncke, the intensity of Picasso's lithographic effort must be found in the playful pleasure that the technique offers the painter. For the critic, all of his lithographic works have as their only background theme the “virtuosity of the artist” 36. The most widespread explanation of the reason behind the installation of Picasso in Rue Chabrol is provided by Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, very close to Picasso, and that apart from the painter or Mourlot, would appear as the right person to give it to the extent that he had an exclusive contract to market all his graphic work. According to Kahnweiler, Picasso's lithographic work “is due to a banal fact of everyday life. The winter of 1945-46 was very cold in Paris, and the coal reserves had not been reconstituted. The private residences had no heating and Picasso's studio was frozen. The lithographic press of Mourlot, as an industrial building, had a share of coal. Picasso went there one day and found himself well at home in this warm environment, returning to it every day for several months” 37. As Jean Adhémar recalls, the dealer told that same story to anyone who would listen to him 38. Kurt Leonhard, who also saw only "banal" reasons for the search for new graphic techniques, repeats the same story, citing as a source Brassaï, very close to Kahnweiler, and 35 Leonhard, Kurt / Bolliger, Hans L’Œuvre Gravé de Picasso, La guilde du Livre, Ginebra 1966, p. VI 36 Warncke, Carsten-Peter Pablo Picasso 1881-1973, Taschen Maxi-Livres Profrane, Kohln, 2002 p. 504. 37 Kahnweiler, Daniel-Henry, Introduction dated July 7, 1958 of the catalog Picasso: An exhibition of Lithographs & Aquatints 1945-57, The Pelorus Press Ltd, Auckland, New Zeland, 1958 38 Adhémar 1967, p. 183. 47 providing a complete and concrete bibliographical reference: that of a book by Brassai 39. The photographer had indeed indicated in his book Conversations avec Picasso when asked about how Picasso began to make lithographs, that at that time it was cold in his apartment and he preferred to work in a heated studio. It was for that purely material reason that he devoted himself to lithography 40. Interestingly, Leonhard attributes the beginning of the linoleum career of the painter to the difficulty and delays of transporting lithographic stones from the workshop of Mourlot to Cannes, also following here Brassai 41. He forgets that this difficulty, alleviated by the work with zinc plates and report paper, did not prevent the painter from continuing to work with Mourlot, or to make for example the 125 lithographs of Le Chant des Morts. The Kahnweiler ‘cold theory’ has had its followers. Thus, Bernd Rau, in his book Pablo Picasso graphic work, states: "During that cold winter he completed in the workshop of the printer Fernand Mourlot, who had heating, about 30 lithographs, until the end of the year... ”42. Even Bernhard Geiser, who as a historian of Picasso's graphic work maintained close contact with the painter, calmly affirms in his book that it is precisely the untimely arrival of a 'harsh winter' that prompts Picasso to take refuge in the workshops of Mourlot, to have there 'a corner where he could work very warm’ 43. As we will see, this is not true at all. The cold theory is just a fabulation of Kahnweiler. And it is easy to prove it, since a simple query to the weather yearbooks shows that when Picasso decides to go to Mourlot, it is not cold in Paris. The meteorological records show that 1945 was the warmest year since the beginning of the meteorological data collection in 1873, with temperatures above the average, as pointed out by the portal MeteoParis.com 44. In fact, we have the minimum temperatures of Paris day by day. On October 30, 1945, when Sabartés telephoned Fernand Mourlot to ask him to go to the studio of Hôtel Antoine Duprat in rue des GrandsAugustins, where Picasso had installed his studio in 1936 and where he moved his home during the war, the minimum temperature was 7.8 º C. The next day, when the first interview between the printer and the painter 39 Brassaï, Conversations avec Picasso. Paris, Éditions Gallimard, 1964, pp. 313-314. Brassai, Conversations with Picasso, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1999, p. 347. 41 Leonhard/ Bolliger, 1966, p. VI 42 Rau, Bernd Pablo Picasso Obra gráfica Barcelona, Ed. Gili, 1982. 43 Geiser, Bernhard ‘L’œuvre gravé de Picasso, La guilde du livre, Lausana 1955, p. 13: ‘Un hiver froid survient de bonne heure cette année-là. Dans l’établissement lithographique des frères Mourlot, Picasso déniche un coin où il peut travailler bien au chaud’ 44 Ver http://www.meteo-paris.com/chronique/annee/1945 48 40 takes place, the minimum temperature is 7.7ºC. And when Picasso joins the workshop to spend several months there, the minimum temperature rises to 10.5ºC 45. As for the maximum temperatures, they are those same days of 16.7 15.5 and 15.5ºC respectively 46. It is not therefore freezing cold. Also, if cold had been the main reason to go to the Rue Chabrol, Picasso would not have left the workshop at the end of February as he actually did, since in March there is a cold wave that covers Paris with a layer of snow of 60 cm 47. As we can see, the cold theory, which critics closest to Picasso blithely disseminate, is completely dismantled. Besides, we are not talking about the hardest period of the war in terms of access to supplies of coal, food, etc., but almost a year and a half after the liberation, when Picasso was venerated in Paris and all kinds of people continually visited him with gifts. At that time Picasso could not miss the few sacks of coal or firewood that would have satisfied his austere needs for heat. In fact, as Pierre Cabanne recalls, even in the harshest years of the world war, Picasso had a considerable allocation of coal, achieved through his numerous contacts 48. Of this amount he gave a small part to Marie-Thérèse Walter to help warm herself and her daughter Maya. And we can not forget that Picasso enjoyed, thanks to his buoyant finances and the black market, a comfort far superior to that of any Frenchman. And he even had problems because of that buoyancy. And ostensibly he refused to receive favorable treatment from the occupation forces. When German writer Ernst Jünger, assigned to an administrative position in Paris, offers him coal, the Spaniard responds “A Spaniard is never cold” 49 . The friend of the painter Pierre Daix, in his monumental "Dictionnaire Picasso", does not make any reference to the cold theory, but he insinuates in fact that the argument is not valid, but of course he does that in 1995, 23 years after the death of the Andalusian. Daix seems to want to remind critics that they should not give any credibility to Kahnweiler's theory. He does so by quoting in the short entry on Fernand Mourlot Françoise Gilot, who recalls that at that time, the workshop on Chabrol Street was a dark, humid and cold place in which no heating could be used, because the wax of the lithographic ink would have become too 45 Tank, Klein A.M.G. and Coauthors, 2002. Daily dataset of 20th-century surface air temperature and precipitation series for the European Climate Assessment. International Journal of Climatology, 22, 1441-1453. See table in http://www.meteoparis.com/bibliotheque/documents/3403.txt 46 http://www.meteo-paris.com/bibliotheque/documents/3404.txt 47 http://www.meteo-paris.com/chronique/annee/1946 48 Cabanne 1992, p. 126. 49 Cabanne 1992 p. 99. 49 fluid 50. The chromist Henri Deschamps just buried the cold theory when he states in an interview with Ulrike Gauss on June 16, 2000 that in Mourlot's workshop there was no heating at that time and it was often extremely cold, “we were all frozen” 51. In any case, if we are to believe Jaime Sabartés himself, the painter would already have, since 1939, central heating in his studio-residence of Grands-Augustins. Indeed, in his book Picasso: Portraits & Souvenirs, published in 1946, he points out that in the year 1939, before the summer, Picasso can not work in the workshop because "the workers in charge of installing central heating have occupied all the rooms of the two floors ”52. This revelation would explain why the docile Sabartés eludes in his prologue of 1949, to which we will refer later, to endorse Kahnweiler's explanation. Do not forget that the secretary is indirectly at the origin of the dissemination of the cold theory given his work as censor of the books published about Picasso. Adding elements to the stated lack of precariousness in Picasso’s study, Gilot also relates that in his first visit to it in the spring of 1943, the painter boasted of his privileges by showing the two young women (Françoise and her friend Geneviève Aliquot) that boiling water came out of the sink faucet: “Isn’t it wonderful ? Despite the war I have hot water. If you really want it, you can come and bathe at any time you like” 53 . In short, Picasso could not have gone to Mourlot's workshop or take refuge from a cold that did not exist and that would not have affected him, nor to seek a warmth that really did not exist in the printing press. The theory of cold is reversed by the facts: when going to the workshop of Mourlot, the painter would have left the warm comfort of his study by the cold of Rue Chabrol. But this evident fabulation of the gallerist takes a long time to disappear from the treaties. In fact, when in 1965 Bernhard Geiser published the book 50 Daix, Pierre Dictionnaire Picasso, Robert Laffont, Paris, 1995, p. 606 : “C’était à cette époque-là rue de Chabrol, un endroit sombre, désordonné, encombré, vétuste, humide et froid…. Il était impossible de chauffer, car la cire de l’encre lithographique aurait été trop fluide.» 51 Reuße 2000, p. 295 52 Sabartés, Jaime Portraits et Souvenirs, Louis Carré et Maximilien Vox, París, 1946, p. 173. 53 Gilot & Lake 1998., p. 21. 50 Picasso: Fifty-five years of his graphic work, he recalled that he visited Picasso in July 1945 in Paris, returning to see him in October, adding in a surprising way that “the winter of that Year was extremely cold, and there was no fuel for the stoves. Picasso had to find a warm corner where to work in the lithographic workshops of Mourlot” 54. In the indirect continuation of that book, L'Œuvre gravé de Picasso 1955-1965, Kurt Leonhard insists on the cold theory, noting: “Kahnweiler says that only the shortage of coal in 1945 led Picasso to lithography. He preferred the well-heated premises of Mourlot to his glacial workshop”55. Again in his work Pablo Picasso: Recent Etchings, Lithographs and Linoleum Cuts, Kurt Leonhard repeats the same story: “Mourlot's warm workshop was preferable to his cold study” 56. It seems that these authors could not have endorsed the cold theory without Picasso or Sabartés having confirmed its authenticity, even with a simple comment or a “yes, that's it” to a question about it. There may have been other reasons that favored Picasso's decision to go to Mourlot's workshop precisely at the end of October 1945, as reported by Gilot in his book: one is the fact that her abandonment of Picasso's residence studio had put the painter in a dog's mood; the other is the constant arrival of American, English and French visitors who came to Paris after the victory and wanted to see the already considered the greatest painting genius of the century57. Another reason for being absent from his residence might be the fact that he had just joined the Communist Party, and that many of his new comrades wanted to see him and congratulate him, or perhaps ask for favors. Another would be perhaps to provide work to Kahnweiler, who had returned to Paris in October 1944 with his wife ill with cancer. Lucie would die seven months later. In those first months of his return to the capital, the dealer had been too busy with his wife and to take care of his gallery and his painters, with the result that other art dealers like Paul Rosenberg, the opportunist Louis Carré or the American Samuel M. Kootz occupied the vacuum left by his absence. But definitely, Picasso did not go to Mourlot's workshop to take refuge from the cold. 54 Geiser, Bernhard & Bolliger, Hans, Picasso: Fifty-five years of his graphic work, Harry Abrams, Inc. , New York, 1965, p. XVI. 55 Leonhard, Kurt L’Œuvre gravé de Picasso, Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1966, p. VI. 56 Leonhard-Bolliger, Pablo Picasso: Recent Etchings, Lithographs and Linoleum Cuts, Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1966, p. XII. 57 Gilot & Lake 1998, p. 121. 51 4. The pact of silence Without contradicting the cold theory, but simply ignoring it, from 1979 almost all the books on Picasso coincide in pointing out that the Andalusian master launched himself into lithographic production encouraged by his friend and co-initiator of cubism Georges Braque. According to the experts, there is no doubt that Picasso (like Miró) became interested in lithography through Braque. Ingo F. Walther, in his "Pablo Picasso 1881-1973 The Genius of the Century", published in German in 1986, states: "In October 1945, through Braque, Picasso met printer Fernand Mourlot in Paris” 58. Pierre Cabanne, in the 1979 Spanish edition of his book 'The century of Picasso', initially published in French in 1975, highlights: "It was Braque who spoke one day of Fernand Mourlot to Picasso and the Spaniard, always curious of new experiences, he felt itching to go back to lithography, which he had already practiced a little before the war” 59. Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington, in her book Picasso, Créateur et destructeur (first American edition of 1988), says: «It was through Braque that he had met the famous lithographer» 60. Carsten-Peter Warncke indicates in his monumental Pablo Picasso 1881-1973 58 “En octobre 1945, par l’intermediaire de Braque, Picasso rencontre à Paris l’imprimeur Fernand Mourlot”. Walther, Ingo F. “Pablo Picasso 1881-1973 Le genie du siecle”, Taschen 1986, p. 64 59 Cabanne, Pierre ‘El siglo de Picasso’, Volume II La guerra Gloria y soledad 19371973 Ministerio de Cultura. Publicaciones, Madrid., 1982, p. 136. 60 Huffington, Arianna Stassinopoulos ‘Picasso, Créateur et destructeur’ Stock, Paris 1989, p. 320 (original English version of 1988) 52 (published in German in 1995) that “In November (of 1945), Braque introduces him to Fernand Mourlot. At the Mourlot Brothers printing shop in Paris, he learns all lithographic techniques” 61. And in the book published by Polígrafa in 2003 Picasso Total, authors Brigitte Léal, Christine Piot and Marie-Laure Bernadac indicate: “At the end of 1945 Picasso came into contact, through Georges Braque, with the printer Fernand Mourlot , whose workshop he begins to frequent assiduously” 62. In the On-line database Picasso Project directed by Sevillian professor Enrique Mallén, it is also indicated that his return to lithographic work in 1945 is due to the introduction of Braque. The entry indicates: "October 31, 1945: Paris: Picasso, through Jaime Sabartés, receives this morning the visit of Fernand Mourlot, whom he knows through Georges Braque, and with whom he will fix an appointment the day after tomorrow to work on a series of lithographs” 63. In short, after the death of Picasso the authors had no reason to continue hiding the fact of the introduction of Braque. In fact, after the revelation that Mourlot will make in 1979 they will be forced to pick it up. But the role of the French painter in the initiation of Picasso to lithography had not been recognized while the painter was alive. Thus, for example, Picasso's biographer par excellence, Ronald Penrose, omits any reference to the introduction of Braque in his essential Picasso. His Life and Work, originally published in 1958. And in fact he makes a mistake in indicating that the painter had not returned to lithography since the invitation card he had made in 1919 for an exhibition in the gallery of Paul Rosenberg. The field offered by etching and aquatints had sufficed for his graphic art 64 . Demonstrating the lack of interest of the main critics for the lithographic work of Picasso, the 'expert' has completely forgotten 30 of the 33 lithographs that the Andalusian had done before 1945. Note also that we are quoting here a 1982 reprint of the book, based on the new English edition of 1981. Penrose had 24 years since the publication of the first English edition in 1958 to correct the mistake, but did not do so in any of the reissues, and died in 1984 without have corrected the error. Penrose simply states in his book that in the autumn of 1945 he had “found” a printer in Paris, Fernand Mourlot, "whose competence and kindness led him to recommence" the lithographic work. Penrose recognizes, however, that the lithographic technique will become one of his favorite means of expression. 61 Warncke 2002, p. 708 Polígrafa, Barcelona 2003 63 Mallén, Enrique, ed. Online Picasso Project. Sam Houston State University. https://picasso.shsu.edu/. 64 Penrose, Roland Picasso, Flammarion, Paris 1982., p. 422 The first edition is Picasso: His Life and Work, Victor Gollancz Ltd, London, 1958 53 62 The main books about Picasso published during the life of the artist, and especially -and interestingly- those dedicated to his graphic work also omit all reference to Braque. Some avoid even referring to Mourlot. Thus, in 1966 L'œuvre gravé de Picasso, by Kurt Leonhard and Hans Bolliger, makes no reference to his beginning in lithography 65. Even decades after the death of Picasso, there are still some recalcitrants: as late as 1995, Picasso's friend Pierre Daix also omits in his very extensive Dictionnaire Picasso (958 pages at two columns and on bible paper) any reference to the introduction of Braque, although as we have seen, he dismantles the cold theory. The omissions or distortions of the critics do not constitute a coincidence or reflect a lack of interest in a ‘banal’ matter. Critics, who need access to Picasso and his workshop to do their work –this is especially true in the case of critics of graphic work, given that all state proofs never get published– follow direct instructions or hints from the Andalusian. And Picasso learned very well everything that was written and happened in the Parisian artistic environment through the press cuttings service to which he was subscribed. If any critic skipped the instructions, the painter would soon know, among other reasons because the critics themselves rushed to his residence as soon as they published a book about him. But in addition, the painter was given to gossip and incited his friends and acquaintances to tell him what was happening in the art world and what anyone said about him. The person who transmits the political line of the Andalusian is Sabartés, who already in the first volume of Picasso Lithographe of 1949, omits any reference to Braque, attributing the initiative of the Picasso-Mourlot meeting to the printer, and not the painter. The faithful secretary of Picasso did not limit himself to scrutinizing everything that was published about the painter in the press, magazines or books, but went much further. He, who was responsible for maintaining contact with the authors, asked for their texts, arranged appointments with the painter and prepared him for interviews, in fact subjecting the experts, on behalf of the Andalusian, to an authentic prior censorship. Although it was known and commented on in the artistic media of Paris, the work of revision and prior censorship of the books published about Picasso by Sabartés was never revealed by the authors, who would have been ashamed to confess that they submitted their manuscripts to Sabartés/Picasso to get their approval before being published. Besides they felt that the secretary's corrections, often limited to anecdotal aspects, did not affect the essence of their books. Sabartés himself did not reveal, for obvious reasons, his role. His proverbial discretion was, along with his modesty, the characteristic that 65 Leonhard-Bolliger 1966 54 Picasso most appreciated. In fact, the fact was hidden as one of the many secrets of the painter's life until more than thirty years after his death. The revelation was made by the painter himself just a year before he died and in a private conversation, no doubt thinking that it would never be published. On July 26, 1972, chatting in his residence of Notre Dame de Vie with the successor of Sabartés Mariano Miguel Montañés, he began to remember the trip that his family made from Malaga to La Coruña in 1891, where his father had obtained a teaching job in the School of Fine Arts. The travel ended, the painter explained to his secretary, with a trip by oxcart from the train station of La Coruña to the inn where they were staying. When Miguel pointed out that he had not read the anecdote of the cart in any biography, Picasso replied that of course it was not in them even though he himself had related it several times. The reason for the absence was, he explained, that Sabartés was always very careful to 'clean up' everything that was published about me. He must have considered that a bullock cart did not fit with my 'greatness'. The painter did not stop there, but added: I will give you an example of the heroic efforts of Sabartés to filter and hide things that he found unworthy of me. And he went on to tell how his faithful servant had hidden the existence of an uncle in Malaga who made wooden barrels and who one day built a bathroom for him that made him very happy. Sabartés would have, according to Picasso, put the focus on other relatives with more distinguished professions, like general of the army, canon, etc 66. Picasso's explanation would have remained secret if it were not for his new secretary, who had replaced Sabartés on his death in 1968, consigned it the same day in his diary, and because his son Alberto decided in 2004 to publish the diary in the form of a book. The book however went completely unnoticed, because it was not even published in Spanish or French or in Europe, but in English and New York. Sabartés' description of the first encounter between the painter and the printer can not be more succinct. He merely recalls that on November 2, 1945, Picasso renews his interest in lithography, appearing at the Mourlot press to smell what was cooking there. Sabartés pretends that the initiative corresponds in fact to Mourlot, arguing that the printer had come months before to the rue des Grands-Augustins to propose to the painter the edition of lithographic reproductions in color of his oil paintings, adding that Mourlot showed Picasso a folder of samples of reproductions of works of other painters. And he insists that “without any doubt, what we might call the second period of the Picasso lithography had its origin in this visit by Mourlot” 67. 66 67 Miguel Montañés 2004, pp. 121-123 Mourlot 1949, preface by Jaime Sabartés, pp. 6-7. 55 The information provided by Sabartés is not very convincing, both in substance and in form. In the first place, there is no record of Mourlot's visit to Picasso prior to that of October 30, 1945. In fact, the printer denies having made it. On the other hand, it is absurd to pretend that at the end of 1945 Mourlot would have proposed to Picasso to publish lithographic reproductions of his works. The initiative for this should come from established publishers, and even Tériade never published editions of lithographs of interpretation, although it included many of them, unsigned, in its Verve magazine. What Mourlot wanted was for the best painters to make original lithographs in his workshops. In short, Sabartés does not tell the truth, and if he invents the story of the folder it is possibly to try to justify the fact that Picasso had seen prints by Mourlot, concealing that they are really those of Georges Braque. If we understand that Picasso speaks through Sabartés, the interpretation that the initiative of the meeting is Mourlot’s is key: Picasso refuses to accept that he was the one who looked for the lithographer, being more comfortable with the version that it was Mourlot the printer who asked him to 'come back' to lithography. He had told exactly the same story to Françoise Gilot, who relates that when she returned to Rue des GrandsAugustins on November 26, 1945, after months of absence, Picasso assured her that Mourlot had asked him ‘a few days ago’ if he did not want to return to lithography, adding that since he had not been working it for 15 years, he decided it was a good time to return 68. A year after the explanation of Sabartés, Fernand Mourlot does not dare to correct him regarding the circumstances of the initiation of Picasso to lithography in the prologue of the second volume of Picasso Lithographe of 1950, limiting himself to point out that he does not have anything to add to what Sabartés said in the preface to the first volume of the work69. Even 22 years later, when in April 1972 –still in Picasso's life– Fernand Mourlot publishes his first memoirs Souvenirs et Portraits d'artistes, for which he had requested an original lithograph from Picasso (also from Miró, Chagall, etc.) the printer refrains again from contradicting Sabartés and therefore Picasso, avoiding making any reference to Braque. His description of the first meeting is succinct. Although he does point out at whose initiative the first Picasso-Mourlot takes place. It is not from Mourlot, but from the painter himself. The printer tells how one morning in October 1945 (necessarily on Tuesday 30) he receives a telephone call from Sabartés telling him that Picasso wanted to see him. Immediately an appointment is set for the next day, on Wednesday the 31st. Mourlot willingly accepts to go to the painter's studio at eleven thirty in the 68 Gilot & Lake 1998, p. 121. Mourlot, Fernand Picasso Lithographe II 1947-1949 André Sauret, Montecarlo 1950 ,p. 11 56 69 morning, this is the first appointment of the morning for Picasso, who got up very late. Mourlot goes as agreed to Grands-Augustins. At that time, the courtyard that distributed the stairs could be accessed directly, although now it is closed by a gate. The stair for Picasso's studio was the one on the left, a spiral staircase. On reaching the second floor, Mourlot rings the bell and Sabartés opens the door and leads the printer through a large, long room where twenty visitors wait calmly. They then arrive at the painter's studio, where Pablo receives him in his tracksuit and scrutinizes him for more than an hour. The printer does not reveal here the reason that the Andalusian gives for his renewed interest in lithography, contenting himself with indicating that Picasso “explains the reason for his call”. Finally Picasso asks him to send him material to work quickly and he announces that he will go immediately to the workshop to begin his learning. However, he can not attend on Thursday, November 1, because it is a holiday, and therefore fixes himself for the next day, Friday, November 2 in the morning.70 If Mourlot had refrained from contradicting Picasso in 1972, he will not fail to recount his complete version of the circumstances surrounding Picasso's lithographic beginning. Although he waits until the death of the painter to reveal the origin of the relationship. In his definitive memoirs, published under the title Gravés dans ma mémoire in 1979, Fernand Mourlot retells the encounter that he already evoked in his 1972 book. And he does it practically with the same words as then, only adding some precisions , especially regarding the reason for the call. In fact, if the two texts, 1972 and 1979, are examined attentively, it can be concluded that the first to be written is the second, while the first seems like a shortened 70 Mourlot, Fernand Souvenirs et portraits d’artistes, Paris 1972 (luxury edition) pp. 109-110. The normal edition is published in 1974 by A.C. Mazo, París, p. 104. 57 or censored version of the second. The reason for the call of Picasso, and therefore the reason that drives the painter to return to be interested in lithography is fully clarified, since one of the first sentences that Picasso addresses to him is the following: “Braque told me about you. I have seen what you do and I have wanted to know you and maybe work with you. That will depend” 71. It is done. For the first time, and 34 years after the events, the conspiracy of silence is broken and it is revealed for the first time that it was Braque who had pushed Picasso back to lithography and that Picasso has seen Braque lithographs printed by Mourlot. This is the clearest direct source we have of the origin of Picasso's interest in lithography, which Mourlot had revolutionized in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Scholars now have a way to attribute the introduction to Braque, although, perhaps to hide their previous silence, they do not take care of clarifying the circumstances. Sabartés did not give us a true version of the first encounter between the painter and the printer, but he did give a perceptive vision of the impact that Mourlot causes in Picasso. The poet and journalist recalls that despite the fact that he was present in the entire interview between the two, after the visit ended the painter refrained from making any comment to him about the printer. This caught his attention without surprising him. Because according to Sabartés, an obstinate silence does not denote in Picasso the desire to hide his thoughts, but rather interest. If he speaks, he says, it is different, because his ideas are diluted in words because he does not feel the need to go further in the matter. If he controls his loquacity and remains in silence you must assume that the springs of his sensibility are tense, that he reflects and does not want to joke 72. 71 72 Mourlot , 1979, pp. 11-12 Mourlot, 1949, pp. 6-7 58 Second Part: The rebellion against the establishment 5. Braque the boss Unveiled, and from an unassailable source that it was Braque who incited Picasso to discover the world of lithography from within, the precise circumstances of this introduction to the technique, which have not been clarified by the authors, remain however to be elucidated. Braque's proverbial discretion –he passed away ten years before Picasso– did not help reveal the very fact of the introduction. On the other hand, it would seem that until the death of the Spaniard in 1973, no specialist dared to investigate the matter, which Picasso did not wish to air. Although the introduction of Braque is universally accepted, especially when one considers that the same recommendation is transmitted by the French artist to Joan Miró, the problem is that Braque did not have extensive lithographic experience. In fact, he had not made more than four original lithographs before 1945: Still Life II (glass and fruit) of 1921 (Vallier Nº 12), Still Life of 1926 (Vallier Nº 14), The Chart of 1932 (Vallier Nº 18) , and Athena of 1932 (Vallier Nº 19). None of course with Mourlot. In fact, of the 146 main lithographs made in his life, two thirds were made in the last five years of his life, between 1958 and 1963. What could Georges Braque then show Picasso to arouse his interest in lithography to the point to rush to Mourlot's workshop and settle there for months? It could not be the cover of the book Souspente by Antoine Tudal, which he illustrates the same year of 1945. What probably happened is that the lithographic work that convinced Picasso to go to Fernand Mourlot's workshop on November 2, 1945 was the one Braque had been doing for years to illustrate a book that, while containing some of the best lithographs that Mourlot would ever make, carried a text whose content –and especially the title– exasperated Picasso: Braque le Patron (Braque the Boss). Although Picasso never claimed to be the greatest painter of the twentieth century, and indeed showed great respect for other great masters such as Matisse, Chagall or Braque himself, what 59 he could not admit was another painter would be given the title of Patron or master of all painters. The key to the matter is twofold: on the one hand, Braque knew Mourlot well for the work of interpretation lithographs the latter's had done –under the careful supervision of the painter– for Tériade’s Verve magazine. The magazine had used a Braque for the cover of No. 2, dated in the spring of 193873, but it was a simple photograph reproduced in fourcolor. Mourlot recounts in 1979 in his book Gravés dans ma mémoire that the first work he had done for Braque was for the “first issue” of Verve (actually it was number 5/6 dated in the spring of 1939). Braque had greatly appreciated that first work that chromist Henri Deschamps had done for him. When Mourlot brings the first proofs to his studiodomicile of the Rue du Douanier (now rue Georges Braque), near the Parc de Montsouris in Paris, the printer sees that the work of which they had reproduced a fragment from a color photo (Figure), was hanging on the wall of the studio. But Braque's reaction was as we saw earlier positive, indicating that Deschamps had managed to 'make a Braque', adding that he would only make some suggestions about the colors to use 74. We recall that in lithography, stones or plates are painted with black ink, and that colors are only used at the time of printing, and can thus be changed or adjusted as many times as you want, even if the same plates are used. Braque would again execute for Tériade the cover and frontispiece of another complete Verve number, 27-28, but in December 1952, as always 73 74 See Anthonioz, Michel L’album Verve, Flammarion, Paris, 1987 Mourlot 1979, p. 118, y Mourlot 1972, p. 87 60 in the printing press of Fernand Mourlot, an issue that also includes magnificent lithographs by Miró and Chagall 75. And in 1955, Tériade dedicates to Braque an entire Verve number (Carnets Intimes Volume VIII, numbers 31 and 32), with 16 splendid color interpretation lithographs. In any case, just after meeting him in 1938, Mourlot immediately feels great sympathy for Braque, and the feeling is shared by the painter. Both have in common the love of boxing, which they have practiced in their youth, Braque as a professional heavyweight and Mourlot as an amateur. And they establish a friendship that their wives share and that will last until the death of the painter in 1963 and of his wife two years later. Mourlot remembers that whenever he saw him, he encouraged the painter to make lithographs with him. From 1938, and after a parenthesis that does not appear quantified by the printer or by the painter's biographers, Braque takes the habit of going down the Rue Chabrol to see Fernand, talking with the operators and asking questions to the chromists like Deschamps. It is in this environment that the idea of making Braque le Patron arises 76. After numerous visits of this type and having confirmed the painter's complete satisfaction for the work done in the printing press, Mourlot proposes him to make original lithographs. But in spite of his curiosity, of his interest in lithography, Braque is a quiet man and artist, he is not in a hurry and he does not let anyone press him. The interest of Braque in those moments seems to be technical and artistic rather than oriented to the realization of a work or works in particular. He is surprised, fascinated by lithography and the work of the artisans that make it possible and he wants to learn how they do it. But, lacking the impulsiveness of Picasso, he has no plan to do any work or illustrate any book. The initiative to create Braque le Patron comes more than likely from author Jean Paulhan and Mourlot, who already knew each other, and not from the painter. In fact, Braque only realizes for the book an original lithograph for the frontispiece –a new version of his oil Femme à la mandoline, étude libre d'après Corot from 1922-1923. Typical of commissioned works, to which Picasso was so accustomed: a friend asks the painter for a small drawing, lithography or etching for the luxury edition of his new book. If the initiative had been Braque’s or he wanted to be more involved in the book, he would have made original lithographs, as he did with many other books in the years that followed. Jean Paulhan had been the promoter of the publication of the first artist's book that Mourlot published, as lithographer and publisher. It was Matière et Mémoire, with text by the poet Francis Ponge and lithographs by Jean Dubuffet, who had been painting only for two years and is 75 76 Anthonioz 1987, p. 233 Mourlot 1979, p. 118 61 introduced to the printer by Paulhan. Actually, it was a Paulhan's service to both painter and the poet, of whom he felt protective 77. Dubuffet's book, in which Mourlot himself has an obvious interest, since the text is a tribute to the art of lithography, was made in 1944, just as the relationship between the painter and Paulhan begins78, while Braque and Mourlot continue working on the preparation of Braque le Patron. We have proof that Picasso read Ponge's book, because on Wednesday, November 7, when he has only spent five days learning the trade in Mourlot's workshop, the Andalusian meets Ponge, reads the book and takes the title page and prints on the reverse, a final proof of his lithograph Tête de jeune garçon (R. 57) and dedicates it to Ponge 79. Picasso's admiration is for Ponge's text, and not for Dubuffet, whom he considers, according to André Lhote, as nothing more than a pale substitute for Permeke and Gustave de Smet: "That's just Belgian painting", he adds to complete the insult. Dubuffet returns the insult: when asked about Picasso he replies “And who is that? ”80. But Dubuffet was a novel painter and Mourlot, although he does not confess it in his memoirs, was committed to making a model book with a great painter. Braque was for this purpose his closest option, the only one of the great masterss with whom he shared friendship. However, Braque, despite being flattered by Paulhan's text, does not seem willing to make a show, out of modesty or perhaps because he felt that the book was going to irritate more than one. To illustrate a book dedicated to oneself, an original signed lithograph appears as a justified courtesy, almost obligatory, while illustrating it in its entirety could be interpreted as excessive. Hence, in view of the lack of interest of Braque for making original works for the book, the printer decides to illustrate Paulhan’s text with lithographs of interpretation, made by his best chromists of the time, Henri Deschamps and Popineau, who give testimony of the possibilities of the technique. Braque therefore attends to the long process of elaboration of those lithographs of interpretation as a spectator, but reviewing each stage and with the right of correction that the fact of being the author of the canvas that the chromist is reproducing gives him. 77 See Conesa, Séverine «Ici en Deux: étude critique et génétique de l’album Matière et mémoire, ou les lithographes à l’école, de Jean Dubuffet et Francis Ponge», Université Lumière Lyon 2, 2011. Available online at http://theses.univlyon2.fr/documents/lyon2/2011/conesa_s#p=0&a=top 78 Which was apparently a love relationship, if one judges from the tone of their correspondence. See Correspondance Dubuffet/Paulhan 1944-1968, Cahiers de la NRF, Gallimard, París 2003. 79 Peyré, Yves Peinture et poésie: Le dialogue par le livre, Éditions Gallimard, París 2001., p 53 80 Cabanne 1992, p. 198 62 According to Tate Gallery curator Jennifer Mundy, Braque le Patron's publication took place on February 13, 1945, but its genesis goes back several years 81. Although Mourlot has not given any concrete data, Mundy points out that the printer conceived the idea of publishing a monographic book about Braque illustrated with quality lithographic reproductions of his paintings in 1940, although he could not carry it out due to the scarcity of funds and supplies during the war. Mourlot points out that the making of the book took 'more than three years' 82. This places the beginning of the work towards the end of 1941 or January 1942. That is, the lithographic work, since the text would be published in October 1942 in a magazine. That is, Mourlot began to work the lithographs of interpretation even before Paulhan's text was published, which seems logical, since Mourlot's idea was to reproduce in lithography the most recent works of the painter. When Paulhan's work is published, it becomes the ideal complement for the lithographs that were being prepared in the printing press. We also have a letter from Braque to an unknown corespondent (Cedric Morris ?) dated June 4, 1943 informing him about the preparation of the book, The process of making the lithographs is slow and laborious. Recall that the essence of the work is carried out during the German occupation of Paris. It is not easy to procure the necessary paper, and often there are power cuts, during which only the machines that could run on pedals worked. Each reproduction of a canvas requires the preparation of numerous lithographic stones, one for each color, and each color test must be approved by the painter, although this is facilitated by the fact that Braque often goes on his old bicycle to the Rue Chabrol. The production cost of the book continues to increase and Mourlot tries to sell it to a large publisher. He was well placed for this, since in December 1940 he had 'acquired' in a fictitious sale, by advice of Jean Paulhan, from its Russian Jewish owners Volf Chalit and Dimitri Snegaroff, the powerful printing press 'L'Union' (the former Kooperativnaïa Typografia Soïouz that printed the pamphlets of the Russian revolutionaries). Until the real owners returned to France, Mourlot was, at least on paper, the most important printer of the country, producing most of the editions of La Pléiade, owned by Jew Jacques Schiffrin (Paulhan was the chief editor until 1945), and also of Nouvelle Revue Française and Gallimard. Fernand proposes therefore to this last publishing house the book on Braque that he is producing, but Gallimard refuses, alleging according to 81 Mundy, Jennifer Georges Braque: Printmaker, Tate Gallery, Londres, 1993. See also the Tate Gallery catalog reference (Tate Collection P08228 http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=20122&sea rchid=9357&tabview=text). 82 Mourlot, 1973, pp.92-3 63 Mourlot that he does not see the economic interest in publishing a "book" with a very high production cost of and a circulation of only 235 copies. Mourlot is therefore forced to continue financing the book, edit it himself and sell it outside the traditional distribution channels. But the enterprise is not ruinous either. In fact, Mourlot will sell each copy at 7,000 francs (140 dollars at the time, about 1,500 today if we take inflation into account) and distributes it directly through gallerists, collectors and librarians. And above all there was no one to pay other than his own operators and suppliers. This issue is key to the extraordinary rise of the artist book in the 20th century. As was the case with most artist's books, according to Mourlot, neither the author Paulhan nor Braque charged a single franc for the book, receiving in payment only some copies of the work 83. The book also acquires a certain notoriety for the reasons that we will explain later, and it is republished in current edition in 1946 by the expublisher of the Swiss-based resistance Éditions des Trois Collines, animated by François Lachenal, within the collection Les Grands Peintres Par Leurs Amis. This second edition contains 56 illustrations in black and white and a frontispiece in colors, but the circulation is short, since the publisher does not have a wide distribution network. Gallimard takes a while to react, but finally publishes the book in his pocket collection in 1952, making reprints or periodic re-editions, the last one in 2011. Paulhan's text does not seem to have lost relevance and has been published in Spain , under the title Braque el patrón, by the Editorial Elba of Barcelona in 2012. Maurice Gieure points out in his work G. Braque, that while Henri Deschamps executed the stones of the great album Braque le Patron, for Braque it was a pleasure to follow his execution. He discusses non-stop with the chromist and with Mourlot himself on the techniques used and adding small additional touches to reach 'almost the matter of the painting'84. And once finished and printed, and to enhance the lithographs of interpretation, Mourlot and his workers decide to give them a little relief by applying to them one by one a retouching varnish, which gave them a certain thickness and made some colors shine. If the painter had been pleasantly surprised by the first work of Deschamps in 1938, when he sees the final result of the lithographs of interpretation of the book Braque le Patron, his reaction is much more enthusiastic, telling the printer: “My dear Mourlot, I have been eight days without painting after seeing the proofs. I looked at them every day, although in the end I went back to painting” 85. 83 Mourlot 1979, p. 119 Gieure, Maurice G. Braque, Éditions Pierre Tisue, París 1956, p. 94 85 Mourlot 1979, p. 120 64 84 If following all the authors since 1979 we accept the fact that it was Braque who led Picasso to the Mourlot workshop; if Braque is so impressed with the lithographs of interpretation of the book and had, as we have seen, proofs of the lithographs in his house during the elaboration period from 1942 to the end of 1944; if we also know that Picasso has told Mourlot that he has seen the work that the printer had done for Braque, and if we take into account the absence of Braque's original lithographs before 1946, the only thing he could talk about to the Spaniard on this technique was necessarily the exceptional lithographic reproductions of Braque le Patron that he had been supervising from 1941 until the appearance of the book in February 1945 and there can be no doubt that the Spaniard saw these proofs made by Henri Deschamps. Undoubtedly, Braque had to show the Andalusian proofs of the lithographs of the book, as both did when they visited their respective studios, because otherwise the introduction would lack any sense. We will also recall that Deschamps, author of the feat, was the only person to whom Picasso authorized him to sign several works with him, essentially posters. Probably what Braque transmits to his friend Picasso while showing him the lithographic proofs of the book is the discovery of the technique, the environment of the Mourlot printing press, the smell of the inks, the slow work of the printer and the wonder of seeing the work 'stuck' on paper after passing through the stone, everything that fascinated him during his constant visits to Rue Chabrol in the long period that took the preparation of the book. Mourlot relates precisely that Picasso loved the environment of the printing press, “the noise of the machines, the smell of the ink, the contact with the workers”86. The reason behind the Andalusian's interest in not remembering the introduction of Braque could be sought in a general way in the rivalry between the two painters. The artistic competition between them since they leave cubism is well documented. Françoise Gilot brought to light in her book, full of criticism of Picasso, another alleged rivalry, the personal, or in other words, the jealousy that Picasso would feel towards Braque. Gilot finds the main reason for this in Picasso’s histrionic nature against the natural security of Braque and also in the quiet or 'exemplary' family life that the French leads as opposed to that of the disorderly Picasso, which would not fail to affect the Andalusian, who also aspired to normality and respectability. On one occasion, and after a discussion with Louis Aragon, Picasso tells Françoise: “I am as peculiar as he is and I would like my life to be exemplary, too”, adding shortly after: “And yes, I'm sure, my life is exemplary” 87. 86 87 Mourlot 1979, p. 24 Gilot & Lake, 1998, p. 365 65 According to Gilot, the jealousy that Picasso felt towards Braque manifested itself in a special way in his relations with common friends of the two painters. Françoise relates that one day the two showed up unannounced at Braque's house, finding that there were other visitors: critic and publisher Christian Zervos, poet René Char and Catalan sculptor and also ex-lover of Coco Chanel Apeles Fenosa. After causing the embarrassment of those present, Picasso became irritated and told Françoise that his friends probably spent all their time at Braque's house, while they never came to see him. He was so worried about the matter that, according to Françoise, he even sent spies to Braque's house to find out who was visiting him. Françoise particularly recalls that the Spaniard could not stand the fact that poet Pierre Reverdy, who often came to see him at his residence in Grands Augustins when he briefly passed through Paris, leaving his seclusion next to the Abbey of Solesmes, told him that he was in a hurry because he had to see Braque. If Picasso showed up at Braque’s and found there Reverdy, the painter exploded: Reverdy did not love him anymore, “He prefers Braque”88. Dora Maar told John Richardson that when Braque was hospitalized in 1938, a nurse had prevented Picasso from entering his colleague's room, claiming that Madame Braque was with him at the time. “But don’t you realize that Madame Braque is me?” replied Picasso 89. And in a dedication of a copy of Braque le Patron, Jean Paulhan comments ironically: “Picasso says (to be nasty): Braque is the woman who has loved me the most. To which Braque responds: I do not regret, he has returned it to me with profits” 90. Richardson tells several anecdotes about the relationship between Picasso and Braque: “Picasso always asked me for news of Braque, while Braque never asked me for news of Picasso”. One day, at his home in Cannes La Californie, Picasso invited Braque and Richardson to come to his studio to show them his latest production. Braque declined (he had promised to try David Douglas Duncan's new Mercedes), which made Picasso furious and jealous91. In his biography of the Andalusian, Penrose quotes in passing a visit by Braque to Picasso in Vallauris in 1951, indicating only that Picasso’s buffoonery intimidated 88 Gilot & Lake, 1998, p. 196 Richardson, John The Sorcerer’s apprentice, Pimlico, Londres 2001, p. 182 90 Text of the dedication: “"Autres propos de Braque : Bonnard , c'est tout à fait beau, c'est même splendide. Mais pour s'en apercevoir, quel ennui ! il faut passer par la peinture. Picasso ! Il est capable de prendre un tableau de Bonnat, et d'y rajouter de la qualité. Picasso dit (méchamment) : Braque, c'est la femme qui m'a le mieux aimé. A quoi Braque : je ne regrette rien, il me l'a bien rendu. Autres : il n'y a pas de doute. Le portrait ressemble à Duranty. C'est dommage qu'il ne ressemble pas aussi à un homme..." See catalog from Le Feu Follet (31 rue Henri Barbusse - 75005 PARIS) http://www.edition-originale.com/images/catalogues/46.PDF 91 Richardson, 2001, p. 182 66 89 Braque but that he laughed at him, immediately clarifying: “We laugh, but not of you, but with you, out of sympathy for your ideas” 92. The personal jealousy that Picasso felt according to Gilot with regard to Braque manifested itself in a concrete way with the publication of Jean Paulhan's book, despite the fact that the Spaniard repeatedly denies to Françoise having read it. Pierre Cabanne says that the book had upset him and his anger lasted several days. Paulhan had been trying for years to dismantle his primacy within Cubism, with articles, conversations or letters, which always reached the Andalusian. And Picasso naturally turns against Braque, who really has nothing to do with the strategy 93. Although the Spaniard claimed that he had never read the book, this statement must not be trusted. In fact, the relative personal distancing with Braque is due to the political circumstances of the moment, but it crystallizes precisely with the book, whose text had already been published by the author in 1942. If the lithographs of the book Braque le Patron were the only thing that Braque could have shown to Picasso, we still need to obtain evidence of visits of Picasso to Braque before the Spanish painter’s landing in the workshop of Rue Chabrol in November 1945. We are interested in particularly in all the contacts between the two friends between January 1942 and November 1945, that is during the period that separates the beginning of work in the lithographs and the arrival of Picasso at Rue Chabrol. But these proofs are not easy to obtain, perhaps because of the vehemence with which Picasso and Sabartés concealed the influence of Braque in the decision to go to Mourlot's printing press. Or simply because since the appearance of Paulhan's text, biographers and critics knew that Picasso could not be asked about Braque. It was a taboo subject from a political, personal and artistic point of view. Both Sabartés and Picasso examined in detail all the books and articles that appeared about the him, and their authors, if they wanted to maintain access to the painter, which they needed for their work and prestige, could not afford to disavow the Picasso version. Hence in the literature on Picasso a blank appears on contacts between the two painters, especially at that time. Due to the heavy political environment of the time, the deliberate attempt to conceal Picasso's contacts with Braque during the period of German occupation, and also the proverbial discretion of the French painter, there is not much evidence of personal visits between the two painters in the period that interests us. But there is a lot of evidence that the contacts were not broken at all. Pierre Daix points out that the relations between Braque and Picasso were closer than appearances suggested. In his 92 93 Penrose 1982, p. 452 Cabanne 1992 p. 230 67 Dictionnaire Picasso he indicates that the Andalusian never failed to show that he cared a lot about maintaining personal contacts with Braque, adding that the two painters gradually picked up the contact, and that the relations between the two were “much less (distant) than what expected Aimé Maeght, who tried to distance them after the Second World War, or than the comments by Françoise Gilot would reveal” 94. Penrose himself recalls for example that Picasso and Braque were often seen together in the cafes where the Surrealists met 95. The Briton also points out how Braque often came to eat at Picasso's house at number 23 on Rue de la Boétie 96. And Picasso had continued to live in this apartment until the beginning of 1942 97. Even after that date, the painter often goes there to have lunch with DoraMaar. A testimony confirming contacts in the years 1942 and 1943 has recently appeared. According to Yvette SzczupakThomas, adopted daughter of the Zervos, Picasso and the Braque couple came very often to their parents' house in those years, noting that despite the distance between the two, they came together when Paul and Nusch Éluard were at home 98. We can suppose that the joint presence of Picasso and Braque also occurred when the Éluards lived with the Leiris, a few meters from Picasso’s residence in Grands Augustins, as in fact confirmed the accredited presence of the Braque couple in Leiris house on March 19, 1944 in the reading of Picasso’s play Le Désir attrapé par la queue. Note also that despite the war and the German occupation, French cultural life continued to be very active. There were still exhibitions, concerts and theatrical performances, and Picasso took part in them as all the other actors in the constellation of artists and intellectuals who dominated artistic life. In fact, from the moment that Braque begins to go to Mourlot’s to work on the lithographs for the book, the two see each other often in various acts, both social, personal or even political, especially in the period closest to November 1945. One such occasion is the annual meeting of November 9 at the Père-Lachaise cemetery in commemoration of the death of the poet Gillaume Apollinaire And undoubtedly the two painters saw each other in the numerous exhibitions and book presentations that take place between 1941 and 1945. If Picasso was formally excluded for two years from exhibitions of State halls, his works continued to be sold in private galleries and as part of collective exhibitions in the period 1942-1944. The inaugurations 94 Daix 1995, p. 135. Penrose 1982 p. 341 96 Penrose1982, p. 329 97 Nash, Steven A. (Ed) Picasso and the war years 1937-1945, Thames and Hudson, San Francisco, 1998, p. 214 98 Szczupak-Thomas, Yvette Un diamant brut, Vézelay-Paris 1938-1950, Éditions Métailié, Paris 2008, p. 203 68 95 constituted for important painters and intellectuals 'legitimate' opportunities to see themselves in this difficult period. Among the main ones we can quote the following exhibitions of Picasso's works: June 1941: Musée de l'Orangerie March 1942: Galerie Rive Gauche May 1942: Presentation of the illustrated book by Picasso 'Buffon' October 1942: Bibliothèque Nationale July 1943 Galerie Art du Printemps December 1943: Exhibition Le Tèmps d'Apollinaire, at the Galerie René Breteau May 1944 Galerie René Breteau July 1944: Exhibition Bains de mer at the Galerie Paul Prouté, exhibition Maîtres de l'art Indédendant to inaugurate the Galerie Vendôme October 1944 Exhibition of 79 works by Picasso in the Autumn Salon at the Palais de Beaux Arts. November 1944: Exhibitions Maîtres et jeunes de l'art indépendant at the Galerie de France, and Paris at the Galerie Charpentier. December 1944: Exhibition of still lifes in the Galerie Visconti; exhibition of drawings in the Granoff and René Drouin galleries February 1945: Exhibitions and charity sales at the Martin Fabiani and Drouin galleries. May 1945: Exhibition Le Cubisme 1911-1918 at the Galerie de France. June 1945: Exhibition Peintures récentes in the Galerie Louis Carré. Another proof of the contacts between Picasso and Braque prior to 1945 is the death of the poet Max Jacob. When, on February 24, 1944, the friend of Picasso and Braque from the time of the Bateau Lavoir was arrested and sent to a concentration camp because he was a Jew by birth (he was a militant Catholic and Picasso had been his baptism godfather), his friends are mobilized in the way they could. But Jacob dies on March 5 of pneumonia in the Drancy concentration camp. And the two painters go to the funeral on the 18th of the same month, meeting again ten days later at a mass in homage to Jacob. The next day the two painters see each other again, for Braque and his wife come, invited by Picasso, to the home of the Leiris to read Le Désir attrapé par la queue. If they had been estranged, Braque and his wife would not have come to the appointment. Alex Danchev relates in his recent biography of Braque that Picasso visited Braque at his residence in Varengeville shortly before he made public his adhesion to the French Communist Party on October 4, 1944. 69 The Spaniard would have spent a week with Georges and Marcelle trying to convince him to take the step together with him, in order to cause a greater impact 99. Marcelle Braque thought, however, that what happened was that Picasso was afraid to do it alone. Braque also received the invitation to join the party from young actress Simone Signoret, who a decade later would be assiduous to Picasso and was then married to the film director Yves Allégret, member of the agitprop circle Groupe Octobre. Danchev cites as a source the diary of Dominican friar MarieAlain Couturier. Indeed, we see that this diary indicates in the entry of January 19, 1952: “Mrs. Braque tells me that three years ago Picasso came to spend eight days with them in Varengeville. It was to convince Braque to join the Communist Party with him. He did not want to go in alone” 100. The friar obviously confused Marcelle's information: what she said probably is that “eight years ago, Picasso came to spend three days”. In any case, Danchev also cites recordings of his conversations with Mariette Lachaud, Braque's secretary, to corroborate Picasso's stay with the Braques. It does not seem logical however that Picasso thought that Braque could take the step of joining the party with him, since he was very far from the postulates of the PCF, but it seems plausible that the Spaniard would like to explain his reasons to his friend, and perhaps to know at first hand what would be the reaction of Braque, and by extension, of the intellectuals not linked to the party, to his eventual decision to join the PCF in a formal way. There is also another testimony that because of the temporal proximity to the Autumn of 1945 is definitive to establish the link. It is also contributed by Alex Danchev in his Georges Braque: A life, in which he does not deal at all with the subject of Picasso's introduction to lithography. The author notes that in August 1945, Braque underwent a complex stomach ulcer operation. His doctors feared a fatal outcome, although in the end the operation did not incapacitate him more than a few weeks. During the most critical period, “an afflicted Picasso came to visit him every day”. The documentary source of this statement are two letters from Braque wife Marcelle precisely to Jean Paulhan dated August 20 and 28, 1945, that is, just when Braque is prostrate. It is not therefore a memory evoked in a subsequent conversation, but letters written at the time. In fact, Marcelle –which had been presented to Braque by Picasso himself– fixes the only period of total distancing between the two painters between 1947 and 1951101, which is, significantly, the hardest period of ostracism of the PCF in France and in which the party exhibits in a more ostentatious way Picasso’s communist militancy. 99 Danchev, Alex Braque: A life, Arcade Publishing, New York, 2005, p. 226 Couturier, Marie-Alain ‘Se garder libre. Journal 1947-1954’, Éditions du Cerf, Paris, 1962, p. 135 101 Danchev 2005, p. 233 70 100 Françoise Gilot, who shared the life of Picasso at the time, testifies to the close bond that united the two painters at that time, but does not provide either in his book or in later testimonies the evidence we seek. The reason is that she did not move to live with the Spaniard until the end of May 1946. Until then, the social life she does with Picasso is limited to what the painter decides. Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington, who wrote her 1988 book after having long interviews with Françoise, indicates in this sense that for a long time everyone in Paris was unaware of the existence of her new lover, and that Picasso does not begin to introduce her to his acquaintances until December 1945, when he was already attending Mourlot's workshop, where he also takes Françoise too 102. In addition, regarding the encounters of the two painters in the months preceding November, the problem is that Françoise had left Picasso at the beginning of the summer, refusing to accompany him to the Riviera, and she does not return to visit him in his studio on the Rue des Grands-Augustins until November 26, when the painter has been going to the Mourlot workshop every day for three weeks. In any case, Gilot documents in his book the frequency and intensity of contacts between the two friends as of that date, which suggests that these also took place at the time of Françoise's absence or when her relationship with Picasso was not consolidated. Françoise, on the other hand, was not at all appreciated by Picasso's entourage, of which Dora Maar was part. The Zervos hated her, and Christian described her the first day he saw her: “She’s dangerous. She’s a bourgeois goat” 103. In fact, we can assume that given his special relationship with Braque, Picasso could have tried to avoid the presence of Françoise when he met him. Gilot herself attests to this when she says that Picasso decided to introduce her to Braque only a few weeks after she went to live with him, that is, in the summer of 1946, when they had been dating for three years. He adds that the Spaniard wanted to see his friend's reaction when he saw her. In a typical maneuver, Picasso presents himself without warning at the home of the Frenchman at number 6 on Rue du Douanier (now Rue Braque). The initiative to carry out an unannounced visit can also indicate that their meetings at that time are usual and not sporadic. In any case, Braque reacts with his usual courtesy and shows them the last paintings he had painted. But the Spaniard is angry at the attitude of his friend, underlining to Françoise the difference with Matisse’s attitude, who had received them most warmly calling Françoise for her first name from the first moment, while Braque had called her 'Miss' all time. The Andalusian made Françoise understand that he had taken her to the home of Braque to present her formally, while he avoided formalizing the recognition that 102 103 Huffington 1989, p. 320 Szczupak-Thomas 2008, p. 293 71 Picasso expected. And finally, Picasso complains that Braque has not even invited them to eat! 104 The difference in attitude of Braque and Matisse to Picasso’s conquests can be explained by their character: monogamous the first and womanizer the second. Following this incident, Françoise indicates in her book that Picasso withdrew from his studio a painting by Braque that he had exchanged with the Frenchman and that he adored: “a still life with coffee, lemons and apple”. Françoise is wrong, because there are no lemons, but two apples. It is the small 1942 canvas Théière et pommes that had just exchanged with Braque for one of his 105. Picasso will try to repeat the trick a few months later, taking Françoise again to Braque’s place. The detailed story that, overstatig the facts, Gilot makes of this second meeting perfectly illustrates the intimacy, rivalry and the opposite character of the two painters. This time, Picasso plans the unannounced visit just before lunchtime, stating that if this time he does not invite them for lunch he will 'break' the relationship with him. When they arrive at the house of Braque they find that he had a visit: a nephew of the painter, "even more reserved" than himself. A scent of roasted lamb invaded every corner of the house. Everything was served so that the Spaniard could get away with it: Braque could not enjoy his lunch without acting discourteously with his friend and Françoise: either he invited them to sit down to eat or he pushed them to leave. But Braque knew Picasso well and avoided falling into the trap. And he treated them with the same courtesy and kindness as before. His secretary Mariette Lachaud showed them his latest paintings in the studio. Braque then ignored Picasso's insinuations about what was cooking in the kitchen, then went on to show them his latest sculptures, after which Picasso returned to lash out with a comment about the roast, which in his view should be more than done, if not already burnt. The imperturbable Braque responded with an invitation to Françoise to see his latest lithographs (probably his Hélios series, edited that same year by Maeght). Note that in those days Picasso went every day to Mourlot's workshop, and probably saw there the proofs of the Braque plates. While they were at it, Braque's wife, Marcelle, entered the studio several times, as if to remind her husband that the roast and his nephew were waiting in the dining room. The Andalusian reacted by asking his friend to show Françoise his works from the Fauvist period, because he knew perfectly well that such works were precisely hung in the dining room and his anteroom. After examining the pictures present in the dining room, where they observed that the table was ready for only three people, Picasso returned to attack 104 Gilot & Lake 1998, p. 190 Théière et pommes, 1942 Oil on canvas 26 x 65 cm. Musée National Picasso de París : RF 1973-57 72 105 with the food, noting that this was probably already burned. When they had seen all the paintings, the Andalusian told his friend that he wanted to re-examine a painting of his in the studio. Braque's nephew could not wait any longer, and at that moment he said goodbye, as he had to return to work. The three of them went back to the studio where they continued to examine several paintings, and when Picasso and Françoise were exhausted and hungry, they said goodbye. Braque had won the battle and quickly rose in esteem of the Spaniard, although the incident had initially angered him. In fact, after the visit, says Françoise, the painter reinstated Braque's painting in its privileged place in his studio in Grands Augustins.106 Françoise tells other anecdotes of the many visits that the two painters exchange, noting that Braque often visited them on the Cote d'Azur. And we are talking about the period in which, according to Marcelle Braque, the two friends are more distanced. In short, the numerous contacts during the period of preparation of the book in the workshop of Mourlot, the documented visits of Picasso to Braque in 1944 and 1945, those that preceded them and those that should have followed during the convalescence of the French, do not leave any doubt about the fact that Picasso had to admire the proofs of Braque le Patron's lithographs before presenting himself at the Mourlot workshop in November of that year. In fact, the discreet Braque surely did not tell him that the lithographs in which he worked were intended to illustrate the book whose text he knew had irritated his friend. Note also that Picasso was able to place in separate compartments the friendship or proximity he felt for people or institutions and the confrontations he might have with them for political reasons. Thus he remained faithful to the PCF despite the numerous attacks he received from the party and kept his friendship with Cocteau, Braque or Aragon despite their differences during the occupation or post-war period. His technique was simple: not to mention the sensitive issues of politics with them. 106 Gilot & Lake 1998, pp. 191-194 73 6. Nazis and collaborationists against Picasso The irritation of Picasso that gives rise to the concealment of the introduction to Mourlot by Georges Braque is mostly rooted in the feeling that he has not been treated as he should during the occupation, not so much by the Germans, who were his declared enemies and from whom he did not expect or wish to receive any advantage, but by the French themselves. And this awakens in him a certain desire for revenge. In a similar way, Picasso will estimate that the contribution of the Spanish republican exiles to the liberation of France has not been sufficiently recognized. Even once Paris was liberated and the war was over, his positioning on the side of the communists contrasts with that of some of his friends or acquaintances, including Braque, who align themselves with the rising Gaullism or refuse to join any party and show their disapproval for the policies supported by Picasso's political allies. Around the attitude and activity of Picasso during the German occupation of France have circulated two 'myths' or perceptions. The first was disclosed in Western Europe and the United States when the painter adheres to the PCF and he is presented as a figure of the resistance, and the second notes that, on the contrary, Picasso had no connection with the resistance and spent the period comfortably installed at home and enjoying numerous privileges. Both betray reality and have their origin in misunderstandings, because they were disclosed with intentions that did not correspond to the result obtained. But the paradigm that emerges from them is closer to the second than to the first. The myth of the Picasso that passes the occupation without problems and with a certain comfort is the 74 consequence of an intellectual pirouette of the conservatives after the denigration of which the painter is object when his affiliation to the party becomes public. Those who, being a minority among the intellectuals and the population in general, had slandered him during the occupation for political reasons, renew their attacks now that, at the dawn of the Cold War, they have greater popular support and even the complicity of many intellectuals. First they denounce his adherence to the PCF and under the table accuse him of having lived comfortably during the occupation. As for the perception of Picasso as an icon of the resistance, it does not originate, as one might think, in the communist party itself, but it comes largely from the United States, as a natural continuation of the characterization of the painter as standard bearer of the anti-fascism that binds together the supporters of the entry into the war of the United States. The main source of this perception was Alfred Hamilton Barr, Jr., the first Director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and promoter of Picasso's retrospective of September 1939, just as the war began, centered on Guernica and its preparatory work. In 1943, the museum once again exhibited the mythical painting and on July 26 (three months before Barr's dismissal) it issued a press release in which it underlined the premonitory nature of the work and affirmed that Guernica had been a test of a Nazi technique repeated later in the bombings of Warsaw, Rotterdam, London, etc. In this communication was quoted, in our view for the first time, the anecdote of the visit of the German Ambassador in Paris Otto Abetz to Picasso's study, in which the diplomat, upon seeing a sketch of Guernica, asks the painter “Did you do that ?” To which the painter would have responded “No, you did it”107. When in 1944 Barr prepared a corrected and enlarged version of his catalog of the exhibition of 1939, a version that would become his celebrated Picasso: Fifty Years of His Art108, the critic decided to turn the Andalusian into a hero of the resistance. In anticipation of the conclusions of the book, Barr published in the January 1945 issue of the museum bulletin an article about Picasso's activities during the war. And his article begins in the following way: “Reports from Paris –and these are now numerous enough to constitute a provisional consensus– suggest that while Picasso's art is facing some hostile prejudice in liberated France, his position in the Resistance movement is of unique importance. Though not a Frenchman, he stayed in Paris when a good many leading French artists spent the war working quietly in the provinces, left the country 107 See MoMA press release dated July 26, 1943 Guernica shown. http://www.moma.org/docs/press_archives/891/releases/MOMA_1943_0043_194307-26_43726-40.pdf?2010 108 Barr, Alfred H. Picasso: Fifty Years of His Art, The Museum of Modern Art/ Simon and Schuster, New York, 1946. This book served as Barr’s PhD thesis. 75 entirely (for cogent reasons), or in afew shameful cases they stayed to 'collaborate' with the Germans”. In the third paragraph, Barr points out that “During these four years ... his very existence in Paris encouraged the Resistance artists, poets and intellectuals, who gathered in his studio or about his café table”. Following these lines, Barr quotes American journalist Gladys Krieble Delmas, who lived in Paris during the occupation and states in an article that would be published the following month in the magazine Magazine of Art: “Picasso’s presence here during the occupation became of tremendous occult importance... his work has become a kind of banner of the Resistance Movement”. Barr's intention was good, but reaffirming Picasso's militancy in a resistance composed essentially of communists when the gallerists established in the United States, like Paul Rosenberg, or those who sold a lot to Americans like Kahnweiler tried to calm the irritation caused in the country by the adhesion to the PCF was not doing Picasso any favor. The market price of his paintings had fallen in the few months that followed the announcement. Christian Zervos –always kept well-informed by his friend Kahnweiler– is aware of the impact that the adhesion was having on Picasso's quotation in the USA. He read Barr's article, and knowing that it constitutes the basic thesis of the book that he is preparing, he hastens to write to ask him to moderate the tone of his characterization of Picasso as a hero of the resistance. Kahnweiler anticipates the campaigns against 76 Picasso that will be developed in the United States, and that will include retreats of paintings, boycotts and denigrating articles. In his letter of March 28, 1945, the alarmed Zervos says to Barr: “I have just read the note you have published on Picasso-as-Resistance worker in the Bulletin of the Museum. For the love of Picasso, do not include these notes in a book on the artist”. Adding that the sources were just “bad journalism”, he insisted that “The participation of Picasso in the Resistance is false. Picasso simply kept his dignity during the Occupation the way millions of people did here. But he never got involved in the Resistance”. And he asks Barr to realize that Picasso’s work itself was the greatest form of resistance. not only against an enemy, but against millions of presumptuous imbeciles ... Do not be influenced by non existent heroics. There were heroes in France, but they either paid with their lives or asked for silence to respect their actions109. Barr then decides to adhere to the interpretation of Zervos, and notes in his book that the press accounts of Picasso's activities during the Occupation had been "embellished by journalistic legends." According to Michael Fitzgerald, before doing so he had decided to consult Picasso through a friend, James Plaut, who at that time was working in Paris at the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, predecessor of the CIA), investigating the pillage of works of art by the Nazis. Plaut delivered a questionnaire of questions written by Barr to Jaime Sabartés, secretary and, as we saw earlier, censor of the books about Picasso. The answers of Sabartés, as always written in function of the interests of the painter, could not but confirm the interpretation of Zervos110. And from there, the words of Zervos became the basis of the paradigm that would inspire all the comments of authors about the period of the Occupation: Picasso had not participated in the Resistance and limited himself to maintaining his dignity, “like millions of French”. The vehement correction of Zervos, completed by the attacks of the right, could not but derive in another interpretation, which pretended that the Andalusian had lived comfortably and enjoyed numerous perks from the occupants. We may in this sense ask to what extent the risk assumed by Picasso, his security, would have changed if the painter had participated in the Resistance. Or did his friends Zervos, Éluard, Leiris or Aragon with whom he ate and saw often, or even Jean Paulhan, all of whom boasted after the war of having participated in the movement, lived a more risky existence during the Occupation? The answer is clearly not. The adopted daughter of Zervos Yvette Szczupak-Thomas describes the atmosphere 109 Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Papers, [8.3], The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York See Fitzgerald, Michael Reports from the Home Fronts: Some Skirmishes over Picasso’s reputation, in Nash 1998, p. 119 77 110 that reigned in the Latin Quarter during the occupation as a “deep peace”. Éluard enters the Resistance (of intellectuals) in 1942, but still lives in Paris, housed in the home of the Zervos or the Leiris and is not disturbed at any time. He just had to hide in a hospital in Saint-Alban-surLimagnole only between November 1943 and February 1944. Leiris, who also spent the war in Paris, carried out some dangerous activity, such as harboring Jews and resistants in his home, but suffers no special persecution. Zervos and his militant wife Yvonne maintain their activity during the Occupation and travel between Paris and their farm La Goulotte in Vezelay, 220 km from the capital, without being questioned by the Germans. They hide, against remuneration, works of art by Jewish friends. And they even publish with tranquility in 1942 the second volume of Picasso's reasoned catalog, dedicated precisely to the Cubist era, reviled by the Germans. As for Aragon, he had remained in the "free zone" (Vichy) during the war and his activities as an "intellectual resister" did not cause him any major difficulties, traveling to Paris frequently and meeting his friends. And finally Jean Paulhan, the top emeritus resistant of the group, lived without difficulties in Paris as director of the important publisher La Pléiade, with considerable power, surrounded by German friends and being taken out of the Nazi cells by his friend Drieu La Rochelle when his intellectual resistant activities put him in a bad position. And he only spends in the Resistance one year, that is, he joins it in 1943 when everyone knows that Germany will lose the war. JeanPaul Sartre, who continued to publish and premiere his theater during the Occupation, recognized when it was over: “Each of our actions was ambiguous: we never knew if we should feel guilty for what we did or rather approve we were doing; a subtle poison corrupted our best initiatives”111. In reality, what happened was not that Picasso did not participate in the resistance, but that he refused, for various reasons, to seek after the liberation an accreditation as a member of the resistance, which would have been very easy for him. There was then a true market in which with the right contacts, and Picasso had them, it was easy to obtain such accreditation in any of its categories: combatant, messenger, deportee, etc. It is true that the Germans did everything possible to, if not attract, at least neutralize the French, and particularly Parisian 'intelligentsia' 112. With their little corruptions, compliments, offers of more coal, etc., they did not manage to atract to their cause more than a handful of second111 Sartre, Jean-Paul, Paris sous l’occupation, in Situations III: Lendemains de Guerre, NRF/Gallimard, Paris 1977, p. 37 112 See Guégan, Stéphane Les arts sous l'occupation : Chronique des années noires, Beaux Arts Éditions, Paris 2012 78 class figures, but they did manage to calm the others, thus avoiding an open war and having to carry out raids of artists, which would have served poorly the propaganda interests of the Reich. One of the most ridiculous, but well-known, episodes of those Nazi efforts was the trip made in October 1941 by a handful of French painters to Germany, in return, they say, of a promised release of prisoners. Four important painters accept the invitation: André Dunoyer de Segonzac, Maurice de Vlaminck, Kees van Dongen and André Derain, the last two friends of Picasso. The trip will condemn painters to ostracism in the years after liberation. But Braque will oppose the sanctions, stating that he himself did not travel because they had not been asked, but that if there had been guarantees that they were going to release prisoners, he himself could have made the trip 113. With Picasso, the German occupiers were somewhat careful. But of course they did not treat him with the deference they used with other noncollaborationist French painters, no doubt because of his character as an anti-fascist symbol and his status as an exiled Spanish republican that had signified himself in the criticism of the German intervention in the war in Spain. If the Germans were not harder on him, that is, if he was not arrested and deported, it was because Picasso already belonged to a special category. Guernica was fortunately sent to New York a few months before the outbreak of World War II, and that is where Picasso's universal fame was built. Before the German troops entered Paris in June 1940, the Museum of Modern Art in New York had organized the aforementioned exhibition with more than 300 works (Picasso: 40 years 113 Mourlot 1973, p. 100. 79 of his art, from 11. 15.1939 to 01.07.1940 , prolonged in other museums later). The retrospective in the United States makes the Andalusian to the eyes of Americans, and also of the rest of the world, the most important artist of the 20th century. Picasso had gone from being a relative unknown to world public opinion to enjoying star status. That makes the Germans careful when dealing with the 'degenerate painter'. But this consideration did not prevent Picasso from taking on the risks involved in seeing members of the resistance every day, going to see Christian and especially Yvonne Zervos to their offices or their flat on Rue du Bac. In the premises of publisher Cahiers d'Art, at number 145 of the Rue du Dragon, 500 meters from Picasso's studio, the members of the 'intellectual resistance' meet, often in the presence of the Spanish painter, and they store clandestine publications. He also assumed a certain risk by going to the Leiris apartment and spending hours there chatting with the person who topped the list of most wanted "criminals" of the Gestapo in France. After escaping from an internment camp in Germany, Laurent Casanova , former secretary of Maurice Thorez, is hosted in May 1942 by Leiris, who discreetly warns the painter that he has hidden at home a hero of the party sought by the Gestapo. Casanova's wife, Danielle, also in the resistance, has just been arrested along with the philosopher Georges Politzer and other PCF militants. The author of the Elementary Principles of Philosophy was executed in May and Danielle was deported to Auschwitz, where she died the following year. In the many hours spent together in the house of Leiris, Picasso is fascinated by the intelligence and vehemence of Laurent Casanova. With him he can have ideological discussions that he probably would not dare to have with Éluard or Leiris and from him he can accept sermons that in no way could he consent to them. Picasso also took certain risks when attending burials or funerals of Jews or Resistance members. The attitude of the Andalusian after the arrest of Max Jacob has been criticized in numerous books, which claim that he disregarded the fate of his old friend, starting with Pierre Cabanne himself, who, although he denies some interpretations, concludes that 80 “Picasso, it is true, did not move a single finger to save Max” 114. The attack against Picasso has its origin in a text taken up by numerous authors. This is the biography of Max Jacob published in 1962 by the controversial anti-communist journalist Pierre Andreu, friend of the collaborator Pierre Drieu La Rochelle. He states that when he finds out about the arrest by a friend who asks him to intervene on his behalf, “Picasso will not do anything ... answering 'It's not worth doing anything, Max is a goblin. He does not need help to escape from prison” 115. The accusation is reiterated by the same author in a new biography published in 1982, in which he only changes that Max Jacob was not a goblin, but “an angel” and states that when Jean Cocteau prepares a petition to the German embassy, the Spaniard refused to sign116. This version is denied outright when this last book appears by Georges Prade, the high-ranking official who coordinates the actions in favor of Jacob and in whose office of the Paris City Hall the petition is written, who in a letter to the newspaper Le Figaro contradicts Andreu and he states bluntly: “Picasso, from whom I was separated by a political abyss, nevertheless placed himself at my complete disposition and I had to deploy great efforts to prevent him from signing the document... Psychologically, I believed that his endorsement would not be of any use to us, especially because (the German authorities) had just questioned him” 117. About the funeral of Max Jacob it has also been said that Picasso had not attended the mass. Andreu affirms in 1962 that the Spaniard “will avoid entering the church of Saint-Roch ... and will prefer to remain in the street as a stroller” 118. And priest and painter known as Abbot Morel comes to affirm in his description of the funeral that “Picasso had forewarned to apologize for not coming, since everyone who goes will be arrested” 119. Andreu insists in 1982: “Picasso will also avoid attending on March 21 Saint-Roch to pay a last tribute to his martyr friend” 120. The controversy should have closed with a book appeared between 1963 and 1967 121, which however is not known in France and is therefore not available to the Picasso biographers in France. These are the memoirs of Spanish 114 Cabanne 1992, p. 157 Andreu, Pierre Max Jacob, Wesmael-Charlier, Paris, 1962, p. 79 116 Andreu, Pierre Vie et mort de Max Jacob, Éditions de la Table Ronde, Paris 1982, p. 292. 117 Seckel, Helene & Chevriere, Emmanuelle (ed) Max Jacob et Picasso (Catálogo de exposición), Réunion des Musées Nationaux, París, 1994, p. 275 118 Andreu 1962, p. 80 119 Morel, Maurice Max Jacob post mortem, publicado en Denoël, Jean In Memoriam Max Jacob, Les Amis de Max Jacob, Paris, 1974, pp. 51-55 120 Andreu 1982, p. 293 121 Corpus Barga, Los pasos contados: una vida española a caballo en dos siglos (1887-1957). Ediciones de EDHASA y Alianza Editorial Visor (1963-1979 y 2002) Cited in Max Jacob et Picasso, 1982, p. 276 81 115 journalist Corpus Barga (pseudonym of Andrés García de Barga and Gómez de la Serna, uncle of Ramón Gómez de la Serna and correspondent in Paris of the Madrid newspaper El Sol) who recounted that he was in the studio of Picasso on Friday, March 17, 1944; that the two decide to go together to the funeral to be held the following day, and that they are there, among others, with Apeles Fenosa, Derain, Reverdy and all the Picasso clan (Sabartés, DoraMaar, the painter's driver). But those who came could not attend the funeral that day, since the appointment was the result of confusion. On Tuesday, March 21, they will all meet again, including Picasso, with fifty other people, including Braque, André Salmon, Paul Éluard, Cocteau, Coco Chanel and Mauriac at the poet's funeral. Note that a concentration of 60 people at a funeral for a Jew dead in a concentration camp was not banal, and that those who summoned the attendants actually informed a smaller number, to prevent the act from degenerating into a manifestation that irritated the Germans, who were nervously waiting for the landing of the Allied troops that took place two and a half months later. Picasso had not hesitated either in August 1943 to attend the funeral of Jewish painter Chaïm Soutine, who had been transported from his hiding place in the Touraine region to Paris to be operated on in an intervention that did not save his life. Picasso had little contact with Soutine, and his attendance can only be interpreted as a gesture of solidarity with the deceased and with the few people, some hiding their yellow stars, who went to the Montparnasse cemetery, where the painter’s remains are deposited without declaring his status as an Israelite. On March 19, 1944, the day after the first date for Jacob's funeral, Picasso invited his friends, including Braque and Marcelle, to the home of the Leiris at 53bis of the Quai des Grands Augustins, less than 100 meters from the Picasso's residence study, to read the painter’s theatrical surrealist farce Le Désir attrapé par la queue. The text was read by a handful of friends and intellectuals, each of whom 'interpreted' a character, under the direction of Albert Camus: Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, Michel and Louise Leiris, Georges and Germaine Hugnet, Jean Aubier, Raymond Queneau and Zanie Campan. Among the other attendees were Pierre Reverdy, Jacques Lacan, Cécile Éluard, JeanLouis Barrault, Georges and Sylvia Bataille, Maria Casares, Valentine Hugo, Henri Michaux, and the couple of Argentine landowners Juan Antonio and Rosa Fernández-Anchorena, owners of the Palace of the same name of Buenos Aires, who were asking Picasso to paint... the door of their Parisian house. The occasion is an event in Paris intellectual life. After the performance, Picasso invites the 'actors' and spectators to his residence of Grands Augustins. The representation is in fact a new homage of Picasso to the poet, since it takes place in front of the portrait of Max Jacob that Picasso had drawn in 1915 (Zervos VI.1284), and that 82 the painter has transported expressly to the home of the Leiris. Picasso will offer this portrait as a farewell gift to DoraMaar, who had played the role of Angustia Gorda in the performance, and who was already in psychiatric treatment in the hands of Jacques Lacan, who accompanies her to the home of the Leiris. This portrait of 32.5 x 24.5 cm was taken to auction in October 1998 by the Parisian house PIASA in the framework of the succession of DoraMaar, who had died the previous year, but was removed from the sale to be included in the Dation in payment of inheritance rights. It ended therefore in the Picasso Museum of Paris (MP1998-307). The reality is that Picasso helped in what he could, including financial aid, his friends members of the resistance Éluard, Aragon, Jean Cassou, Hugnet and Robert Desnos, who knew they had in the studio of the painter a safe haven, and he also gave refuge there to resistant André Malraux122. That 'consideration' that the occupants had with Picasso did not prevent him from suffering humiliations as his being summoned to be deported to a workers camp or several other problems with the 122 Nadel, Ira B. Modernism's Second Act: A Cultural Narrative, Palgrave Macmillan, Nueva York, 2013, p. 39. This book contains in its first chapter Art and Occupation (pages 15-48) a description of Picasso's dangerous activities during the occupation. 83 German authorities. The members of the Gestapo, who acted with total independence from the German military authorities, forced entry several times into the Grands Augustins studio, especially after the denunciations that right-wing intellectuals published against Picasso and which are discussed below. Once, in 1943, it was DoraMaar who warned by telephone André-Louis Dubois, who had been Deputy Director of National Security and who did what he could to help him in moments of difficulty with the police or the occupying forces. When Dubois hears two sentences from the photographer “I am Dora. They are at Picasso's home”, he knows whom she is talking about and leaves quickly for Gands Augustins, where he crosses in the courtyard two guys dressed in the gray-green raincoat of the Gestapo and ask him to show his papers. Then he goes up to the second floor where Picasso tells him: “They have insulted me, treated me as a degenerate, as a communist, as a Jew. They have kicked around the pictures and told me they will come back”123. It is is this atmosphere that the painter receives a communication dated September 16, 1943, from the German Forced Labor Service in Paris, which orders him to show up for deportation. Two months later, in November, during a routine inspection in the restaurant Le Catalan, the food supplies agents caught the Andalusian tasting a chateaubriand despite the restrictions that forbade meat three days a week and imposed him a large fine. More serious was another incident in which he was accused of illegal export of foreign currency and which is reported to us by lithographer Charles Sorlier, who discussed it with Arno Breker, Hitler’s favorite German sculptor, who traveled constantly to Paris. The Gestapo again searched the Grands-Augustins study and not even the francophile German Ambassador in Paris Otto Abetz could stop the investigation. According to Sorlier, Breker, a close friend of Cocteau, told him that to get Picasso out of trouble he had to go to Berlin and meet with the head of the Gestapo, General Heinrich Müller, who finally shelved the proceedings. Sorlier says that Breker even told him that when he related the episode to Hitler, he führer sided with him, stating that “in politics, all artists are innocent as Parsifal” 124. Actually, Breker did not take Picasso's problem to the chancellor. The quote corresponds to a conversation between Hitler and Himmler that Breker witnessed during a dinner in Berlin, but they did not talk about Picasso, but about painter Adolf Ziegler, President of the Reich Academy of Art (Reichskammer der bildenden Künste), who had participated in a trip to Spain in a secret attempt to agree with the allies to shorten the war. He was arrested by the Gestapo and prosecuted for treason. Hitler, however, instructed Himmler 123 Dubois, André-Louis Sous le signe de l'amitié, Éditions Plon, París 1972. Cited in Cabanne 1992, p. 131 124 Sorlier 1985, p. 174. 84 in the course of that dinner to release him adding: “You must understand once and for all that all the artists are completely ignorant when it comes to politics. The artists are like Parsifal”125. Although Picasso manages to go through the years of German occupation of France as all but one of his friends of the resistance, that is, without any irreparable incident, although much more uncomfortable than those who did not signify themselves, he is still the target of the attacks of the French collaborationists, inspired or encouraged by the Germans, attacks not suffered by his French colleagues and friends, not even those linked to the resistance. In the intellectual debate of the time, a few right-wing writers and artists, flattered by the occupants with attentions, gifts and travel, attack the 'degenerate art' they identified in Fauves, Cubists and Moderns. The first attack is the 1940 pamphlet Decadent Art, authored by American painter John Hemming Fry 126. These attacks take place in or around the magazines Comœdia and Nouvelle Revue Française. Comœdia was a publication founded by satirical writer Gaston de Pawlowski as a newspaper, disappeared in 1937 but which resurfaces with the occupation, published as a weekly newspaper between June 1941 and August 1944. NRF was the literary quarterly of publisher Gaston Gallimard, founded in 1908 under the inspiration of André Gide, and edited since 1925 by Jean Paulhan. NRF suffered many vicissitudes during the occupation: it was suspended with the armistice in June 1940 to reappear in December of that same year under a right-wing writer, Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, intimate of Paulhan and friend despite ideological differences of Aragon and Malraux. La Rochelle opens the publication to the collaborators, although Paulhan keeps an influence in the magazine and a small office. But the discredited NRF disappears in 1943, to be banned after liberation. Drieu La Rochelle commits suicide in 1945 and the magazine reappears in 1953, again under the direction of Jean Paulhan, who had managed to avoid confrontations with the Germans while establishing good relations with the resistance, becoming its factotum in the Parisian artistic, intellectual and political scene. The first person to directly denounce Picasso in French literary circles during the German occupation is the painter and writer Maurice de Vlaminck, who hated the Spaniard and managed to place an extremely violent article in the June 6, 1942 issue of Comœdia (Opinions libres... sur la peinture) in which he accuses him of having led French painting to a deadly impasse, to an indescribable confusion, to denial and impotence. “Picasso has drowned for several generations of artists the spirit of creation, faith, sincerity in work and life”, says Vlaminck. The 125 Breker, Arno The Collected Writings, West Art Pub, New York 1990 Fry, John Hemming , Art Decadent. Sous le Regne de la Democratie et du Communisme. H. Colas Librairie de L'alma, Paris, 1940 85 126 Frenchman considers Picasso as a grave thief who practices with cynicism bloodsucking in the history of art, falsifying the rules of the game, encouraged by accomplices who lead the public to a collective aberration. Also in that year, the historical magazine Le Mercure de France, which had been edited by the prestigious academic Georges Duhamel but had gone over to collaborationism, published a text signed Vanderpyl, which suggests that Picasso was Jewish. The same thesis appears later that same year re-edited in book form by the publisher of the magazine with the title L'art sans patrie, un mensonge: le pinceau d'Israël, signed by the same personage, but now with the complete name of Dutch art critic Fritz René Vanderpyl, who uses as a frontispiece a reproduction of a cubist portrait of Picasso representing Braque, as well as three other illustrations reproducing works by the Ashkenazi Jews Chagall and Sigmund Menkes and Sephardic Jules Pascin127. Vanderpyl was a friend of Vlaminck, who had illustrated his book Voyages in 1920. At the same time, emboldened right-wingers and French fascists spread the hoax according to which the Spanish painter would be Jewish, or at least 'half Jewish'. In any case, they say, he is surrounded by too many Jews. The accusation of being Jewish was not a banal matter in the Paris of 1942. If the first arrests of Israelites had already begun in 1940 and the first raid dates from May 1941; mass deportation to Auschwitz began in March 1942. On May 29, a German ordinance requires them to wear a yellow star of David. And in the so-called 'Free Zone' of Vichy, the French authorities start arresting foreign Jews to hand them over to the Germans. The denunciation of Picasso as a 'Jewish painter' does not fall on deaf ears and is repeated until shortly before liberation. The collaborationist journal Le Réveil du peuple publishes for example in March 1944 a text by Fernand Demeure (Explications de quelques maîtres modernes) in which it is stated: "Picasso is the Jewish delirium. He has the innate gift of pastiche and this natural thirst to destroy, as do all Jews or half Jews”128. But while collaborators criticize Picasso's 'degenerated painting' harshly, they refrain from doing so in the case of Braque. The difference in treatment in terms of the consideration as a degenerate artist between the two is palpable. In fact, the portrait of the Frenchman by Picasso reproduced in Vanderpyl's book belonged to the time when the paintings of both were perfectly interchangeable. The treatment that the French collaborationist intellectuals and the German looters of modern art give to the two painters is quite different. Walter Andreas Hofer, curator of the 127 Vanderpyl, Fritz-René L'art sans patrie, un mensonge: le pinceau d'Israël, Mercure de france, París 1942 128 Nash 1998, p. 230 86 Hermann Goering collection and factotum of the corrupt politician, told his boss in a letter dated September 26, 1941: “Braque's collection (of paintings) is owned by an Arian. Braque lives in Paris of his painting. His collection in Bordeaux has been placed under the German Foreign Currency Control authority and must therefore be released. I have personally negotiated with Braque about his Portrait of a young woman by Cranach and I have hinted at the possibility of releasing his collection if he were willing to sell his Cranach! ”129 They are not interested in Braque. He may be considered part of a school of painting declared globally degenerate, but like other painters of the same school, such as Vlaminck or Derain, these two classed as collaborators, he does not need a particular attention, which is not the case of Picasso, the only one of the painters of the time together with Fernand Léger (exiled in the USA) who is prohibited from exhibiting. For Gertje R. Utley, Picasso's declaration as degenerate, the pillage of his paintings in the collections of numerous Jewish dealers and collectors and the ostracism to which he is subjected by the collaborationists can only be explained by the leftist militancy of the painter and his identification with republican Spain. In fact Vanderpyil defined him as “red as the reddest of the Spanish revolutionaries”130. Comœdia, frightened by the violence of the protests provoked by the attack of Vlaminck against the Spaniard, offers its pages to a defender of Picasso, the painter André Lhote, who dismantles the validity of each and every one of Vlaminck's accusations in a article published in the issue of June 13, 1942 (Opinions libres... sur la peinture française), where he states: "You have to be very naive to believe that an article, even written by an artist, can change something in the evolution of painting. And you must be foolish to think that young people are sensitive to invectives that artists, according to a deplorable tradition, exchange over their easels, and wait for the grossest insult or the most evil occurrence to form an opinion”. Picasso does not react to Vlaminck's article or to Lhote's response, but he surely inspires another outraged reaction from young painters, headed by Jean Bazaine, who publish manifestos of protest in defense of Picasso in both Comœdia and Nouvelle Revue Française. What bothers Picasso in particular is that while he is attacked by the collaborationist establishment, Braque nevertheless receives its compliments. For example, Drieu La Rochelle published in April and August 1941 in Comedia highly flattering articles about Braque's art, exonerating him from the nickname of decadent painter. In the eyes of the 129 Reproduced in Alford, Kenneth D. Hermann Goring and the Nazi Art Collection, McFarland Publishing, Jefferson, N.C., 2012, pp. 54-55 130 Utley, Gertje R. Pablo Picasso: The Communist Years, Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2000, p. 28 87 German occupier, Braque represents an honorable way out of degenerate art. The powerful Paulhan not only had a hand in the NRF, then directed by his friend Drieu, but also had influence in Comœdia, to which he was passing the contributors who stopped writing in the Nouvelle Revue Française, too closely identified with the occupants. Jean Paulhan is ready to enter the fight. In May 1942 he began to write a study on Braque and communicated the fact to the painter in a letter: “Here is the beginning of my study ... I would like to call it Braque le Patron (in the Christian sense of the term, what men of the East would call a guru)... if the greatest painter was the one who had the most accurate, the most precise and the brightest ideas in painting, we should take Braque as our teacher, our teacher and our secret code” 131. After reading Vlaminck's ferocious attack on Picasso in June, Paulhan decides to complete the text, according to a letter to writer Henri Pourrat dated July 1. He completes the manuscript in the third week of August, and four months after Vlaminck's article, Paulhan publishes Braque le Patron in the same magazine, Comœdia, on October 31, 1942. Paulhan's text is not 'stained' by the publication in Comœdia, because in March of 1943 it is re-edited and with a profusion of illustrations, opening nº 13 of the unassailable magazine Poésie 43 of the resistant publisher Pierre Seghers, very close to Aragon 132. In his short essay on Braque, Paulhan talks about painting and the great painters of history. He speaks of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Monet, Signac, Turner, Watteau, and also of the creator tandem of Cubism formed by Braque and Picasso (not Picasso and Braque, but the other way around, and he repeats it three times). He goes on to point out that France has lived since the beginning of the 20th century the best 131 Cited by Vallier, Dora Braque, the Complete Graphics, Gallery Books, New York, 1988, p. 69. The french edition had been published in 1982 by Flammarion, Paris. 132 Revue Poésie 43, n° 13, March-April, Pierre Seghers, Avignon 1943 88 period that universal painting has ever known. Among all countries and all times, he affirms, France stands above the Italian Renaissance and of Flemish painting. The reason is that the era produces a modern beauty before which the beauty of the primitives and that of the classics pales 133. Finally, Paulhan sentences, Braque is not only the master of concrete relationships, but also of invisible relationships. Faced with the dilemma of knowing whether Braque is the most inventive or the most varied artist of our time, Paulhan concludes his essay saying that “if the great painter is the one who gives painting the sharpest and at the same time the most enriched idea, then Braque is undoubtedly the one I take as patron "134. Picasso can not forget either that Jean Paulhan, despite his subsequent prestige as a man of 'clandestinity', acted as artistic advisor to German officers and officials and even accompanied them on their visits to Picasso's studio, such as those documented by Gerhardt Heller, Hans Kuhn and Ernst Jünger. The Spaniard did not like Paulhan at all and it bothered him to have to endure him in the company of his friends even in the restaurant Le Catalan, which he considered as his own land for having been its discoverer and being located in front of his residence in Grands Augustins. When poet Jean Grenier asks Jean Paulhan for his friendship with Picasso, Paulhan replies: “If I am still Picasso's friend? I have written about Braque” 135. Picasso hated everything in Paulhan: his artistic and political ambiguity, his affectation and his verbal games that made that a conversation with him always turned into a battle in which the interlocutor always lost.136. Arianna Stassinopoulos points out that Picasso was exasperated by Paulhan's book. “He had never read the book, but the title had infuriated him. There was only one boss, a single uncontested teacher, and it was not Braque, not even Matisse, and certainly not Rouault, that Paulhan had dared to place on the same level. Now and forever, the boss was Picasso” 137 . Stassinopoulos has only been able to get her information from the conversations with Françoise, which are the basis of her book, but the 133 Paulhan, Jean Braque le Patron, Mourlot, París 1945, Luxury edition, p. 40. Paulhan, 1945, p. 47. Exact quote: « On a pu l’appeler le maître des rapports concrets, et je l’appellerais volontiers le maître des rapports invisibles. Et pourquoi Braque, me dira-t-on, plutôt que… ? Ici je ne puis répondre qu’une chose : c’est Braque (comme je l’ai dit) qui est venu me chercher. D’ailleurs ces questions de préséance sont fâcheuses. Je serais embarrassé de décider si Braque est l’artiste le plus inventif ou le plus divers de notre temps. Mais si le grand peintre est celui qui donne de la peinture l’idée la plus aiguë à la fois et la plus nourricière, àlors c’est Braque sans hésiter que je prends pour patron. » 135 Paulhan, Jean / Grenier, Jean : Correspondance 1925-1968, Calligrammes, Paris, 1984, p. 145. Cited in Circumventing Picasso : Jean Paulhan and his artists by Michèle C. Cone, in Nash 1998, p. 100. 136 Cabanne 1992, p. 196 137 Huffington 1989, p. 343 89 134 statement that he had not read Paulhan's text does not hold up. Picasso undoubtedly saw and read the book in 1945, but he also had to know Paulhan's text published in 1942 in Comœdia and republished in March 1943 in Poès 43. The weekly Comœdia was the place where the anouncements were published for exhibitions, shows and everything that happened in the Parisian art scene, and the painter had to read it. Moreover, as Stassinopoulos herself remembers, Picasso also learned of everything that was published about him in the press. For this he had a subscription to a precursor of the current specialized press magazines. Called Lit-Tout (Read-All), this service summarized for the painter everything that was said about him. When the painter was absent from Paris, Sabartés was in charge of reviewing the press clippings and summarizing them in long missives that he sent him unfailingly every day138. Since the painter was not far from the Diogenes syndrome 139, he kept all the Lit-Tout production in boxes. The complete collection of the press magazine that the painter received since 1918 was donated to the French State in 1992 as part of the Fonds Picasso that had been deposited in 1980 at the Direction des Musées de France and is now housed in the Picasso Museum in Paris140. Picasso had learned the usefulness of the press magazine service of his dealer Kahnweiler, who kept everything published in the press about Cubism in the early years of the century, as well as the reactions abroad to all his exhibitions141. Besides, we have a testimony that indirectly proves that Picasso did read Paulhan's text. It is again brought to us by Yvette Szczupak-Thomas, who placed precisely in that year of 1942 the sudden and peremptory demand of Picasso that Zervos and Yvonne break their relations with Braque, even though until then they had often seen themselves together with Éluard in the critic's house 142. In the Autumn Salon of 1943, the center of attention is the room dedicated to Braque, where 26 paintings and nine sculptures are exhibited. And just when his friend is elevated, Picasso receives a letter from the German Employment Office ordering him to present himself on September 20 for an aptitude test for eventual deportation to Germany to perform forced labor. Evidently, the Spaniard escapes forced recruitment for obvious reasons of notoriety and age, but the difference in treatment 138 Huffington, 1989, p. 348. See Madeline, Laurence & Ferri, Laurent Les archives de Picasso : « On est ce que l'on garde ! », Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris, 2003. 140 See the details of the Fonds Picasso, owned by the Direction des Archives de France and the Direction des Musées de France: http://www.archivesnationales.culture.gouv.fr/chan/chan/fonds/picassohtml/d0e95.ht ml 141 See Daix, 1995, p. 499 142 Szczupak-Thomas 2008, p. 211 90 139 exasperates him. It contributes to exasperate Picasso at that time, this is 1943, the fact that the young painters of the resistance who had defended him when he had been attacked by Vlaminck now praise Braque and hail him as their 'master'. A year after defending Picasso, Jean Bazaine publishes in Comœdia a laudatory article about Braque on the occasion of the Autumn Salon of 1943. And the clandestine magazine of the resistance L'Art Français does the same in its number 4 of that year. That irritates Picasso as much as his absence from the Salon, precisely the one that focuses on the works of Braque. Somehow, Picasso thought that it was again his status as a foreigner that excluded him from the artistic recognition enjoyed by Braque. Remember, for example, that Picasso complains to Brassai in 1943 that he has been deprived of the right to exhibit and publish, and that all his books are prohibited, as well as the reproduction of his works 143. Picasso will take revenge, and once the German occupation finished, and the Spaniard turned into a world symbol of victory over Nazism, the Autumn Salon of 1944 exhibits no less than seventy-four of his paintings and five sculptures. Picasso leaves the other painters of his time in the background, settling in the place of “boss”. The jealousy that Picasso felt, exacerbated by the events during the war and the attacks he received when he joined the PCF, pushed him perhaps to make an unhealthy comment to Françoise. Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington says in her Picasso, Créateur et destructeur that according to Picasso, Marcelle Dupré, Braque's wife, would have been his lover before introducing her to his friend. Not only that, but Picasso presented her as “the future Mrs Braque”. The Andalusian seemed to have a special matchmaker interest, as he accompanied the two to visit Braque’s parents at Le Havre. The writer quotes Françoise Gilot, who claims that Picasso had told him that he had acted deliberately, doing Braque a favor by passing him his lover, and another favor to Marcelle by providing her with a husband who did not know they had had sex. Thus, Marcelle owed him something more. In this way, the angry Françoise pretends that Picasso told her, “I avoid the risk of having an enemy in my friend's house”144 . On different occasions, there are attempts to tarnish Braque's democratic record, always on the part of Jean Paulhan's enemies. It is not a question of clear statements, of evidence, but of insinuations which it is difficult to keep track of. One of them dates from 1951, and the author of the attack is Edouard Pignon, who had married the previous year Hélène Parmelin and was living at that time his greatest intimacy with Picasso, with whom he lived for several months. According to the catalog of the great 143 144 Brassai, Conversation avec Picasso, N.R.F., Paris 1964, p. 77. Huffington 1989, p. 130 91 retrospective exhibition of Braque at the Grand Palais in Paris (September 2013-January 2014), “Braque suffers the animosity of certain colleagues, such as Pignon, who suspect his behavior during the occupation”. The only reference quoted is a letter from Braque to Paulhan, found in the poet’s archives by his granddaughter, in which the painter complains about the atmosphere of suspicion prevalent in France: "I already felt for some time a deaf hostility and a silence that did not deceive me ... I confess that those people so avid for heroism who can not speak but from a parapet do not inspire confidence. Then there is no man's land. My memories as a soldier remind me that this is where the bravest are to be evaluated” 145. And although it can be presumed that the source is not reliable, we can not fail to mention another attempt to tarnish Braque’s record, accusing him of fascist sympathies and collaboration. No less than John Richardson, Picasso's (and Braque’s) biographer, insinuates in 1999 in his autobiographical book The Sorcerer's Apprentice: Picasso, Provence and Douglas Cooper 146 that Braque would have been sympathetic in the interwar period with a group that the Briton calls 'fascist'. This it is the nationalist movement Les Croix de Feu, a group of ex-fighters of the First World War that some Anglo-Saxon historians have considered the expression of French fascism, more for its character as a mass party than for its postulates and methods. Although Richardson does not document what is more than likely a boutade of his controversial lover, the aristocrat, collector and Picasso expert Douglas Cooper, the quote is repeated later by some art historians, who go on from attributing to the French painter sympathy for the group to make him a member of it. The reason is that Richardson, despite writing only that Braque was sympathetic, said to whom wanted to hear it that he had in fact been a member of the movement. We have obtained in October 2013 confirmation of this fact from Professor Alex Danchev, who interviewed Richardson repeatedly on the occasion of the preparation of his book, which thus includes the term 'adhesion' 147. The accusation would be repeated during the Picasso and Braque symposium held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York between November 10 and 13, 1989, in parallel with the exhibition Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism that took place at the MoMA between September 24, 1989 and January 16, 145 Paulhan, Claire Braque vu par Paulhan, in Léal, Brigitte, Georges Braque: Rétrospective, Éditions de la Réunion des Musées Nationaux-Grand Palais, París 2013, pp. 210-211. 146 Richardson, John The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Picasso, Provence and Douglas Cooper, Pimlico, Londres, 2001, p. 182. 147 Danchev 2005, p. 224 92 1990 148. Richardson could only get the information from Cooper, and this in turn leads us to the Spanish painter, possibly in one of the famous dinners together at Cooper’s Château de Castille in Avignon, where Picasso made a stopover on some of his trips to the Riviera in the 50s. But Les Croix de Feu were no fascists. Founded in 1927, they are soon led by Colonel François de La Rocque, who had the support of the high army hierarchies. De la Roque manages to transform this association into an authentic populist political movement, of social-Christian inspiration, highly patriotic and anti-German. Even François Mitterrand belonged to one of the branches of the movement until it was dissolved by the Popular Front government in 1936. The reaction of the populists was to form a political party, the Parti Social Français, which on the eve of the war was the first party of France, with more than one million adherents. The trajectory of its politicians, and especially of François de Rocque, during the occupation belies the accusation of fascism: Rocque rejects the Vichy regime, collaborates with the resistance and with the British Intelligence Services and is finally deported in 1943 by the German occupiers to Czechoslovakia, where he remains in detention until liberation. The Croix de Feu were not precursors of fascism or collaboration, but rather of Gaullism. If we had to compare the Croix de Feu with a Spanish equivalent, this would not be the Falange of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, but the Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Rights (CEDA) of José María Gil-Robles, the great mass party of the Spanish right at the same time. And in any case, as Alex Danchev recalls, there is no evidence that Braque sympathized or belonged to any branch of the movement. In addition, identification with a political movement is at odds with Braque's character, who felt uncomfortable even when he was classified as a Fauvist or Cubist. But that did not stop him in 1938 from joining the Committee of support for artists persecuted by Nazism, formed to defend German sculptor and painter Otto Freundlich, along with Picasso, Arp, Cassou, Derain, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Gleizes , Léger, Max Jacob, Kandinsky, Lipchitz, Tauber-Arp and Max Ernst. Freundlich was arrested and interned immediately after the war started, allegedly because he was a German subject, although in reality it was because of his Jewish origins. Apparently, an intervention by Picasso, who appreciated him since they had been neighbors in the Bateau-Lavoir, obtained his liberation. But in 1943 he was re-interned and sent to the Lublin-Maidanek extermination camp in Poland, where he was killed along with tens of thousands of others 149. Despite the difference in treatment on the part of the Germans, there is evidence that Braque survived the occupation without lending 148 See Zelevansky, Lynn (Ed) Picasso and Braque, a symposium, MOMA/Abrams, Nueva York, 1992. 149 See Duvivier, Christophe: Otto Freundlich 1878-1943 , Musée Tavet-Delacour, Somogy Éditions, Paris 2009 93 himself, like Picasso, to any accommodation with the occupiers. On the contrary, in a discreet but firm way, both supported and helped as much as possible those who, for political reasons or because of their origin, were persecuted by the Germans. But, according to Yvette SzczupakThomas, the adopted daughter of Crhistian Zervos, the critic and his wife, despite having a long friendship with Braque, which they never broke, reproached the painter for “having closed his door, his heart and his wallet to the contemporary tragedies” and for not manifesting any political or humanitarian conscience150. But of course, many communists would say then the same thing of non-communists. A further reason for Picasso's anger at the book Braque le Patron is that Paulhan, despite having impeccable credentials as a member of the resistance for at least a year and a half (War Cross, Medal of Resistance, Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor), at the end of the war heads within the National Committee of Writers the defense of the collaborationist authors, confronting Louis Aragon and Paul Éluard who proposed their purge. And it was precisely Éluard and Aragon who accompanied Picasso in his decision to join the Communist Party on October 4, 1944, just two days before the inauguration of the Autumn Salon. The day before the announcement of his accession to the PC, in an effort diametrically opposed to that of Paulhan, Picasso had gathered in his own residence of Grands Augustins the Steering Committee of the National Front of the Arts, which asked the Chief of Police to arrest and judgment of certain artists, while requesting that others, such as Derain, Segonzac, Maillol and Vlaminck, be sanctioned with the exclusion of official exhibitions 151. But André Fougerón, General Secretary of the organization, does not remember in his conversations with Gertje R. Utley any role of the painter, not even if he was present at the meeting in his own studio 152. Paulhan maintains his position against the purges, leaves the National Committee of Writers in 1947, perhaps as part of the wider movement of isolation of the communists, wherever they may be, and developed his own campaign against Aragon and Éluard years later in his Letter to the Directors of the Resistance 153, in which he denounces the excesses of the purges and the summary executions that followed the Liberation. In that manifesto, the writer estimates the number of executions to more than 60,000. The figure appears as exaggeratedly high, and was released in the framework of a lobbying campaign of the collaborationists, L'Union pour la restauration et la défense du service public, which a year earlier, in 150 Szczupak-Thomas 2008, p. 190 Meeting cited in Nash 1998, p. 225 152 Utley 2000, p. 63 153 Paulhan, Jean Lettre aux directeurs de la Résistance, Les Éditions de Minuit, Paris, 1952. Reprinted in 1987 by Éditions Ramsay, Paris. See full text in http://archive.org/stream/LettreAuxDirecteursDeLaRsistance/Paulhan_djvu.txt 94 151 1951, had sent an investigation request to the United Nations in which it estimated the number of executed in 112,000 people 154. The real figure, after decades of investigations, has been established in some 10,000 deaths, most of them in summary executions carried out before the liberation. Picasso, meanwhile, maintains his support for the party's policy on this issue and shows in his conversations with his friends a particular grudge towards the collaborators, who had harassed him in previous years 155. For Pierre Daix, himself a future prominent member of the party and at that very moment (October 1944) the very young –22 years– Chief of Staff of the Communist Minister of Air, Armament and Reconstruction Charles Tillon, the painter's adherence to the organization should not be interpreted in a 'partisan' sense but in a 'moral' sense of union with a movement that seemed at that moment as exemplary given its role as the motor of the resistance. Daix also understands that the decision is part of the painter's search for a 'family' in which to integrate156. In a similar way, tens of thousands of Spaniards were driven to join the then prestigious Communist Party of Spain in the seventies of the last century, on the eve or just after the restoration of democracy. Picasso himself indicated in a text published in L'Humanité on Sunday, October 30, that as an exile he was desperately looking for a homeland to welcome him, and that in the PCF he had found the family he was looking for. He finished the text affirming: “At last I am again with my brothers!” 157. In any case, his closest friends, like Éluard, 154 See Montigny, Jean & Rougier, Louis Requête aux Nations unies adressée au nom de l'Union pour la restauration et la défense du Service public sur les violations des droits de l'homme par les juridictions et les procédures d'exception instituées en France en vue de réaliser l'épuration judiciaire, administrative et politique, A. Bonne, París, 1951 155 See Utley, 2000, p. 63 156 Daix 1995, p. 202. 157 Picasso, Pablo Pourquoi j’ai adhéré au PCF. L'Humanité, 29-30 October 1944 95 Aragon, Zervos and Leiris belonged also to that family. But above all, Picasso, since he arrived in France at the beginning of the century, had always clashed with the French reactionary right that never ceased to denounce his painting and his status as a foreigner. These attacks had become especially virulent during the occupation, which provided the traditionalists with unusual protection, and Picasso observes with surprise after the liberation that many of his former enemies, the adversaries of progress, have not really been defeated, but rather they have managed to jump on the victors bandwagon. Two days before announcing his accession to the PCF, Picasso had been invited to a dinner with General De Gaulle and had felt completely disappointed by the man that a month earlier he had taken control of the French government. "They are dirty monsters, unfriendly, reactionary and without style," Picasso would say to DoraMaar 158. Picasso estimates that after the war, those who rose to power are not very different from the collaborators who denigrated him. Hence, he decides to take sides and adhere to the block led by the PCF. André-Louis Dubois, appointed chief of police after the liberation, recalls how Picasso justified his political commitment, telling him: “We have not finished with the Nazis. We have been infected with their smallpox. There are many infected, even without knowing it” 159. We could also detect another reason that could impel the painter to take the step: the feeling that France had not behaved well with the Spanish Republicans, both during the civil war and at the end of this and also the absence of recognition of the role of his cmpatriots in the resistance. To Geneviève Laporte, the schoolgirl who would be his lover, who arrives at the studio as a representative of the National Front of Students of a neighboring college, but actually sent by a Paul Éluard playing the pimp, Picasso explains his adhesion to the party as follows: “Do you realize, I am not French, but Spanish. And I am against Franco. And the only way I have to make this attitude public is to join the communist party and show that I'm on the other side” 160. During the occupation, as it had happened during the Spanish War, Picasso's studio had become a refuge for the exiles. The 7 of rue Grands Augustins is the address sought by many Spaniards who come to the French capital and have a problem, being greeted warmly by the painter, who helps them with generosity. Sabartés plays the official role of bad cop by filtering the arrivals, but as soon as the painter hears Castilian or Catalan speak, he looks out and invites visitors to pass. The artists are treated with special affection, and the painters Manuel Ángeles Ortiz, 158 See Czernin, Monika y Müller, Melissa El Barbero de Picasso, Siglo XXI de España, Madrid 2002, p. 59. 159 Dubois, 1972. Cited in Daix 1995, p. 285 160 Laporte, Geneviève Si tard le soir, le soleil brille, Éditions Plon, París 1973, p. 32 96 Francisco Borés, Antoni Clavé, Emilio Grau Sala, Hernando Viñes Soto, Pedro Flores García, Joaquín Peinado or Pedro Créixams Picó or the sculptors Apeles Fenosa and Joan Rebull often attend. The surrealist Oscar Domínguez is one of those who benefited most from the generosity of the Andalusian. When the noisy Canarian showed up at the Zervos with a pretended Picasso –a small one and only a couple of times a year not to abuse– he readily agreed to sign it, authorizing Zervos to issue a certificate of authenticity. And at the end of the war, Domínguez devoted to selling American soldiers unsigned drawings, claiming that they were by Picasso. He signed each and every one of them when the GI's presented themselves at his studio indicating that Oscar Domínguez had sold them the items161. But before helping the Spanish painters who arrived in Paris Picasso had made great efforts to get many of them out of the concentration camps in the south of France where they had been confined when leaving Spain. Historian Miguel Cabañas Bravo of the Center for Human and Social Sciences of the CSIC has described this little-known episode of Picasso's life in his work Picasso and his help to Spanish artists in the French concentration camps, presented at the International Congress of the Spanish Civil War (36-39) in 2006 162. Cabañas describes with special detail in his work the aid to painters Manuel Ángeles Ortiz, Pedro Flores and Antonio Rodríguez Luna, and he remembers that he also rescued from the camps Apeles Fenosa, Antoni Clavé, Carles Fontseré, Miguel Prieto or Josep Renau. And once arrived in Paris, often thanks to remitances of between 1,000 and 3,000 francs, Picasso continued to give them a hand with contacts or more money to survive and support their families. Picasso is not only hospitable to artists, but also to other refugees and former Republican ex-combatants. One of those who arrives at the time of the liberation to Grands Augustins is the aforementioned Mariano Miguel Montañes, who in those days is a 31-year-old former Republican officer, former member of the French resistance and a good example of those brave Spaniards who enter Paris in fact before the French or American troops. Actually, the first allied unit to enter Paris is precisely the Ninth Armored Company, composed exclusively of Spanish Republicans. They enter through the Porte d'Italie at 8:21 in the afternoon 161 Szczupak-Thomas 2008, pp. 261-264 Cabañas Bravo, Miguel Picasso y su ayuda a los artistas españoles en los campos de concentración franceses. Congreso Internacional sobre la Guerra Civil Española 36-39. Sociedad Estatal de Conmemoraciones Culturales, Madrid 2006 http://digital.csic.es/bitstream/10261/8367/1/Picasso%20y%20su%20ayuda%20a%20l os%20artistas%20espa%C3%B1oles%20de%20los%20campos%20de%20concentrac i%C3%B3n.pdf 162 97 of August 24, 1944. The first allied vehicles that the Parisians will see through the boulevards of the city will be armored cars that carry exotic names for them: “España Cañí” (First to enter Paris), “Guadalajara”, “Don Quijote”, “Madrid”, etc. The Ninth is part of the Régiment de marche du Tchad of armored infantry commanded by Count Philippe de Hauteclocque, who after the war will be know for his alias General Leclerc. The aristocrat does not like the Spanish deployment, and decides to change the name of the vehicles. Thus, the “España Cañí” will become "Libération". Presented to the painter, Miguel makes friends with him and coordinates in his name the help that Picasso offers to the exiles, while acting as a filter to channel the flow of visits of Spanish republicans to the study of the Andalusian. When, four years later, the painter moves his residence to the Riviera, Miguel continues to represent the painter in the organizations helping the exiles, maintaining a sporadic contact with him but deepening his friendship with Sabartés, who remains in Paris. Mariano Miguel Montañes, Eduardo Miguel & Manuel Pallarés with Picasso and Jacquieline When Sabartés died in 1968, a year after Picasso was forced to evacuate Grands Augustins, the painter no longer needed to maintain an observation post in Paris and asked Miguel to leave his Parisian job to exercise the position of Secretary left vacant by Sabartés. And he installed him in the spring of that year in La Californie. Miguel must travel every day the 8 kilometers that separate Cannes from Mougins by car. He will be in charge from then until the painter's death five years later of reviewing correspondence, managing staff, paying bills, filling out tax returns, filtering calls and visits and supervising the organization of exhibitions and the preparation of catalogs. After Picasso's death, Miguel will continue working for Jacqueline Picasso for several years. The irritation for the ill treatment of Spaniards will be reflected by the painter in his painting Monument to the Spaniards killed for France, which is said to have been started in 1945 and completed two years later. Actually what happens is that there are two paintings with the same title, one from 1945 and the other from 1947. In the first oil painting, which is rather vulgar, the painter actually ridicules the sacrosanct French 98 Republic, the only value all French, regardless of their ideology or class claim to share. It represents what its title indicates, that is a monument of those that proliferate in France in memory of the fallen in the first world war, but an ugly and dilapidated monument. The second is a still life. It is not strange that the French state did not object to the donation of the first to Spain by Jacqueline during the mandate of Jorge Semprún as minister of culture. The painting was pompously delivered by French President François Mitterrand to Spanish Prime Minister Felipe González on November 13, 1990, on the occasion of the IV bilateral Summit. Two days after the announcement of the painter's accession to the PCF, on October 6, 1944, the Autumn Salon was inaugurated, the first in which the Spaniard participates, becoming the first foreigner thus honored. But there are violent demonstrations against him, either to reject his style or to denounce his membership of the Communist Party. One of those who incite the protesters is an old acquaintance of his, the Jew Waldemar George, whom Picasso had helped in 1925 by illustrating his book Picasso, Dessins with a lithograph. George, born in then Russian Poland and whose real name was Jerzy Waldemar Jarocinski, had denounced in 1929 'Jewish art' as a sworn enemy of Western art. According to him, the main objective of the Jewish people was none other than to “precipitate bankruptcy and the fall of the Roman-Hellenic civilization”. After the war, George leads a movement that opposes the 'Judaism of so many resistants and communists' 163. The essence of the attack of the critic, in an article published in the magazine Résistance dated precisely on October 5, that is, the eve of the inauguration of the Autumn Salon, was that Picasso represented everything opposite to humanism, and this was the essence of French art. The painter could not therefore be considered French, but anti-French 164. This could not but remind Picasso of the attacks he had received as a foreigner in 1921 from the French chauvinist establishment and which, as we shall see later, induced him to withdraw from the direction of the planning committee for the Apollinaire monument. And also the cruelty against him during the occupation. In reaction to the attacks and demonstrations, the Committee of Writers publishes a manifesto in his support, signed among others by Aragon, Éluard, Mauriac, Valéry, Sartre and Duhamel. On the one hand, the demonstrations organized against Picasso increase his notoriety, since he went from being a renowned painter among collectors and dealers, to become an icon of the postwar period and a mass idol, champion of a 163 See Alvarez de Toledo, Sandra: Un ghetto à l’est. Wilno, 1931, Revista Communications, Centre Edgar Morin, Paris 2006 - Volumen 79 – Numero 1, pp. 151-167. 164 George, Waldemar Le salon d’automne qui ouvre ses portes demain sera le Salon de la Libération, Résistance, 5 de Octubre de 1944, Cited in Utley 2000, pp. 90-91 99 movement that at that time seemed unstoppable. But on the other the Spanish painter appears for the French right in the process of reconstitution as the personification of everything that was not French and had to be extirpated from the country. The perfect scapegoat. The Picasso annoyed by the difference in treatment between him and Braque may have established at that time a link between the ostracism to which France has subjected him, the attacks in Comoedia, Paulhan and the political right liberated from Petanism, the demonstrations against his art in the Salon of 1944 and the confrontation between Paulhan and his political mentors Éluard and Aragon. And there he places Braque among his 'enemies', forming part of the conspiracy, which hurts him especially given the love and admiration he feels for the French painter. Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington tells of an incident that could increase the anger of the Spaniard towards Braque, which we can link precisely to the book Braque le Patron. According to her, Kahnweiler had refused to pay the higher prices claimed by Picasso after learning that the dealer had sold some Braque more expensive than his own paintings of comparable size and the same period. He did not accept Kahnweiler’s explanation that Braque painted much less than Picasso and that therefore he could from time to time ask more for his paintings165. It should be remembered that already in the first contract of the Andalusian with the gallerist signed in 1912, Kahnweiler paid him two or three times more than Braque166. For Picasso it was an affront, since he and he alone had been consecrated as the great master in the Autumn Salon of 44, where he exhibits 74 paintings made during the war. It is not very difficult to deduce that Braque's paintings, for which the gallerist had paid more than for the Picassos, are precisely those that had been exhibited at the Salon d'Automne in Paris in 1943, the exhibition that so irritated Picasso, and also the ones that appear in the magnificent lithographic reproductions carefully supervised by the painter in Braque le Patron and whose proofs Picasso had undoubtedly seen. The reproduced pictures are those indicated below. In parentheses appears their date of execution and as far as possible, their current location: Le Pain (1941 Centre Pompidou, Paris) ; La toilette devant la fenêtre (1942 Pompidou); La caraffe et les poissons (1941 Pompidou) ; Les poissons noirs (1942 Pompidou); Le Poêle (1944 Paul Rosenberg et Cie Collection, New York); Le Tapis vert (1943 Pompidou); La patience (1942 Goulandris Collection, Lausana, Suiza); Vanitas (1939 Pompidou); La toilette bleue (1942, Sold by Christie’s in 1999 and 2010); La grappe de raisins (1942, Sold by Artcurial in 2006); La table noire (1942); Le pot de fleurs (1941); Les citrons (1942 Private Collection); Le guéridon 165 166 Huffington 1989, p. 343 Ver Daix 1995, p. 500 100 rouge (1939 Pompidou); Poisson et pot; Le pichet et les raisins; La femme de dos; La cuvette bleue (1942. Private Collection) and Tête de femme; (1942 Private Collection). The anger of the Andalusian in that year of 1946 was accentuated by a new campaign against him by the traditionalists and the political right. While the PCF tried to take advantage of the pull that his affiliation implied and presented him as the best representative of French art, his opponents criticized the inclusion of the painter in national art exhibitions. An exhibition of his (Dix-neuf peintures) at the Galerie Louis Carré in June and July again provoked demonstrations against him with the cry of “France for the French!”. Picasso will use a competitor to take revenge on Kahnweiler, Louis Carré and Paul Rosenberg, the dealers who refused to pay the prices demanded by the painter, arguing that his affiliation to the Communist Party had lowered his price in the United States. The operation also serves to obtain revenge with respect to Braque. After refusing to sell his paintings at the prices offered by the dealers, Picasso invites at the end of 1946 for lunch at the Brasserie Lipp in Saint Germain des Près American dealer Samuel Kootz and sells him “without subjecting him to the usual tortures he imposed on Kahnweiler” 167 nine paintings painted between 1941 and 1946. With them, the first postwar Picasso exhibition in the United States was held in the 15 East 57th Street gallery in New York between January 27 and February 13, 1947. The show was an unprecedented success, with endless lines and the nine oil paintings sold on the first day. They were canvases between 35 x 45 cm and 81 x 129 cm, which the gallery sells at prices of between 5,000 and 20,000 dollars168, which correspond to between 65,000 and 260,000 dollars today adjusting inflation169. They were figures that had not been seen before either in the United States or in Europe for a living painter. Independently 167 Statements by Françoise Gilot, in Huffington 1989 (p. 343) The catalog of the exhibition is available online at the Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Art, Kootz Gallery scrapbook no. 1, 1947-1948: http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/viewer/kootz-gallery-scrapbook-no-1-13281/35938 169 Using CPI Inflation Calculator from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm 101 168 of Braque and what was cooked in Europe, Picasso was consecrated in the new mecca of art as the undisputed monster of modern painting and as the most sought-after. But to increase the irritation of Picasso, that same year of 1947, two years after the appearance of the book and five after the publication of the essay in Comœdia, Paulhan and Mourlot recidivate with a new luxury edition of Braque le patron, published this once by Éditions des Trois Collines, one of the publishers of the resistance against the German occupation, based in Geneva. The edition is the responsibility of gallerist and publisher Gérald Cramer, friend of Picasso, who in 1948 would publish A Toute Epreuve by Miró. In fact, it is a reissue of the publication of the current edition of 1946, of which we have already spoken. This time, Braque made two original lithographs for the book, but only for the cover and a letterhead, and this luxury edition does not contain lithographs of interpretation like the first one. The only explanation that can justify this second edition is the success of the first. But the second one is of infinitely lesser quality. The 61 reproductions of Braque paintings are made in black and white photography, except one in four-color. If Picasso already had enough reasons to be irritated with Braque and with the friends who encumbered him as the great master of all painters, he will soon come across a new insult. Shortly after illustrating in 1948 with 125 magnificent lithographs Le chant des morts by Reverdy, which bibliophile master François Chapon describes as 'perhaps the most beautiful book made in the 20th century'170, Picasso learns that after the grievance of Jean Paulhan's book on Braque, Fernand Mourlot had reoffended too, preparing the following year another book by Reverdy with the same protagonist: Braque. The initiative was probably not from the printer, but from the poet, whom Mourlot, who described him as quirky and violent and with whom he almost fought on one occasion, did not like at all. But Reverdy had been presented and imposed on Mourlot by Tériade and Picasso, and the printer could not refuse to publish the new work on his admired Braque. The artist's book, finally published under the title Une aventure méthodique, is a study by Reverdy on the work of Braque that he illustrated modestly with one lithograph in three colors on full page and 26 small ones in black. But Mourlot completes the work with another 12 magnificent lithographs of interpretation reproducing new works of the painter, exactly as he had done with Braque le Patron. This new book indicates explicitly on its last page that the painter had personally supervised the execution of these lithographs. Françoise says that the publication of this book deeply wounded Picasso in his heart. No wonder, 170 Chapon, François Le peintre et le livre, Flammarion, Paris 1987. p. 237 102 because Picasso had worked for years to illustrate a poem by Reverdy with 125 lithographs, while the poet published a book 'on' Braque, without his painter friend striving to do more than a lithograph in colors. For the Andalusian, Reverdy was no longer his friend, since he was “Braque's best friend” 171. In his text, Reverdy only indirectly confirms the diagnosis of Jean Paulhan: Braque is the true master of French painting, noting that “when tomorrow the great voices of today become again dust of silence, and when can measure how many sound wavelengths have been vain, his work will stand out as bright as a diamond”. And he goes on to affirm that it is Braque who holds in his hands the past, the present and the future. Even more, Reverdy states in his flowery text that Braque's work extends like a Milky Way172. Dora Vallier affirms in her Catalog Raisonné of Braque’s graphic work that the initiative of the book corresponds to Mourlot, although shortly before finishing its preparation yields the rights to Aimé Maeght, that 'publishes' it in 1950173. The gallerist and publisher, who is still trying to attract Picasso to his gallery in the Rue de Teheran, nevertheless takes great precautions to avoid irritating Picasso: although he assumes the financial responsibility of publishing the book with the title Une aventure méthodique, he conserves , as the first page of the book, one that indicates the name of Reverdy, a different title (Braque) and the name of his eternal enemy Fernand Mourlot as publisher. The justification page indicates that the book has been made “on behalf of Fernand Mourlot and André Sauret”. In short, Maeght's name does not appear anywhere in the book. In this way he returns the responsibility to the printer and tries not to damage his scarce possibilities to see some day Picasso joining Matisse, Miró, Braque, Chagall and the other artists in his gallery. It seems clear that, after publishing Braque le patron, Mourlot has agreed with Reverdy to publish another book on Braque (hence the title that appears in the book), and that the printer begins to prepare with the 171 Gilot & Lake 1998, p.196 Reverdy, Pierre Une aventure Methodique. Maeght, Paris 1950, p. 58. Exact quote: « Demain, quand de si grandes voix, aujourd’hui trop retentissantes, seront retombées en poussière dans le silence, quand on pourra mesurer combien tant de longueurs d’ondes sonores on été vaines, son œuvre se détachera, brillante comme un diamant, sur l’écrin noir et terni de son époque morte. Le passé, le présent, l’avenir, c’est lui qui les tient dans sa main, c’est de ses doigts que sortent les rayons dorés qui illuminent, de très haut, le sinistre cheminement de l’histoire. Et je bénis le sort qui me désigne pour dire, sans attendre qu’elle soit en majeure partie enclose dans les catacombes des musées, que l’œuvre d’un Georges Braque s’etale comme une Voie Lactée dans ce ciel de mystère et de nuit qui plane, de toute éternité, par-dessus toutes les époques ». 173 Vallier 1988, p. 102. 103 172 painter the lithographs of interpretation with which he intends illustrate it long before Reverdy finishes writing. According to the book itself, the poet completes the final text of the book on November 3, 1946, and immediately informs Mourlot and Braque. The letter to Braque is probably the undated one reproduced on pages 69-74 of the luxurious book Ancres174, published by Maeght in 1977, although it states that the date of the letter is “towards 1950”. It is undoubtedly an oversight of the publishers, who in 1977 have forgotten that the text of Une aventure méthodique was ready since 1946. They cite 1950 assuming that, since Reverdy talks about the book and that it is published in 1950, the letter must be necessarily from that date. Braque responds to Reverdy immediately in a long letter dated November 26, 1946 in Varengeville, in which he communicates his joy at knowing the completion of the manuscript and stating that he is very impatient to read it and that the publication of the book is one of the reasons that push him to end his stay on the coast and return to Paris, precisely to control the latest proofs of the interpretation lithographs. “The first thing I want to do is to see how Mourlot advances with the book and put a little pressure on it, because with his usual slowness one ends up getting discouraged before the book sees the light of day” 175. Note that the delay in publication (from 1946 to 1950) can only be due to the lithographs made by Henri Deschamps, since the text, ready since 1946, is printed by J. Dumoulin's printing company. In addition to the 12 plates with splendid interpretation lithographs reproducing paintings chosen by Braque himself, the book contains an original lithograph in colors and 26 black letterheads. As in the case of the first edition of Braque le patron, Mourlot, or rather Henri Deschamps, also completes here some of the lithographs one by one with touches of varnish that give thickness to the painting. The reproduced plates correspond to the following paintings, painted between 1944 and 1947: Le bateau sur la greve, 1944; La petite corbeille, 1945; Le billard jaune, 1945; Le pot et la faucille, 1946; La tranche de poitron, 1946; Les poissons rouges, 1947; Interieur a la table noire, 1947; La chaise de jardin, 1947; Les tournesols,1947; L'aquarium sur la caisse; Femme a sa toilette, 1947; and L'aquarium multicolore. The insult of 1945 had been 174 Reverdy, Pierre Ancres, Maeght Editeur, Paris 1977, pp. 69-75. Letter from Braque to Pierre Reverdy dated the 24 of Noviembre 1946 in Varengeville s/mer: "La bonne nouvelle est d'apprendre que vous avez pu terminer votre étude sur moi. Je suis très impatient de la lire"… "Je regretterai de quitter Varengeville où nous trouvons un calme et une vie facile auxquels il va falloir renoncer, mais tant de choses en train à Paris font que ma présence devient urgente. Je voudrais d'abord bien voir où en est Mourlot avec le livre et l'activer un peu, car avec sa lenteur habituelle on est découragé avant que la chose ne voit le jour..". The letter was sold by Autographes Demarest, París. 104 175 repeated in a similar way and perpetrated this time by Pierre Reverdy, an intimate of Picasso, and not by a person that Picasso did not appreciate at all like Jean Paulhan. The saga of confrontations will leave a bitter taste in the two painters, who will come to exchange comments such as “It is well hung”, that Picasso said when asked his opinion on a painting by Braque, or “It is well cooked” that the latter said when asked for his opinion on a Picasso pottery. But all the skirmishes between the two, the rivalry and the jealousy can not hide a reality: the two painters professed a deep affection and a great mutual admiration for each other. Somehow, Picasso apologized to Braque for his jealousy and upon the death of his friend in 1963 he declared what he could not accept at the publication of Paulhan's book. The friendship he felt towards Braque made him overcome his great animosity towards Aimé Maeght, making an original lithograph for the Tribute to Braque published by the gallerist. The lithograph reminds us of Braque's Great Nude of 1908 and at the foot of it Picasso wrote in his own hand: “Braque: you told me one day a long, long time ago, when you saw me walking with a young girl of the type of beauty that they call classic and that I still found pretty: 'In love, you have not yet freed yourself sufficiently from the masters'. In any case, I can still tell you today that I love you. As you can see, I have not yet managed to free myself” 176. Two years earlier, Braque had led the congratulation that the Communist newspaper Le Patriote de Nice, very close to the Andalusian, had published as an appendix to the October 25, 1961 edition in honor of the 80th birthday of Picasso. The fascicle, entitled "To your 20 years Pablo!" had on its cover a large drawing by Braque and the dedication: "Cet oiseau messager de mes bons voeux pour ton anniversaire, ton vieil ami, Braque" (This messenger bird with best wishes on your birthday, your old friend, Braque). The fact that Braque's dedication appeared as the cover of the issue is significant, since it also included greetings from people considered closer to Picasso at that time, such as Édouard Pignon, Joan Miro, Francisco Bores, André Villers, Manfredo Borsi, Jacques Prévert , Alberto Magnelli, Lucien Clergue and David Douglas Duncan. Pierre Cabanne relates that in 176 Derrière le Miroir, Hommage a Georges Braque, Maeght Éditeur, Paris 1964 105 reality, the newspaper had asked Antoni Clavé to execute the cover, but that the latter had declined out of modesty177. For the rest, the communist party was not the strongest defender of Braque, if only because this painter appeared as standard bearer of its political opponents. And the publisher Cercle d'Art ignored the painter until 1995, publishing since then only a couple of small popular books. The tribute to Braque by the French State, in an impressive funeral, and from the mouth of the culture minister André Malraux is much more florid than that of Picasso, reminding Marcelle that a country has never paid a dead painter a King’s tribute. Painter Eduardo Arroyo will illustrate in 1984 the funeral speech of Malraux with a beautiful lithograph. Picasso does not attend the ceremony but watches the television broadcast. Pierre Daix recalls that one of Picasso's most impressive rages which he had witnessed was precisely the one he had remembering the solemnity of the funeral178. Later, Malraux will offer Picasso the Legion of Honor, but the Andalusian will decline the dignity. Picasso will not donate any paintings to French national museums. The National Museums will pay with the same currency and do not acquire a single work of his, being satisfied with those obtained in 1979 in payment of inheritance rights and that gave rise to the National Picasso Museum. But despite the efforts of Paulhan, Reverdy, Malraux and others, Braque was –unjustly– almost forgotten, while the Picasso’s star continued to shine179. There is no Braque Museum in Paris or in the rest of the world. And from 1963 to 2013, only two major Braque exhibitions were held in France, one in L'Orangerie in 1973 and another in the Pompidou Center in 1982 (Braque, works 1882-1963). It took almost 32 years until between September 18, 2013 and January 6, 2014, a new retrospective was held at the Grand Palais, of the Paris National Galleries, an exhibition that later passed to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Georges Braque: A Retrospective 13.02-11.05.2014). And also on this exhibition planned the spectrum of rivalry between the two painters and the French attempt to elevate Braque. The curator of the exhibition was none other than Brigitte Leal, former director of the Picasso Museum in Paris, and the exhibition was built around people like Jean Paulhan or Pierre Reverdy, leaving a taste of déjà vu. In the catalog of the exhibition, Leal recalled how the great post-war offensive in favor of Braque had not achieved its goal, pointing out that the painter needed “an indispensable 177 Cabanne 1992, p. 181 Daix, Pierre La vie de peintre de Pablo Picasso, Éditions du Seuil, Paris, 1977, p. 387 179 See Orozco, Miguel Braque contra Picasso, Suplemento Babelia de El País, 11 January 2014, p. 19 106 178 rehabilitation” 180. 50 years later, France again tried to make Braque its hero, this time without denigrating Picasso. The fact that Picasso decided to start a lithographic career as a result of Braque showing him the lithographs he had been working on for years does not mean at all that Picasso 'followed' Braque. In fact, the lithographs produced by the Andalusian in his first year in the Mourlot workshop are at odds with the lithographs of interpretation of the book Braque le Patron that so impressed the French painter and probably also the Andalusian. Braque has provided Picasso only a 'clue' that leads to a path very different from his, oriented since 1945 to the use of flat inks, eventually saturated with superimpositions, to produce lithographs in color 181. Nothing can be further from what Picasso tries in lithography from his first steps in the Mourlot workshop. In a typical attitude of Picasso, although Braque was the first to work with Mourlot, he will go much faster. If Braque, apart from the considerable work of the lithographs of interpretation of the book Braque le Patron, for which on the other hand he did not receive any payment, only executed three lithographs in 1945 (Phaeton, Mourlot 4, La Femme a la Mandoline, M. 5; and Souspente, M. 7), Picasso after entering the workshop in Rue Chabrol does not leave for four months until learning all he deems necessary of the technique. Despite being a 'beginner', from November 2, 1945 to February 21, 1946 the painter made no less than 107 lithographs, registered as numbers 34 to 141 of the Reuße catalog. Mourlot, who does not count the different states, numbers them from 1 to 37182. 180 Leal, Brigitte, Georges Braque: Rétrospective, Éditions de la Réunion des Musées Nationaux-Grand Palais, París 2013, p. 13. 181 See Vallier 1988, p. 12 182 See Mourlot 1949 107 7. Working the stone Whatever the reason that prompted him to do so, the fact is that Picasso shows up on November 2, 1945 on Chabrol Street. And he does not simply show an interest in making lithographs, but in fact literally installs himself in the printing press. When he arrives, Mourlot descends from the top floor where the studios and the painters were, as well as the management, to the ground floor where the manual presses and large machines are located. Upon arrival, the artist points out to the printer that he had already prepared his first work the day before, showing him a collage representing a woman's head made of lithographic paper cutouts painted in black, but also full of fingerprints. Bad start for the first printer that Mourlot assigns him, Tutin the father. Picasso asks him to print a proof of his work. Gaston Tutin sees no problem and gets down to work. First he passes the Picasso card to a transfer paper. Then he takes a polished and ready-sized stone, moistens it, makes it dry, passes the lithograph and prepares the stone for printing. He immediately pulls a proof he gives to the painter, who approves the result without any observation for its commercial edition to 50 numbered and signed copies (Tête de femme, Reuße 34, Mourlot 1, Rau 31, Bloch 375). Christie's sold copy number 37/50 in Sale nº 7570 on April 2, 2008 for 6,875 Sterling Pounds (13,599 dollars at that time). Ketterer Kunst of Munich had sold copy 33/50 in auction nº 288 of 29.10.2004 for 5.850 € (Lot 744) 108 Again Picasso brings out another preparatory work, a woman's head on a black background made by scraping a lithographic paper impregnated with ink. Tutin repeats the procedure and delivers a new proof, before the enthusiasm of Picasso: “Very well, I am satisfied, bravo! Thank you, sir!” (Tête de femme, fond noir, Reuße 35, Mourlot 2, Rau 32, Bloch 376). Mourlot has passed the first test, and Picasso asks him to show him the printing presses. The printer shows him the machines, introduces him to the workers and takes him back to the first floor, where Picasso soon finds the place where he decides to settle: it is the small studio where Jean Célestin (Tintin), works. Tintin later became the favorite stamper of Joan Miró. Once installed in his new niche, he asks Mourlot and the others to leave and let him work in peace. He asks for a stone and starts drawing on it. When he has finished, he asks Célestin to print a proof and goes down to the machines floor, walks through the workshop, watches the workers work. And then, back to work, to draw directly on the stones, to work on transfer paper, to get acquainted with the zinc plates. And back to start. Picasso takes out again one of the cardboard impregnated with the lithographic ink that Mourlot had given him. The painter has scratched another woman's bust drawing, derived from the previous ones, but which looks more like Françoise, whom he has not seen since July. Again Tutin passes the cardboard to a transfer paper, and then to a stone, and then he goes on to print a proof (Tête de femme stylisée, Reuße 36, Mourlot 3). The first three lithographs made with the home work that Picasso had brought from his studio are considered valid by the painter and he orders fifty copies to be printed, to be numbered and signed later, according to his contract with Kahnweiler. 109 The same Friday, December 2, and already installed in Célestin’s studio, he makes a new variation of the Head of a woman, this time with pencil on lithographic paper transferred to stone (Reuße 37, Mourlot 4) that looks even more like Françoise . But he does not seem to be happy with the result, too dark. He would have to scrap the stone more, but that day he has no time. 18 artist's proofs are printed, not to be sold or signed, but they are numbered to identify their origin. In order to be edited at 50 numbered and signed copies, it must wait for its definitive state, which is done by scraping to clarify the drawing on December 20 (Reuße 38, Mourlot 5). Once the copies of the edition are printed, the stone is polished again, as had been the first three made with Mourlot. The series that began with his first lithograph in Rue Chabrol follows in the course of November and December, but he changes the name. Now it's called Tête de jeune fille. First he draws with lithographic pencil on transfer paper, which he retouches before transferring it to the stone and make a first proof, of which 18 e.a. (artist copies) are printed (Reuße 39). On November 24 and 26 –the day Françoise returns to his home in Grands Augustins– he continues to work the stone, carrying out two states (Reuße 40, 41) and on December 17 he makes the final state, scraping the remaining stone from his last essay to clarify the drawing (Reuße 42, Mourlot 5). The copy 16/50 of the 2nd state R. 38, signed in red pencil, was sold by Ketterer Kunst of Münich in its auction nº 386 of 10.12.2011 for 16.875 Euros. 110 On Monday, November 5, the second day of work in the printing press, Picasso again makes a portrait of Françoise, but starting a new drawing and scraping it on the lithographic paper, which is transferred to a new stone and printed 18 e.a. (Tête de jeune fille, Reuße 43). He returns to work the same stone on the 25th, printing 18 e.a. (Reuße 44) And on December 2, after scraping the stone to clear the face, he makes a final essay, of which 18 artist copies are printed again (Reuße 45, Mourlot 7). But the result would not satisfy the painter, since he does not order the commercial print of 50 copies, and the stone is polished so that it can serve again. On his third day in the Mourlot workshop, on Tuesday, November 6, another new series of portraits of Françoise begins: it is Jeune Fille aux grands cheveux (M. 12). On the 6th he prints, but only 2 copies, the first proof of his work of drawing and scraping directly on a new stone (Reuße 49). The next day he returns to work on the stone and prints 18 artist's proofs (Reuße 50). 111 Throughout the following days he continues working the same stone simplifying and clarifying the drawing and printing 18 artist copies from each of the states (Reuße 51-53). And on November 24 he completes the final state, which in no way resembles the first, and which is commercially edited to 50 numbered copies signed by the artist (Reuße 54, Mourlot 12). Even today there are sales of this beautiful early lithograph: Ketterer Kunst de Münich sold in 2007 the copy 46/50 for € 24,000 (Sale 324 Lot 387). As usual, 18 artist proofs are also printed out of the final state without signing or numbering. All the lithographs made so far are in the standard size of 44 by 32 cm. On his third day at Rue Chabrol, on November 6, Picasso also made his first still life in lithography. It is the beautiful composition, Nature morte au compotier, that he draws with pencil, lithographic ink and dry brush directly on a stone. Only three proofs of that first state are printed on a smaller paper than those used the previous two days: 28 by 37,9 cm (Reuße 46). The following Monday he modified the stone to print 18 e.a. from this second state with larger margins (Reuße 47). And on Friday the 16th he completes the final state, which is edited as always to 50 numbered and signed copies, plus 18 e.a., printed on 32.5 by 44.2 cm paper (Reuße 48, Mourlot 6). 112 His fourth day begins with a self-portrait of the painter as a child, Tête de jeune garçon, which he makes with brush and scraper on lithographic paper transferred later to the stone. It is dated on the stone and he prints 18 e.a. (Reuße 55), before reworking the stone and printing only three proofs of a second state (Reuße 56). And he reworks the stone to achieve the final state, printed on Arches vellum paper of 44.3 by 32.7 cm commercially edited at 50 + 18 e.a. copies (Reuße 57, Mourlot 8). In an example of his way of working, serious and conscientious but at the same time informal, leaving room for jokes and winks to his friends, he also takes on Wednesday November 7 a book about the lithographic art whose illustrations Mourlot is printing that day, and after reading it carefully, takes a sheet of it, and on the back, prints a proof of this beautiful lithograph, which is dedicated to the author of the text, poet Francis Ponge. You can do it because the lithograph (29.5 x 22.9 cm) is a little smaller than the size of the sheet (32.5 c 25 cm)183. 183 Proof reproduced in Peyré 2001. p. 53. The author indicates that the stone used is that of the first state. But he is wrong, the proof printed for Ponge is from the third and final state. Regarding the first state, Reuße signals that 18 e.a. are printed. 113 On November 9, his fifth day of work (Thursday 8 he did not go to the press), Picasso takes up the theme of Françoise with a series of very different portraits but made on the same stone on which he works until 6 February making 9 different states, of which 18 e.a. are printed of each except the first (Reuße 58 to 67, Mourlot 9). Note in connection with this print that we have discovered a state not covered by neither Mourlot, Reuße nor Bloch. Tête de jeune fille (Mourlot 9 2nd state; (Reuße 59, Bloch 393). We will call it 2nd state-bis. It was revealed to us by a Christie’s Sale (7747 Old Master, Modern & Contemporary Prints, London, Thursday, September 17, 2009, Lot No 90). As you can see in the photos, this new state is clearly different from Mourlot’s second state , and it is not simply, as Christie’s said, that it was printed “darker and with more definition”. The difference is as big as the one between the 3rd and 4th states. Apparently, the painter finds the lost stone almost a year later, on December 19, 1946, when after slightly modifying the last state, he transforms completely the design and completes the work and gives the bon à tirer for 50 + 18 copies. This is the series Tête de jeune fille. Sotheby's sold in auction N09031 of November 1, 2013 copy number 19/50 of the final state for 12,500 dollars. 114 The lithographic effort forces Picasso to radically change his habitual schedules, which proves his determination. The painter goes to the printing press every day before 9 o'clock in the morning, breaking his habit of getting up shortly before noon. And he stays working until six or even eight p.m. or later, with a short break to eat. “He is a great worker ... We used to leave him at eight o'clock in the evening and we saw him again at the printing house at 8:30 in the morning. Sometimes I suggested that we take a break ... He looked at the lithographic stone, lit a Gauloise and gave me another one and started to work again” recalls Jean Célestin, quoted by Hélène Parmelin in the preface to the 1970 edition of the catalog of lithographs. Because Picasso loved to work and hated to be idle. So when he finished drawing a stone, he would get up and go to another area of the printing press, watch, ask and even dare to make suggestions to the technicians. Mourlot relates that one day they were printing a menu for a gala dinner at the House of Latin America in Paris, Picasso, after getting interested in the subject and given that it was a Hispanic theme, decided to take the reins and direct all the operation, ordering to change the colors, presentation, etc. The printer then had to explain to those who had commissioned the work that it did not correspond to the order because Picasso himself had directed the changes.184. What was harder for Picasso was to accept advice from others. He listened carefully to the recommendations of the technicians, but he often ignored them, which irritated the more experienced workers like Tutin. In the months he spent in the printing press, the Andalusian experimented with all the techniques: transfer paper, stone, zinc, lithographic pencil, pen, brush, etc. And all applied in his own way, violating not only the usual practices of specialists, but the fundamental rules of the profession. Célestin recalls that his way of working left them stunned, because after working a stone in several phases and producing several states, the initial drawing that the painter had made was kept alive and did not disappear as usual. For the presser there was no logical explanation. We find an example of the desire to turn upside down the technique that so irritated printmaker Gastón Tutín in an anecdote recounted by Charles Sorlier in his memoirs. The chromist says that one day a scared Mourlot summons him to his office, informing him that Picasso had sent him with his driver Marcel Boudin a superb lithograph drawn on a zinc plate, but that at the first step the drawing had completely disappeared. It was now necessary to explain it to the irritable painter and take his anger, for which he asked the chromist to go himself to the studio of Grands184 Mourlot 1979, p. 25 115 Augustins. But when Sorlier explains it to Picasso, the painter dismisses the issue, explaining funnily: “Well, now I've seen that it does not work. Instead of using lithographic ink, I used Indian ink. Now I know that if Tutin has not succeeded here, there is nothing to do, it does not work”185. Picasso has fun and constantly looks for objects to transform. One day, years later, in his habit of snooping around the workshop, he finds a zinc plate that Mourlot had used to make a poster for the painter Victor Orsel in 1948 and that had not been erased. It was The Italian girl painting. Picasso asks Mourlot to let him have the plate and starts working on it. He has proofs printed and goes back to the plate by adding characters in the corners: a faun who plays the flute, a naked woman, an observer. In the end, he leaves the plate and considers it finished 186. In the four months that passed since he moved to Rue Chabrol on November 2, 1945, until February 21, 1946, when he made his last lithographs of this first period, Picasso made, including the different states, more than one hundred plates. He will return to the workshop on June 14, to make ten magnificent portraits of Fançoise Gilot. The next day he made the portrait of Françoise au soleil 187. He does not go to the workshop from July to January 1947, when he returns there, working non-stop and doing some of his best works, such as his first essay by Femme au fauteuil that he will develop later, and especially the magnificent David et Bethsabee in all its states. On Saturday November 10, 1945, his sixth day of work in the printing press, Picasso made according to Mourlot a series of trials which he later used in the book Le Chant des Morts. It is washes in red, lithographs in black and red, washes on paper, all of which minus one (the printer identifies it in his memoirs as M. 10, although in reality it is M. 15) are erased immediately. His first essay is Composition (Reuße 68, Mourlot 13), a lithograph made in two transfer papers, one for black and one for red, with motifs that appear as Eastern/Arabian, but which disposition could recall Korean writing, composed of straight lines and circles. Picasso will use a very similar design in page 26 of the final book (R. 270). 185 Sorlier 1985, p. 134. L’Italienne (d’après le tableau de Victor Orsel) Mourlot 238, Rau 572-573, Reuße 623-624, Bloch 740 187 Mourlot 38-48, Rau 133-143, Reuße 145-155, Bloch 396-404 116 186 On Sunday the 11th he made at home and on report paper a second trial in red and black (Reuße 69, M. 14) in which the Arab-Oriental curves disappear. It recalls more Korean writing and includes curved lines finished in circles that resemble those of the Juan-Les-Pins carnets of 1924, especially the drawing Feuille d'études (Zervos V.355). But like the first one, it is too complex, far-fetched. They are trials and proofs are not printed. In any case, the painter will use part of this design in page 25 of the final book (R. 269). When Picasso returns to the workshop on Monday, November 12 and decalcates the proof of the previous day, he has already found the answer and begins to draw it directly with a brush on the lithographic stone: a simple but elegant line composed of a curved line finished in thick dots and joined to a circle with a small "V" shaped appendix. This design will evolve later in the 125 lithographs that will be made two years later for the book. From this last test, 18 proofs will be printed in red (Reuße 70, M. 15). 117 On the same Saturday, November 10, the Andalusian had undertaken another hard work. This is the dazzling series Les deux femmes nues, which in its first phase would take three months to complete to produce a single lithograph for Kahnweiler. Without doubt it is Françoise's longing that drives him to start this series. In its first two states (Reuße 71-73) only one identified woman appears. It is not until the third state (R. 74), done on Wednesday 21 November, that the seated woman acquires the unmistakable features of Françoise, while the details of the torso and the head of the woman lying down –just a shadow in the first state– appear. When she sees the first proofs, which Picasso took to his studio-residence where she had settled on Monday, November 26, Françoise sees herself portrayed in the young sitting woman, without guessing who the sleeping woman is. Picasso tells the painter that she could be DoraMaar... or else Françoise's friend, Geneviève Aliquot. It is not until later that the painter confesses that this woman is Dora, and to confirm it he adds in the last state, in the margins, two insects, which he explains by the Kafkaesque personality of Dora188. There was no need for confirmation, because the role of the two women can only reflect the painter's 'bigamy': the seated woman plays the active role, looks to the front or to the painter himself, unfolds his charms and dominates the scene, while the lying woman does not wake up at any moment and appears unconscious of what is happening, of the role that the other woman is playing in the picture of Picasso's life. Meanwhile, the seated woman is being transformed. Until the ninth state (R. 85) she is portrayed as a delicate juvenile figure, but from the tenth state, where she looks back to the painter, Picasso is changing and abstracting, until in the last two states (R 94-95) her face fades and her body is stylized: only the hair, breasts and legs are strongly marked. In the catalogs 23 variants are 188 Gilot & Lake 1998, p. 122. 118 documented, corresponding to 18 'states' made between November 10, 1945 and February 12, 1946, all made on the same stone before it was polished as part of the commercial edition agreement with Kahnweiler (Reuße 71 to 95, Mourlot 16). But if there is only one commercial result, the series has in itself a story and its different states, really different from each other, each have a high independent artistic value and have been highly valued by the markets. In November 1998, Christie's Auction House sold for $ 101,500 an almost complete series of these lithographs, including the final state and 18 previous ones, including one of the alleged two only proofs of the eighth state in bistre189. Eleven years later, in 2006, Christie's sold, this time in London, another series of 22 lithographs, including thirteen of the 18 intermediate states reproduced by Mourlot (4 to 15 and 18), nine additional proofs including five non-referenced intermediate states and the final state numbered 3/50 and signed. This time, the final bid reached 97,250 British Pounds (160,754 dollars at the time) 190. Sotheby's, for its part, in Sale No. L10161 held in London on September 16, 2010 sold a collection of 18 lithographs of the series, including two copies of the second state and the ninth and fourteen states in duplicate. All were unsigned artist copies and came from the collection of Marie Thérèse Walter. The 189 Christie’s Sale 8990 Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Prints, 2 - 3 November 1998 New York, Park Avenue, Lot 531. 190 Christie’s. Venta 7747 Old Master, Modern & Contemporary Prints, 17 Septtiembre de 2009 London, King Street, Lote 91. Pueden verse las pruebas en la página de Christie’s http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/prints-multiples/pablopicasso-les-deux-femmes-nues-5230798-details.aspx?intobjectid=5230798 (página consultada el 23 de Abril de 2013) 119 final bid was 43,250 British Pounds. Picasso would not abandon the subject, since one year later, on Sunday, March 23, 1947, he made two lithographs on a zinc plate. They are variations of the theme Les deux Femmes nues. But in one of the two new lithographs (Couple, R.197, M.80) the sleeping woman becomes a man. In the following (La Dormeuse R.198, M.81) she is a woman again. Both will be edited by Kahnweiler. The painter parks the theme, but does not abandon it forever, since less than two months after the previous attempt, Picasso retakes in May 1947 his women sitting and asleep, making on the same day (Sunday 11) eight lithographs, among which the magnificent Femme assise et dormeuse. As often happens with the graphic work of the painter, the date of realization can lead to errors. When observing this series, to which Mourlot only attributes four numbers (100-104) but that actually includes other four states, we realize that these entail much more work than it seems. In addition, the existence of different states proves that well Picasso was in the workshop of Mourlot. The discovery by Reuße of a first state (R. 234) of the lithograph Jeunes Femmes nues reposant dated the same day as the definitive state (M. 102, R. 235) shows that Picasso has reworked the drawing, what given that the lithographic paper is unusable once transferred to the stone implies that Picasso has worked directly on the 120 stone. And that could only have been done in Mourlot's workshop. What happens is that the painter was not happy with the position of the awake woman's legs in the first state. The same May 11 Picasso had made another version of the same theme entitled Femmes sur la plage (M.101, R. 233 marketed at 50 signed copies) in which the awakened woman has her left leg surrounding the right in a lame position. As a consequence, the first state of the new lithograph (Reuße 234) he changes the position of the legs, placing both of them vertically. But he is not satisfied either, and corrects the stone slightly, placing the right leg back down, although the position is not viable. In spite of everything, the painter gives the bon a tirer and the lithograph is marketed to 50 copies. In fact, Mourlot himself confuses the final print, giving in his reasoned catalog the first state as definitive and ignoring the authentic one, which Bloch does identify with number 453. In any case, the lithograph sells well, and even today it reaches high prices (eg: € 24,000 for the 12/50 proof at auction 345 of Ketterer Kunst of 4.06.2008, Lot 220). Sotheby's sold in auction N09031 of November 1, 2013 copy number 23/50 numbered and signed for $ 18,750. The approval of the commercialization of two lithographs with a poor composition could be explained because Picasso was more concerned that day with the other lithograph of the series he had made on Sunday, the 11th state, although this time on a zinc plate. Femme assise et dormeuse (M. 104, R. 238) made with two plates, one with wash and pencil for blacks and another with wash for a light gray, will constitute one of the most beautiful achievements of his lithographic work. Like the previous lithograph, it was probably printed on Monday, May 12 or even later. On Sunday he had made the black plate (Reuße 236) in which he inscribed the date, but it is not until he has seen a proof printed from this plate that he can reasonably realize that a softer color can be added, thus making the plate of gray (R. 237), which colors the face and arms of the woman lying down and requires the drawing of the woman sitting. Curiously, the proof 121 that Reuße shows us of the gray plate is really printed in black, but this test could be enough for Picasso to decide to print the two. In fact, we have not found any proof of this plate shot in gray. Picasso orders that both be printed on the same paper, but one in black and one in gray, producing the magnificent lithograph R. 238, printed at 5 artist copies and 50 numbered and signed in the commercial edition of the Louise gallery. The data that neither Mourlot, Reuße nor Bloch give us is the print run of the two preparatory plates for black and gray, which we assume is of more than the 5 artist copies indicated for the final state. To find out the print run, we looked again at the market, and found, for example, that Alan Cristea gallery in London at an exhibition and sale held between March 24 and April 21, 2011 exhibited and sold the series of three states, obtaining for each one tens of thousands of British Pounds. The auction house Christie's, in its auction n ° 7570, Old Master, Modern and Contemporary Prints, held in London on April 2, 2008 brought out for sale a numbered and signed copy (Lot 239). Its price was estimated between 12,000 and 18,000 Pounds. It was sold for 12,500 Pounds (about $ 24,725 at that time). Christie's also put on sale on another occasion a copy of each of the three states. As for Sotheby's, it sold a complete series, numbered 6/6 of the three lithographs (black, gray and final state plate) in auction L10161 Modern and Contemporary Prints including Pablo Picasso: Master Printmaker, Works From A Private European Collection, held in London on September 16, 2010 (Lot 42) for only 32,450 Pounds. Sotheby's itself sold shortly after, in its auction No. 8674 held in New York on October 30, 2010 a copy of the final lithograph numbered 5/50 and signed, for $ 36,250. Another proof of the enormous value that the market attributes to this lithograph is that the prominent American art dealer Arik Verezhensky had on sale in June 2013 in Chicago a very rare proof of the black plate (R. 236) from the collection of Georges Bloch himself. Let's not forget that Georges Bloch was nothing but a wealthy Swiss collector who in May/July 1968 organized a 122 massive exhibition of 1,400 engravings by Picasso at the Kunsthaus Zürich and published his reasoned catalog at the same time. The price demanded for this signed proof, was a whopping 200,000 dollars, that is the price of a small painting by Picasso. The lithograph is in any case so beautiful and rare that small copies of the lithograph of interpretation that Henri Deschamps made for the second volume of the reasoned catalog often appear at auctions. But, seen the series of the woman sitting and sleeping, let’s go back to 1945. On Wednesday, December 5, Picasso begins before the admired and scandalized eyes of Mourlot, Jean Célestin, Tutin, Henri Deschamps and other employees of the printing press, one of his more famous series of lithographs, the decomposition of the bull, which takes until January 10, 1946. Jean Célestin was at his side and tells us the story through Hélène Parmelin. The printer and his companions thought that the Andalusian was going to make a superb, well-formed and strong bull, but they saw that it was beginning to lose weight. Picasso removed instead of adding, eliminated slices of the animal to each state, and explained to the surprised audience: “Look, this piece should be given to the butcher, so that the housewife could say: I want this piece, or that other...” For Celestín, Picasso had finished where he should have started 191. For Professor Irving Lavin 192, what Picasso does is to make his own version of an exercise in abstraction by Dutch painter Theo van Doesburg (pseudonym of Christian Emil Marie Küpper, founder of the De Stijl movement) 25 years earlier: illustrating the process of abstraction stage after stage by means of the decomposition of the drawing of a cow until drawings of superposed rectangles or pictures in the style of his colleague Piet Mondrian. The Museum of Modern Art in New York owns a good part of those 1917 drawings, all entitled Composition, from the gouache (MOMA 226.1948.a-b) until its perhaps more simple version (MOMA 227.1948.8) 193. It could be doubted that Picasso knew the work of van Doesburg, but in fact the Dutchman –two months older than Picasso– had published in 1917 a book about new movements in painting (Nieuwe Beweging in de Schilderkunst), lived in Paris from 1923 until his death, his theories were much discussed in the aftermath of the first cubism and his treatise of 1921 Classique-Baroque-Moderne was published two years later in four installments in the very widespread magazine of the gallery L'effort Moderne of Picasso's gallerist Leonce Rosenberg, the brother of 191 Cited by Parmelin, Hélène in her preface of the 1970 edition of Mourlot’s Picasso Lithographe, André Sauret - Éditions du Livre, Paris. 192 Lavin, Irving Picasso's Bull(s): Art History in Reverse, in Art in America, March 1993, Brant Publications, New York, 1993, p. 80. 193 See the drawings at MOMA: http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A6 076&page_number=1&template_id=6&sort_order=1 123 Paul Rosenberg. But Lavin's interpretation may be insufficient, since the process is not uniform and does not go in one direction. In fact, it could be said that Picasso's journey starts from prehistory to return to the same place he started from. To find out what he does, we must analyze the complete series: Picasso begins to work on this legendary series on Wednesday, December 5, 1945, when he makes his first drawing of the bull with lithographic ink wash on stone of 30 by 43.5 cm (according to Reuße; drawing of 29 x 42 cm for Mourlot), printed on vellum paper with Arches watermark of 32.7 by 44.3 cm. This first state is a simple drawing of a bull with a calm aspect that resembles one of the least sophisticated bison drawn some 20,000 years ago on the ceiling of the cave of Altamira, the Sixtine Chapel of rock art. According to Mourlot194, only two or three proofs of this lithograph are printed (Reuße 97, Mourlot 17). Reuße speaks, however, of 18 artist's copies, but it could be that Mourlot was right in this matter, because the lithograph is extremely rare, and we have not found any sale of it in the buoyant auction market of 1990-2012, in which virtually all of Picasso's lithographs appeared, including states shot to two or three copies. In any case, the fact is that, since only one proof was published commercially, the whole series of the bull is of a considerable rarity in the market. Even at the famous Sotheby's auction on November 14, 1994, when more than 300 lithographs from Fernand Mourlot's collection were sold in New York, only two artist copy prints of the series were included: states ninth and eleventh. The mystery in this lithograph is that Mourlot indicates that when Picasso appears a week later in the workshop, he asks for a new stone. It is true that the second state does not seem to have been made from the first. But what happened to the first stone? The Almine and Bernard Ruiz-Picasso Foundation for Art in Brussels and The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena have a copy of the first state, so the quota indicated by Mourlot is almost full. The Graphische Sammlung der Staatsgalerie of Sttutgart retains an additional 194 Mourlot 1979, p. 26. 124 proof of the first state that could be a transition to the second (R. 98) and shows new traces of brush and color spots 195. In any case, and as Mourlot relates, the painter returns to work on Wednesday, December 12, 1945, when he does the second state (R. 99): a voluminous naturalist bull, with a head and horns much larger than in the first state and drawn with much more detail than the previous one with lithographic ink wash with brush and pen. It is the most impressive bull in the series, the only one that can inspire fear. 18 artist's copies are printed on vellum paper with Arches watermark of 32.7 x 44.5 cm. The size of the drawing is larger than that of the first state: 31.4 by 44.5 cm. This is because it leaves the edges of the stone visible in several places. The painter retakes the stone of the second state on Tuesday 18, to increase the detail of the drawing, mark the contours more clearly and mark the volumes using a flattened scraper, brush and pen. It leaves us a bull with all its hairs and signals. For the printer, this is the most terrible bull in the series, with spooky eyes. We do not share this opinion: in our view, in this third state the animal has gone from being the beast of the second state to being an object in the hands of the painter/naturalist, who is dedicated to studying its anatomy and delineating each visible organ , every part of the body. From this state (R. 100) the usual 18 e.a. on vellum Arches paper of 32.8 by 44.6 cm are printed. The size is somewhat smaller than in the previous state: 31.5 x 44.7 cm. When Picasso takes up the stone on Saturday, December 22, what he does is to structure the anatomy of the bull he had delineated in the previous 195 Reuße 2000, p. 48 125 state. From the beginning he schematizes the head that passes from a realistic drawing to an abstract sketch. The main lines of strength of the body of the bull are erased with a scraper to leave some white lines that delimit the different parts of its anatomy. It is probably this picture that according to Mourlot Picasso shows to Henri Deschamps when he says: “Look, Henri, this is what should be given to the butcher” 196. This fourth state (R. 101) is completed with soft touches of pen (Mourlot) or brush and pen (Reuße), to be printed on 32.6 x 44.3 cm paper. On Monday, December 24, the painter launches an effort to degrease and redesign the bull. The head undergoes a new process of shrinkage and abstraction in which the horns also cease to be those of a fighting bull to resemble those of one of the cave of Lascaux in the Dordogne, precisely discovered and explored in the 40s of last century. Perhaps in this first state of the abstract bull Picasso has remembered that he has been in France for almost fifty years and that he had to pay homage to the Versailles of rock art. The rest of the body is basically redrawn. It is in this fifth state when Picasso guesses which of the lines he had delimited with a scraper in the previous state constitute the essence of the bull. The main line of force was not in the 4th state and now appears for the first time: it is the diagonal, somewhat curved at the beginning, that goes from the hind legs to the antlers, or what is the same from the base of the motor apparatus of the bull to the place where the animal exerts the greatest force of which it is capable. If the 4th state still retained the imposing structure of the bull of the second state, in this fifth state the work with scraper, brush and pen has left only some remains of the naturalist drawing. From this state, 18 e.a. on paper vellum Arches of 32.7 x 44.5 cm are printed (R. 102). 196 Mourlot 1979, p. 27 126 As the stone is in Mourlot’s workshop and this is closed on Christmas day, the painter takes the proofs of the 5th estate home. There he draws that day on report paper Taureau de profil (R. 125 M.27), a lithograph that does not belong to the series and is not edited commercially but that constitutes the sketch for the next stage of thinning that constitutes the sixth state, made on Wednesday 26. The head of abstract nature disappears and a new minimalist one is added. It is nothing more than a simplification of his famous 1942 sculptures formed by the saddle and handlebar of a bicycle 197. He erases the tail with which the bull shakes the flies until this state to replace it with a simple brush line that falls to the ground and he eliminates more parts of the bull's anatomy. He also works the legs by erasing the two rear ones and one front and adding four new stylized legs. But, impatiently, he orders to print proofs of this sixth incomplete state leaving almost intact one of the front legs and remains of the drawing of the head of the previous state. The line of force of the previous state is somewhat curved. From this sixth state (R.103) that Wednesday, December 26, 1945, 18 e.a. on paper of 32.5 x 44.4 cm are printed. 197 Picasso Museum París MPP.330 & Werner Spies 240.II 127 Between the 26th and the 28th of December, Reuße indicates the existence of two intermediate states (R. 104-105) departing from the sixth unfinished state. Both were presented at the exhibition of the Dallas Museum of Art held between September 11 and October 30, 1983, with Brigitte Baer as Commissioner 198 . The painter retakes the stone in any case on Friday, December 28, 1945 to further stylize the bull, eliminating more anatomical elements with a scraper, marking with a pen a new outline of the animal that also includes the new stylized head of the 6th state, eliminating the legs that were left over and blurring the line of force that he had created in the 5th. Then 18 e.a. of this seventh state (R. 106) are printed on paper of 32.9 x 44.3 cm. Picasso returns to attack the stone on Wednesday January 2, 1946 with scraper, pen and some touches of brush, but he actually changes the drawing little, adding details to the head (nose, eye, ears), incorporating two stylized legs and redrawing the back of the contour and also the horns. 18 e.a. of this eighth state (R. 107) are stamped on paper of 32.7 x 44.2 cm. 198 Baer, Brigitte Picasso the Printmaker: Graphics from the Marina Picasso Collection, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, 1983 128 The process could have ended there. Until the 8th state the painter has followed a relatively logical process with a uniform structure. The bull still has a standard volume, an identifiable anatomy and has even recovered a recognizable head. But it is precisely at that moment when the painter breaks with all forms of naturalism. On Saturday, January 5, again armed with scraper and pen, he removes (imperfectly) the remains of washing that remained and arrives at a uniquely linear drawing that has little to do with the bull that had been drawing for a month. He keeps the front legs as they were, but the hind legs are simplified and redefined. The bull's head turns towards the observer but the design is stylized and changed. The line of force from the hind legs to the head disappears completely, thereby amputating the animal of all logical structure. Picasso leaves us with a linear drawing of a surrealist bull that loses all kinship with a fighting animal and approaches by its simplicity the drawings of the Cueva de Covalanas, also in Santander. In fact, Picasso already had the idea of reducing the bull to simple lines eleven days before. If we look at the lithograph Page de taureaux (R. 126, M. 28), also made on Christmas day on report paper, it contains dozens of small drawings of bulls and bull heads executed with simple lines and prefiguring the last three states of the decomposition of the bull series. From this ninth state (R. 108) 18 e.a. are printed on paper of 32.4 x 44.4 cm in which wash spots that were left from the 4th state can observed and have not been completely eliminated. 129 Only two stages are left for Picasso, in which what he does is fundamentally to eliminate lines of those that still remained to simplify the bull more. On Thursday, January 10, he removes the hair from the tail, erases almost all the lines that formed the animal's hindquarters, reduces the front legs to two lines and eliminates almost all the details of the head, reducing it back to the saddle and handlebar structure. From this tenth state (R. 109) 18 e.a. are printed on Arches paper of 32.5 x 44.5 cm that still have stain remains from the washing of previous states and that the painter has not bothered to erase. A week later, on Thursday, January 17, 1946, the painter takes the stone for the last time, erases practically all the previous drawing and designs a new bull with seven curved lines, a straight line, a tiny circle and a small scribble to mark that it is a bull and not a cow. There Picasso decides to stop and gives his bon à tirer with red pencil in a proof. Of course, as this lithograph will be the last, and therefore the one that will be published commercially by the Galerie Louise, he takes the job of erasing the remains of stains except the floor that lies between the lines of the new drawing, the body and the space between each pair of front and rear legs. 18 copies for Picasso and 50 destined to be numbered and signed, are printed in this eleventh state, all on vellum paper with Arches filigree of 32.8 x 44.4 cm. And that is the end of the story. 130 But while decomposing the bull, Picasso continues working and learning more lithographic techniques. The same Friday, December 7, he made an interesting study of heads of sheep drawn with wash directly on the stone. The result satisfies him and he orders the printing of 50 + 18 e.a. (Têtes de béliers Reuße 111, Mourlot 19). A week later, on Friday the 14th, he took up the still life with a beautiful Nature morte au vase de fleurs (Reuse 112, M. 20), which, however, did not satisfy him and only a proof was printed before polishing the stone. He also retakes those days the technique of the cut paper transferred later to the stone he used in his first lito with Mourlot. Thus emerge the lithographs with bullfighting motif La Rentrée du taureau (R113 M.167), Deux petits Taureaux (R114 M.10), Scènes de corrida (R.115-116 M.11) and the aforementioned Taureau de profil (R. 125 M.27). 131 Also emerge Corrida au soleil noir (R127 M.25) and Corrida (R. 128 M.26). Of these, the first is edited to 50 copies, but not until 1959. Another lithograph of similar making but a circus theme (Le Cirque, Reuße 121, M.24) is also edited. An original lithograph made with the same technique, Huit silhouettes (Reuße 129 M.29), is also commercially edited. Those achieved with inked and trimmed lithographic paper bring us back to rock art for their simplicity and extraordinary resemblance to Paleolithic works. In these days of essay and learning, the painter also makes other lithographs with simple drawings of pigeons, other animals and shells (Reuße 122-124, 126, 136, 137, 142, 144), of which only one Coquillages et Oiseaux ( R.137, M.34) will be published commercially. A signed copy but without apparent numeration was sold by Ketteren Kunst in 2002 for € 3,450 (Auction 276 of 7.12.2002 Lot 325). Neither are printed, even in the usual 18 artist copies, three studies made in the manner of a Rorschach test making a wash drawing and folding the lithographic sheet in two (Reuße 140, 141, 143). Only two trial proofs of these are printed. 132 As of Saturday, December 15, 1945, chromist Henri Deschamps enters the scene with force, since the painter makes his first proofs in color. These are simple still lifes with a glass and apples made in 5 or 4 soft colors: Nature morte aux trois pommes (Reuse 117-119, M. 30-31). Picasso makes the drawing directly on a first stone, and the colors are added by means of paper cuttings transferred to successive stones. They follow other studies for a minimalist still life called Composition (Reuße 130-135, M. 32-33), all made with three colors between January 13, 1946 and February 18, 1946. None of them is published commercially by Kahnweiler, since they were created for a poster for the March 1946 Work and Culture conference at the Grand Amphitheatre de la Sorbonne. But the stones for numbers 132 and 135 were used in 1957 in the book Dans l'atelier de Picasso, which will be discussed later. Fifty copies of the book include a 'suite' with proofs of these two and other lithographs printed on Japan Hodomura paper, numbered but not signed. 133 Picasso also made in the last days of his first period of virtual seclusion in the workshop of Mourlot two lithographs of still lifes with skull made with pencil and lithographic brush on paper transferred to stone (Reuße 138-139, M. 35-36) . Of these, only the first is published commercially to 50 copies. After his initial period of learning the technique in the Mourlot workshops, Picasso does not need to go to the premises, as the printer takes care of searching the plates, making the proofs and sending them to the painter so that he gives his bon à tirer. He did not therefore go to the printing press but to carry out his most demanding projects, those that required working in stone, immediately see the proofs, or retouch the plates numerous times until achieving the desired result. For other works, the painter worked in his studio in Paris or in his successive residences on the Riviera. Fernand Mourlot sent or personally carried the zinc plates or report paper, and Picasso returned the worked plates with his driver Marcel. When he was in Paris, the proofs executed from those plates had to be taken to Grands-Augustins the next day, without excuse. The printers had therefore to stop what they were doing to deal immediately with the work that the Andalusian required. It was a sizeable drawback for a printing establishment that worked like a clock and in which parallel to the artisanal work for the artists were carried out works of industrial volume, with runs of thousands of copies. But it was the price to pay for Mourlot to retain the genius that brought him incessantly satisfactions, prestige and, indirectly, a huge mass of editorial and industrial work. 134 We arrive at Picasso's second stay in Rue Chabrol, which began on Friday, June 14, 1946, when he began a splendid series of Françoise portraits made with lithographic pencil on report paper, transferred to stone (Françoise, Reuße 145 a 155, Mourlot 38 to 48). In these portraits, the painter has reduced the marked features of Françoise to few but firm lines that reveal his face, his big eyes and his luxuriant hair. This technique of making portraits based on simple but powerful drawings that leave almost the entire sheet blank giving a great light to the whole can not but remind us of Matisse, who was making similar portraits of his models in those days. Picasso had taken Françoise to see Matisse precisely in those weeks, and the French painter showed his interest in having the Spaniard’s lover as a model, which did not please at all Picasso. He then seems to have decided to make the 'Matisse style' portraits of and for Françoise. Of the series of eleven, all but the first two, which are also of extraordinary beauty, are edited by Kahnweiler in runs of 50 numbered copies signed by the painter in a size of 65 by 50 cm. The stones are then polished. The first ten are executed on the same Friday, leaving the last one, with a different making (Françoise en soleil, R. 155, M. 48) for Saturday 15. 135 These beautiful lithographs have always been favored by collectors. Ketteren Kunst of Munich sold in its auction nº 292 of March 18, 2005 (Lot 367) copy signed 35/50 of the sixth of the series, one of the most beautiful (R. 150, M. 43) for the nonnegligible amount of € 32,760. In 2006 Bonhams sold another copy (7/50 of the also beautiful 8th version (R. 152, M. 45) for the not insignificant sum of £ 36,000. It was lot 437 of sale No. 14453 held in London on October 2, 2006 Old Masters, Decorative, Modern and Contemporary Prints, including Caricatures and Illustrations. Sotheby's in its Auction L11160 Old Master, Modern and Contemporary Prints, held in London on March 30, 2011, sold copy 43/50 of this same 8th version, and no less than 58,850 British Pounds. Regarding the fifth version (R. 149, M. 42), Christie`s sold in auction nº 1114 of March 20, 2013 in London signed copy nº 40/50 (Lot 97). It was awarded for 37,500 Pounds, well more than double its starting price of 15,000. In the same auction, Christie's sold under Lot 98 copy 36/50 of the 10th version of the lithograph (Françoise aux cheveux Ondulés, R. 154, M. 47) which reached a price of 40,000 pounds, almost multiplying by three its starting price. In short, the prices of Picasso's best lithographs do not fall despite the crisis, but go up. In view of the success, when the same house brought out to auction, also in London. on September 18 of the same year (Sale nº 1144 Lot 91) another copy of this same lithograph (on 17/50), and in spite of serious defects such as stains and oxidation, the starting price went up to £ 25,000 (€ 30,000). 136 Picasso returns to Mourlot's workshop on Saturday, June 29 to take up the theme of pigeons, doing on the same day four lithographs of turtledoves (Les deux Tourterelles, Reuße 157160, M.49-51). In fact, the two drawings on lithographic paper transferred to stone (R.157158) are very similar, and only the first and the fourth lithographs are published commercially to 25 copies, the last one being a red and yellow print of the two stones slightly offset on a single sheet of paper of 44 by 32 cm. Although on July 3 he made a beautiful lithograph of Françoise (Tête de jeune femme, Reuße 161, M. 52), Picasso did not return to Rue Chabrol until Monday, January 20, 1947, when he made a series of lithographs depicting an owl perched on a chair (Hibou, Reuße 162-166, M. 53-57). All five are published commercially although the last four are very similar. And they have been able to reach 'reasonable' prices. For example, Ketterer Kunst sold copy 14/50 signed in pencil of Hibou au crayon (R. 166) for € 8,125 (Sale 377, Lot 458, 05.14.2011). In that same auction, the more elaborate Hibou à la chaise (R. 163, Lot 459) reached an adjudication price of € 16,250. 137 On Sunday 26 a series of fauns and centaurs will begin and will continue in February (Reuße 167, 168, 171, 172, M. 59, 58, 62, 63) all of which are published commercially, except for the second. On Wednesday, January 29, he made two portraits of his governess Inés Sassier and her son, both edited on 65 by 50 cm paper by Kahnweiler (Inès et son enfant, R. 169-170, M. 60-61). On February 2, 1947, he began a series of lithographs that later resulted in his famous dove of peace. These are drawings with wash and gouache on lithographic paper, transferred to stone. The three versions (Pigeon au fond gris Reuse 173, Le gros Pigeon, R.174 and Pigeon blanc, fond noir, R. 175. Mourlot 64-66) are published commercially at 50 numbered and signed copies. Christie's sold an unsigned artist's copy of the last one for $ 5,378 in its sale 1322 of 04.28.2003 in New York. 138 And on February 4 Picasso starts a new series of portraits of Françoise. The first, Buste de jeune fille (Reuse 176, M. 67) is a wash drawing on lithographic paper, transferred to stone that will be published commercially. Before returning to the topic, on February 16th he makes a first essay on a Matisse-like theme that he will also tackle later: La Femme au fauteuil. It is a lithograph in six colors, yellow, green, red, violet, blue and black, each of which has been made on a transfer paper passed to the corresponding stones. After printing 5 artist copies, the work will be edited by Louise Leiris Gallery at 50 numbered and signed copies (Reuße 177, Mourlot 69). This lithograph will serve as a model for the oil on canvas Femme assise dans un fauteuil (Femme aux mains bleues croisées) that will be painted two days later, which is not in Zervos but will be repertoriated by Mallén (OPP.47: 196) and Wofsy (PP.47: 020a) and will be picked up by Richardson and Leal. Also on Tuesday 18 Picasso will paint another oil on canvas Femme assise dans a fauteuil (Françoise Gilot), this one registered by Zervos, with No. Z.XV: 39. Sotheby's sold at auction No. N09031 of November 1, 2013 in New York copy No. 40/50 of this beautiful lithograph for $ 11,875 (Lot 123). 139 On March 5, 1947, a new technical stage began, as he made a lithograph directly with a pen and wash on a zinc plate for the first time. It is a portrait of Góngora based on the one Velázquez made of the poet in 1622. It will be published in 50 numbered and signed copies (Reuße 178, M. 70, Bloch 424) and is a variant of one of the aquatints that he made the previous month for the book Vingt Poèmes, published in 1948. The curious thing about this magnificent lithograph is that there is a contradiction, not signaled by the authors of the catalogs of graphic work. In both the portrait of Velázquez, whose original is preserved in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the copies kept in the Prado and the Lázaro Galdiano Museums in Madrid, the poet appears turned slightly to his left, the painter seeing Góngora from his right, the light coming on the same side and showing the right ear, while the left is hidden by the left chin. Well, the lithograph appears taken from the same perspective, while the aquatint, made a few days before, on February 27 (Bloch 477) appears naturally turned to the right of the poet. As can be seen in the copper plates with which the aquatints were made, which the printer Jacques Frélaut kept and did not cancel until 1983, Picasso did not directly engrave most of the plates that were used in the printing of the book. This was absolutely necessary, since the painter directly transcribed the sonnets of the poet, and could not do it from right to left on the copper plate, which had to be 'turned' once before passing them to the final iron so that they could be read in the book. But the etching without text of the portrait was looking to the left of the viewer, which implies that the plate looked to the right, that is, from the same perspective as Velázquez. Most likely, the plates without text were printed directly from the plate treated by the painter, without worrying about the agreement with the portrait of Velázquez, which is not a reference for the book, while those containing text were returned by Frélaut to be legible in the final print. 140 Well, the problem of concordance with Velázquez was solved in the lithograph, which also has the date 5.3.47 written from right to left, that is, illegible. Our explanation is that Picasso did not draw directly on the zinc plate, but used an impression of the etching, which is highly probable in view of the total similarity of the two works. Once in the zinc, Picasso completed the drawing with wash, since the lithograph presents slight variations with the etching, and he then added the date with his own hand on the zinc plate. When printed, the portrait appears in the same sense as in Velázquez's painting because it has been turned twice, the first to print the etching image on the zinc plate and the second to print the lithograph. The date, however, only came back once. Maybe Picasso wished there was a version that would approach Velázquez... On the same Wednesday, March 5, 1947, Picasso takes up the portrait of Françoise that he had sketched a month earlier. It is Tête de jeune fille (Reuße 179 to 185, M. 68). It is a wash drawing made directly on the zinc plate. In a first state (R. 179) the left part of Françoise's face –right on the print– appears completely obscured, clearing itself in excess in the second (R. 180, March 10). The third state (R. 181) incorporates more shadows, while the fourth (R. 182), completed with lithographic pencil and grattage, is a perfect result to be printed. But Picasso is not satisfied, and without printing more than 2 proofs of this state (he had previously printed 2 proofs of the first two states and 5 of the second one) he completely undid the drawing and created a different lithograph (R. 183) that evolves to through three states until finally being marketed at 50 copies (Reuße 185, Mourlot 68). All this on March 10, 1947. This could only be done by spending many hours in Mourlot's workshop. 141 Before finishing the series of portraits of Françoise, the painter had retaken the still life in his lithographic work, making a lithograph with a three-color vase and a fruit basket on Friday, March 7 (Grande Nature morte au compotier Reuse 186, M. 73). Louise Leiris prints 50 copies. On Saturday the 10th, a fruit and a vase (Composition au vase de fleurs) are repeated, but these are made in abstract form and with three colors, black, red and olive-gray background (Reuße 188) or light gray background (R.189, both M. 74) the first beint edited at 50 copies. On Sunday 11 and Monday 12, he makes several lithographs on transfer paper, of which three will also be used in the book Dans l'atelier de Picasso (Reuße 190, 193 and 194, M.75, 76 and 77) . As we saw, that same month of March 1947 (Sunday 23), Picasso made two other lithographs on zinc plate with the theme of women sitting and sleeping (R. 197-198) 142 In any case, it is proven that Picasso already has zinc plates at home and can work whenever and wherever he wants. But he continues to go to Mourlot's workshop when necessary, as will happen a few days later to work on one of his most successful lithographs. But before, on Wednesday the 26th and Saturday, March 29, 1947, he took up the portraits of Françoise, making three very different ones –two in profile and one in front– and which will all three be edited at 50 copies (Reuße 199-201, Mourlot 82-84). 143 On Sunday, March 30, 1947, Picasso undertakes one of his most ambitious projects: the series of lithographs David and Bethsabee based on the painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin), which he starts in his studio drawing with pencil, brush, pen and even with his fingers on a zinc plate. This plate will evolve and five initial states will be printed (Reuße 202-207, Mourlot 109), which Reuße wrongly dates all on the same day: Sunday, March 30. This confusion derives from the fact that Picasso does not erase in each of the states the date that he initially registered on the plate. But evidently, neither the painter could print any state on a holiday, let alone correct the plate after each printing and reprint. Because what is clear is that it is always the same plate. Let's see how the facts actually take place: given the interest he has in the project, the painter immediately takes the plate drawn on Sunday to the Mourlot workshop, where five artist proofs are printed, he gives the approval and immediately they are printed at 50 copies to be marketed (Reuße 202). As in other graphic works by Picasso, the resemblance to the painting is difficult to establish, insofar as in Cranach's oil canvas King David looks to the right of the observer and Bathsheba to the left, while in Picasso's lithographs it is reversed because of the unique inversion that involves printing from a stone or zinc plate. 144 In short, Picasso paints the plate in the same sense as the painting, but the impression turns around. In the following days, Picasso retakes the zinc plate, reworking it with pen, wash and scraping and adding numerous details. A second state is then printed at 5 e.a. and he also gives the approval so that 50 copies destined to the commercial edition in vellum paper are printed (Reuße 203). Again Picasso retakes the zinc plate, but here he performs a total demolition of the previous state, and therefore of the plate: with a brush he fills a good part of the previous ink drawing, thus covering all the details he had added in the second state. Then he draws much simpler lines, greatly simplifying the engraving. But from this third state (Reuße 204) only 5 e.a. are preserved, since Picasso does not approve impression and immediately undertakes the total demolition of the work done up to then. He completely covers with ink the plate and redraws the scene entirely with a scraper. The result is a dark lithograph with stylized drawings. But the painter is satisfied, and decides to approve the printing of 50 copies for the commercial edition of this fourth estate (Reuße 205). But the project is far from finished, because Picasso takes up the zinc plate and, using only a scraper, begins to clear the dark drawing. After cleaning the faces of David and Bathsheba and adding some details, the painter orders the printing of some copies of this 5th estate (Reuse 206, not picked up by Mourlot), and without ordering to print this precious lithograph for sale, he returns to work on the plate, totally changing David's face and slightly lightening some parts of the drawing (Reuße 207, 5th estate of Mourlot). But here the painter abandons the project and the plate is deposited in Rue Chabrol. 145 Exactly one year later, on March 30, 1948, Picasso happened to find the zinc plate in a corner of Mourlot's workshop and works it again with a scraper, clarifying the image a bit more. But he is tired, because scraping the zinc is much heavier than scraping a calcareous stone. He asks then that they pass this 6th state (Reuße 208), as it has left it, to a lithographic stone. He also takes the heavy 70 by 50 cm stone, and also the zinc plate, to his home in Grands-Augustins. In his study he installs the stone on top of a large iron kettle. But, according to Mourlot, the painter feels intimidated by the stone and does not dare to approach it. A year later, on March 5, 1949, the painter returns to pick up the zinc plate, but he just lightens a face and scraps the top part a little. They print only 5 e.a. of this seventh state (Reuße 209), and Picasso does not touch the plate again until a month later, on Sunday, April 10, 1949. But it seems that the plate still intimidates the painter, and even that day he hardly advances, contenting with scraping a little dress on the left and provide more details of the faces. 5 e.a. of this 8th state (Reuße 210) are printed. Two days later, the painter, tired of scraping the hard zinc plate, explodes and decides to erase everything, apparently with gasoline. Mourlot points out that as the deep scraping has left the drawing visible, Picasso could easily repaint the plate with pencil and lithographic brush. From this 9th state, 5 artist copies are printed. On Sunday April 17, the painter returns to pick up the plate, filling blanks with wash, drawing with scraping and extending the drawing to the edges of the plate to produce the 10th and last state (Reuße 213), which again fails to get the bon à tirer to be printed at 50 for commercialization, being only reproduced at five e.a. Reuße is not convinced by Mourlot's explanation, and estimates that probably the 9th state was transferred to a new plate to produce the 10th state. The scholar even provides as proof an intermediate state between the two 199. But the story of David and Bathsheba does not end there, since on Sunday May 29, 1949, the day before his departure for the South of France, Picasso decided to return to work the imposing stone, drawing with pen and scraping. The stone returns to the workshop to be able to print the 199 Reuße, 2000, p. 87 146 five accustomed artist copies. Despite the beauty of this lithograph, Picasso does not resume work on it and does not get a bon à tirer. This creates a problem for the printer, to the extent that it is a stone on which Picasso has not finished working. This means that it can not be polished and reused. At the death of the painter, Fernand Mourlot pointed to Claude Picasso, with whom he had contact and friendship all his life, his intention to donate it to the Picasso Museum in Paris. Between Monday, March 31 and August 8, 1947, Picasso also takes again the still life, making fourteen lithographs of great simplicity but also of great beauty. It starts with a relatively large size Nature morte au pot de grès (50 x 66 cm Mourlot 86, Reuße 215) which, despite its apparent simplicity, is difficult to make, as it implies, according to Reuße, a first impression of a colored background ocher, on which is printed a lithograph made with a pencil directly on a transfer paper. But other portions of cut out paper previously inked or painted with pencil are also stuck to this paper. The result is decalcated on stone and 50 signed copies are printed. Again Picasso mixes several techniques for an apparently simple realization. Reuße is surprised that neither Mourlot nor Rau speak of an ocher background in the commercial edition, since he illustrates in his catalog copy 31/50 with such a background, while Mourlot illustrates one without a background. However, it could be that the exception was the copy of the Huizinga collection that the German examined, since we have seen copies of the commercial edition without an ocher background. For example, number 3/50 in sale nº 403 of Ketterer Kunst of April 19, 2013 (Lot 82 awarded in 6.250 €). Copy No. 30/50 was sold by Sotheby's at sale No. N08740 in New York, on April 29, 2011 (Lot 118). These copies coincide with the description and lithographic reproduction included in Mourlot's reasoned catalog (volume II, page 26). On Sunday, April 20, he made another relatively large still life (50.3 x 66 cm Nature morte au verre et fleurs, M. 87, R. 219). This time the technique is completely different: wash drawing on zinc plate. 50 signed copies are printed. 147 The next day he changes technique again: he uses lithographic paper again on the one he draws with wash and gouache. It is transferred to stone, which is then completed with scraping (La tasse noire M. 90, R 220). Picasso is not satisfied with the drawing, since the lithograph is not commercialized, but he likes the method. That same day he executed, using the same technique, two other still lifes on large paper: La tasse et la pomme and Le petit pot de fleurs (Mourlot 91 and 92, Reuße 221 and 222). On Tuesday, April 22 he made, always using the same technique, seven still lifes in lithography. These are the works cataloged with numbers 93 to 99 by Mourlot and 223 to 230 by Reuße. And again in June and August of 1947, he retakes the still life, with two realizations on a zinc plate printed in black on 50 by 65.6 cm paper (R. 241, M. 107), edited in 50 copies in July of 1959 or in lithographic papers transferred to stone and printed in black and ocher on paper of 32.7 by 50.2 cm and printed at 50 copies (Mourlot 108, Reuße 242). But between April and June of 1947 Picasso not only realizes lithographs of still lifes: the same Sunday 20 April hecreates a disturbing Figure (M. 88, R. 217) realized with wash drawing on a large zinc plate (76 x 57 cm), but that is not commercialized. That same day he returns to the theme of the bull with another lithograph on a large zinc plate (Le taureau noir M. 89, R. 218), marketed at 50 numbered and signed copies. Sotheby's sold at auction N09031 of November 1, 2013 an artist proof signed in red for 16,250 dollars. 148 He also makes portraits, picking up those of Françoise that he had left on March 29. The result is the Grand profil, executed on Wednesday 2 April with pencil, pen and wash on lithographic paper transferred to stone (M. 85, R. 216), marketed at 50 signed copies. On May 18th, using the same technique, another portrait is made: Jeune Femme au corsage à triangles (M. 105, R. 239) which is also marketed at 50 signed copies. And on June 24, this time using wash drawing on zinc plate, he makes the Tête de jeune femme (M. 106, R. 240) also distributed at 50 numbered and signed copies. And in May 1947 he would return to the theme of the Femme assise et dormeuse for the last time, as we saw earlier. 149 Third Part: The rebellion against the communist aesthetic 8. The Chant des Morts and its aesthetics In June 1947, just when the Communist Party of France was expelled from the government, Picasso left for Golfe-Juan with Françoise and his son Claude, who was born on May 5. And occupied as he was then by ceramics, he will not make any lithograph from August 8 of that year until March 1948 when he will make the 125 of the book Le Chant des Morts. Perhaps one of the reasons that prompted Picasso to go to Mourlot in 1945 was the commission he had received from his friend Tériade to illustrate a long poem that his friend Pierre Reverdy had completed on January 5 of that year in his seclusion of Solesmes. As we have seen, Tériade owed Reverdy the introduction to Coco Chanel and the American capital that allowed him to launch Verve magazine in the 1930s. Picasso was equally grateful to the poet, whom he had known in 1910, because he had been the first cubist theorist in his Nord-Sud magazine and had published an essay on the painter in 1924200. The fact is that when Picasso 200 Reverdy, Pierre Pablo Picasso et son œuvre, Ed. de la Nouvelle Revue française, Paris 1924 150 disembarks in the workshop of Mourlot, one of his very first works is the first tests that he will use two years later in the commissioned book. These three essays are cataloged by Mourlot with the numbers 13, 14 and 15, and by Felix Reuße with the numbers 68, 69 and 70. But before describing the process of making this book, whose aesthetics will permeate a part of the subsequent work of the painter, we must situate ourselves in the period that lived the painter and the political circumstances of the moment. As we saw earlier, Picasso had been accused by collaborators of being a 'degenerate' or even Jewish painter. After the liberation, and when the Holocaust was unveiled, anti-Semitism happened to be frowned upon or even criminally prosecuted, the attacks became reproaches of not being French enough to be encumbered. The Communist Party tried in those years to become the party of the Renaissance of France, resuming the intervention of Maurice Thorez in the 8th Congress held on January 22 to 25, 1936. The slogan is again used in its manifesto of 1940 (entitled Peuple de France! and known as the Appel du 10 juillet) and after the liberation the party presents the Spanish painter as standard bearer of Gallic painting. In the 10th Congress of June 1945 Georges Cogniot calls the intellectuals in a report to participate with the party in the reconstruction of France, but that defense of the Andalusian by the PCF will not last long, because the cold war is then brewing, one of whose consequences will be that the Soviet Union imposes on its satellites in Eastern Europe and the Communist parties throughout the world its discipline. It also tries to force them to adopt its artistic aesthetics. In the same June 1945 report, philosopher Roger Garaudy, elected to the Central Committee, lectures Picasso on realism and the need for an art inspired and dedicated to the working class. In the report, entitled "The intellectuals and the French Renaissance"201, Garaudy points out that the party "expects its intellectuals to be militants, but not only when they come to cell meetings and demonstrations, but in everyday life, in their intellectual work”. And he especially addresses painters when he recalls that everyone knows some of the greatest painters who during the Occupation had placed themselves at the service of the people, but when they returned to their artistic work “they have set themselves back to painting for a Cenacle of snobs and decadents”. 201 Garaudy, Roger & Cogniot, Georges Les Intellectuels et la renaissance française. 10e Congrès national du Parti communiste français, 26-30 juin 1945: Éditions du Parti communiste français. Impr. centrale du Croissant , Paris, 1946. 151 Art, according to Garaudy, must be 'a reflection of history'. For Garaudy, artists must renew their involvement with realism as a secular trend of French art, without implying a particular aesthetic. The essential thing for the ideologist is that the artists avoid the three capital sins of art: aestheticism, individualism and evasion 202. In fact, the PCF switch is not entirely new. Already in October 1944 the official newspaper of the party, L'Humanité, had illustrated its article dedicated to the inauguration of the Salon d'Automne not with a painting by Picasso, which exhibited 77 works, but with a picture of the painting La Liseuse, by André Fougeron, the official realist painter of the PCF, whom the newspaper calls 'young teacher' 203. It can be considered a warning, even though it happened two days after the newspaper had dedicated its cover to the adhesion of Picasso 'to the party of the French Renaissance'. Christian Zervos does not agree with the new line of the party outlined by Cogniot and Garaudy, and dares to give the artists a Letters patent, citing directly Lenin in Cahiers d'Art: “The proletarian culture does not come from nothing. It is not an invention of people who are specially qualified in the matter. Pure absurd. The proletarian culture must appear as the natural development of the sum of knowledge elaborated by humanity”. He also quotes a draft resolution of the All-Russian Congress of Proletarian Culture (Proletcult): “The All-Russian Congress of Proletcult firmly rejects as theoretically false and practically harmful any attempt to invent a special culture for us” 204. The citations are reproduced in the magazine L'Art vivant and in Italy by Il politecnico in its nº 2 of October 6, 1945. From the creation of the Kominform, Zervos will become the main target of the attacks of orthodox communists. Through him, the target they want to reach is Picasso himself. In the course of a few months of the year 1946 the PCF, which holds the vice-presidency of the government and controls the ministries of armament, industrial 202 See Art et Idéologies. L'art en Occident 1945-1949. Actes du troisième colloque d’Histoire de l’Art contemporain, Université de Saint-Etienne, Saint-Etienne, 1978, pp. 145-146. See also Lahanque, Reynald Le Réalisme socialiste en France (19341954), thesis under the direction of Professor Guy Borreli, University of Nancy II, 2002, pp. 492-493 203 L’Humanité, 7 de Octubre de 1944, p. 2 204 Des problèmes de la création littéraire et artistique d’après quelques textes de Lénine et de Staline in Cahiers d’Art nº 20-21, París, Winter 1945-46, p. 341-348 152 production, coal, labor, health, reconstruction, urbanism and former combatants, hardens its position and gives a 180 degrees twist to its politics and attitude before the war. In February the companion of Aragon Elsa Triolet declares in a conference on Mayakovsky in the Theater of the Renaissance and under the presidency of Éluard, that the quotes of Lenin contributed by Zervos are transvestite, since they were texts from after the 1917 Revolution. That same month the exhibition Art et Résistance was inaugurated at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, for which Picasso gave a major work, Le Charnier (The Charnel House) and in which he also exhibited the curious Monument to the Spaniards dead for France, that as we saw is also a challenge, but this time to the new French authorities. The exhibition had been organized by the Association of Friends of French Snipers and Partisans, an organization emanating from the French Forces of the Interior, the armed resistance to the German occupier dominated by the PCF. The magazine Arts de France, an organ of the enlightened communist left, published a special issue dedicated to the exhibition with a reproduction of The Charnel House and a text by Paul Éluard in which he states that the main impression of the exhibition is that of “absolute freedom of expression”. Even the member of the Central Committee of the PCF Laurent Casanova glorifies Picasso in the magazine, paying tribute “to the great artists who have found in the heroic gesture of our brothers, the elements of a new modern art”. The flattery is possibly written before seeing the painting about the Spanish republicans, which could not but irritate him, insofar as he himself is the head of the powerful ministry of Former Combatants and Victims of War (he will be replaced in the ministry by a certain François Mitterrand). In any case, in the preface to the catalog of the exhibition, Louis Aragon criticizes Picasso in the name of the historical optimism of communism, denouncing that he has been satisfied with “seeing above all death and not what will emerge afterwards”. In the spring of 1946, the party magazine Les Lettres Françaises opened at the initiative of the head of the Art section, Léon Degand, a survey on the subject 'Art and the public', to which Paul Éluard answered in the issue of March 22: “From the nineteenth century painters express the reality of art more than reality. From Cezanne, the painter manages to make paintings, and not figurative painting ... For the general public, the only thing that counts is the subject. But artists are concerned 153 only with art, while the public only cares about the content. There has therefore been a divorce, which was aggravated by the Impressionists ... And yet the artist, from the moment he freed himself of all realistic restrictions, from the moment he uses forms to his free will, has given the public desire to free itself too. But the public does not want to free itself. As in politics, the public wants everything chewed. Divorce is not the fault of the artist but of the crowd and its bad education.... Critics and professors should dedicate themselves to educate the masses”. In the issue of August 2, Degand reiterates the initiative with an article that is much talked about: Défense de l'art abstrait. Garaudy, now head of the Culture Committee of the party, publishes months later (November 1946) in the same magazine an article entitled “Artistes sans uniforms”, in which after affirming that a communist France would create a painting much better than that of the Soviet Union, given the superiority of the French pictorial tradition, concludes by saying that the communists do not claim that the creators wear uniforms, affirming rhetorically: “There is no aesthetic of the communist party. I proclaim !”. For Garaudy “A communist painter has the right to paint like Picasso. And also to paint differently. And a communist has the right to like the work of Picasso, or the anti-Picasso. Picasso's painting is not the aesthetics of communism. Tazlitsky's neither. Nor any other”205. Garaudy drew his inspiration perhaps from PCF General Secretary Maurice Thorez, at that time vice president of the government, who stated in an interview published in The Times of London on November 17, 1946 that “there may be avenues to socialism other than those followed by the Russian communists”. Although this statement is not followed by others or a confirmation of the 'French way', this is what wants to see Communist MP and member of L'Humanité editorial staff Pierre Hervé. He publishes in the magazine Action on November 22, a few days later, an article entitled There is no communist aesthetic, in which he establishes the link between Garaudy and Thorez, stating: “The PC of the USSR has a policy. It has its mission and its responsibilities. We, French communists, 205 Arts de France nº 9, L'encyclopédie de la renaissance française, Paris 1946, pp. 17-20 154 have our own policy. We judge literati and artists, no doubt according to our general conception of the world, but in the immediate term according to our policy” And he concludes: “there is no communist aesthetic” 206. But the hardliners of the party react through Picasso's friend, Louis Aragon, who although he has not yet entered the Central Committee (he will do so in 1950) appears as the most authoritative voice of the intellectuals of the PCF. On November 29, the poet and editor of the party’s evening paper Ce Soir publishes his response to Garaudy, Hervé and even Thorez in Les Lettres françaises. In his article, entitled L'art zone libre?, Aragon relativizes the Secretary General's statement, calls Hervé 'opportunist' and asserts unambiguously that the aesthetics of the PCF is realism207. The party hierarchy strongly supports Aragon and Garaudy is replaced as head of culture of the PCF by Laurent Casanova . A few months later, in 1947, Aragon warned in the preface to a book of drawings by the official artist of the PCF André Fougeron that painters should return to figurative art. Aragon's text is actually a full-fledged attack on the Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme in 1947, in which Picasso would have participated had it not been for his break with André Breton, and includes veiled allusions to the Andalusian, as the characterization of evolution of art “from Altamira to the collages with a package of tobacco”. “Who profits from the crime?” Asks Aragon, “Who directs this art of which a recent exhibition has shown the organized predominance, the vanishing multiplication?” And he ends announcing the defeat of that art accused of degeneration: “The game is on the scale of the world and the future; You are going to be overwhelmed. What can you do in front of history? Art is something serious and is not free at all. It's not a person's business. It is something that concerns everyone. Play your role in the direction that not only the artist, but the world takes”. And he warns Fougeron, and through him all the creators: “You have to be careful with each drawing. André Fougeron, in each of your drawings the fate of figurative art is played, and you can laugh if I tell you that the fate of the world is also at stake. 208” At the XI National Congress of the PCF held in Strasbourg in June 1947, the month following the expulsion of the party from the government coalition, the central committee member again in charge of relations with the intellectuals Casanova establishes in a report the political line to which the party will cling in the following years: “When the masses are in movement, the essential cultural values have their source in the 206 Hervé, Pierre Il n'y a pas d'esthétique communiste, Action, 22 November 1946 The same debate on artistic freedom takes place in the Autumn of 1946/47 in the Italian Communist Party, in which clash in an exchange of open letters Secretary General Palmiro Togliatti and writer Elio Vittorini. 208 Aragon, Louis (Preface) Dessins de Fougeron, Les Treize Epis, París 1947 155 207 struggle of the masses” 209. Paradoxically, Casanova had probably been responsible for Picasso's accession to the party. The PCF of 1947 is not the same as the one that Picasso had adhered to three years ago, which said of itself to be a great opening to intellectuals and art. Nor is it the party that had taken possession of the National Museums through Jean Cassou, and to which Picasso had donated a dozen paintings. In fact, since that donation, formalized in 1947, the Andalusian did not offer a single painting to the French state. The National Museums pay him with the same currency and do not acquire a single work of his, even at his death, being satisfied with what it collected from his heirs and some collectors in payment of the rights of succession. But in 1947, Picasso had already been in the party for almost three years, and the organization considers that the painter has to abide by its decisions. The General Secretary Maurice Thorez, after the Casanova report, warns in his closing speech to the June XI Congress: “To the disoriented intellectuals, lost in the maze of interrogations, we provide certitudes, unlimited possibilities of development. We call on you to move away from the false problems of individualism, decadent aestheticism, and give meaning to your lives by linking them to the lives of others. We ask you to extract from the vivifying contact with the popular masses the impulse and strength that allow you to achieve lasting works” 210. Shortly after, on August 11, the president of the Union of Soviet Painters, the painter and intellectual Alexander Michailov Gerassimov published in Pravda a real invective against Western painting, noting that “Soviet art develops in the struggle against the formalist art of the bourgeoisie. The West always poisons the pure air of Soviet art ... It is not conceivable that at an identical level of development, Soviet art can sympathize with the decadent bourgeois art represented by those professors of formalist thought who are the Frenchmen Matisse and Picasso”. And all this happens before Andréi Zhdánov launches on 22 September 1947 in 209 Casanova, Laurent Le communisme, la pensée et l'art, rapport au XIème congrès national du PCF, Strasbourg, 25-28 juin 1947. Éditions du PCF, Paris 1947, p. 7. 210 Cited by Grenouillet, Corinne Lecteurs et lectures des communistes d’Aragon, Presses Universitaires franc-comptoises, Belles Lettres, Paris 2000, p. 36 156 Szklarska Poreba (Poland) the Kominform, the control structure of the other communist parties, and imposes socialist realism on them as well. In October, and following the publication of the article by Éluard Picasso bon maître de la liberté, the editor of Les Lettres Françaises, Claude Morgan, is forced to dismiss the head of the Art section of the magazine, the Belgian Léon Degand, replacing him by the specialist of the French historical heritage Georges Pillement. Paul Éluard can not avoid the appointment, nor the political and artistic turn that it implies, and from that moment, the magazine adopts an anti- abstract art tone and prophesies “a reaction that will compel painters to return to nature” 211. The top party official responsible for imposing orthodox theses in the magazine is none other than... Pierre Daix, who landed at the same time in the newsroom under the orders of Laurent Casanova212. But not the whole magazine is in the hands of orthodox communists. For example, when Paul Éluard published his poetry collection Voir in the spring of 1948, with 44 compositions dedicated to Picasso, Chagall, Gris, Villon, Chirico, Klee, Max Ernst, Miro, Tanguy, Masson, Beaudin, Fautrier, Dubuffet, Chastel , etc., accompanied by 64 reproductions of paintings, Louis Cheronnet publishes in n ° 211 of Les Lettres Françaises a recension entitled Le poète ami des peintres, in which he greets “his sovereign, entirely affective choice, of pure pleasure, which seems to me to have a total efficiency and a force of prescription before which the Byzantine quarrels prove sterile”213. To reinforce the orthodox and ensure that the theses of the Zhdánov doctrine prevail in the party, the PCF creates a new magazine, La Nouvelle Critique, whose editors include a member of the Central Committee and Pierre Daix, who keeps his job in Les Lettres Françaises. Picasso is irritated by the debate in which his comrades have locked in and tries to stay away from it. In fact in those years 1946-48 he spent very little time in Paris and much in Golfe-Juan, despite the discomfort of having to reside in the small villa Pour Toi of his friend Louis Fort, the printer of Vollard suite now retired. In fact, he did not acquire the villa La Galloise in Vallauris until May or June 1948. On September 8, 1947, the painter met on the beach the curator of the Grimaldi castle in Antibes, Romuald Dor de la Souchère, who offered him to install himself in it and paint in its large spaces. There he stays until the end of November, making numerous festive works that include La joie de vivre, fauns and Mediterranean still lifes. But there is in his works of this turbulent period a clear response to the intransigence of the PCF. In fact, he practices a 211 Gateau , Jean-Charles , Éluard, Picasso et la peinture (1936-1952), Droz, París 1983, p. 271 212 Grenouillet 2000, p. 79 213 Cited in Daix 1995, p. 299 157 surprising return to the more abstract cubism, thus giving free way to his creativity in the line that the party denounced as 'formalism'214. Although Picasso had taken refuge on the Cote d'Azur, enjoying his idyll with Françoise and the birth of his son Claude, he followed the debate through the press with great attention, the press cuttings that Sabartés sent or summarized for him and what friends like Eluard told him when they visited him on the coast. But if the attitude of the PCF irritates him, he refrains completely from criticizing the cultural policy of the party in public. He knows how to keep his irritation and his unwavering loyalty to the party in watertight compartments. This attitude of loyalty makes him refrain from signing the letter rejecting the secrecy of the party that a desperate group of members of the Saint Benoît circle decides to send to Laurent Casanova, precisely in the spring of 1948. The group met around Marguerite Duras, and it included the most open intellectuals of the PCF, such as Michel Leiris, Georges Bataille, Francis Ponge, Edgar Morin, Jorge Semprun, Claude Roy, Pierre Hervé and Roger Vailland. Picasso can not but agree with their ideas, which defend the freedom and autonomy of artistic creation and underline the role of intellectuals as the ideological vanguard of the party. Most of these intellectuals will be excluded from the party after a process launched as a result of the denunciation –probably involuntary– of his colleagues by Jorge Semprún, which the writer, also accused by Stephane Hessel for his attitude in Buchenwald, will deny all his life. Paradoxically, it will be precisely the ideologue Laurent Casanova who in 1956 will lead the glasnost-like current of the party, which will lead to his exclusion by Thorez in 1961 in the famous Servin-Casanova process, regardless of how much Pierre Daix pretends in his dictionary that he maintained ultramontane positions and that he defended the invasion of Chevoslovaquia 215. 214 215 Daix 1995, p. 688 Daix 1995, p. 167 158 The way to intervene in the debate that Picasso will adopt will be to show that he is not going to bend to an official aesthetic. And what better than to create a new one which is abstract, arbitrary and difficult to understand? His intention is clarified by his very thoughtful and elaborate attitude towards an incident that occurs precisely in those days and that gives us an idea of his state of mind when he makes the illustrations of Le Chant des Morts in the spring of 1948. Françoise Gilot tells us that Picasso had received a request from James Johnson Sweeney, Director of the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, begging him to join a protest planned in May 1948 to denounce censorship and attacks against modern art in United States, attacks that came from the political right this time but that resembled that of the Soviets like two drops of water. Sweeney was actually asking Picasso for a text to read at the symposium The Modern Artist Speaks held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York on May 5, 1948, attended by 36 artists and an audience of about 200 people. The main interventions were speeches by Paul Burlin, Stuart Davis, Adolph Gottlieb, George L. K. Morris, and James Johnson Sweeney. The painter Stuart Davis denounced the change of name of the Boston's Institute of Modern Art by that of Institute of Contemporary art, seeing in it an attempt to censure artists in a way similar to the “Committee of Anti-American Actitivades and to the purges of artists in Moscow”. For Davis, the recent attacks against freedom of creation use “arguments in substance identical to those used against artists” (by the Soviet power). Painter Adolph Gottliebdid did not hold his tongue either: “The current reactionary tendency in the art world has dangerous implications that concern both the artist and those who are interested in art. The main danger is a threat against freedom of expression... Artists who struggle to find new paths are always the first victims of a reactionary attack... by 'extremism' and 'incomprehensibility'. Every phase of modern art has been attacked with these pretexts, until the new phase became acceptable.” 216 Although Picasso could have signed these texts, what he does is to reject the initiative. And the painter gives Françoise a long and detailed explanation of why he was not going to join the project: art “should not be free”, but “subversive”. “Art and freedom, like Prometheus fire, are things that one must steal to use against the established order”. “This business of defending and liberating culture is totally absurd... the right to 216 The text of the speeches was never published. However, that of Adolph Gottlieb is available at the Adolph & Esther Gottlieb Foundation (http://gottliebfoundation.org/the-artist/selected-artists-writings/2/. The originals of the typewritten texts are deposited at the Archives of American Art of the Smithsonian Institution (Microfilm reel N69/112) 159 free expression is something that one acquires without the intervention of anyone”. The Andalusian also leaves very clear the authority against which he rebels at that time, by stating: “Only the Russians are naive enough to think that an artist can fit well into society. And that's because they do not know what an artist is”. And he says: “Right now, the bad thing that happens to modern art, which we could almost assure is also dying, is that there is no longer an academic art strong enough and powerful enough to fight against. There must be some rules even if they are bad because the evidence of the power of art is in breaking down barriers”. Picasso has already found a new academicism to fight against: the socialist realism that his communist comrades try to impose 217. Picasso's patience with the party has come to an end. From now on he will not tolerate more criticism attacking his painting with the nonsense of formalism, and in fact hw will reinforce the provocation with a new aesthetic that corresponds exactly to what the Communists criticize. In his effort to create that new aesthetic that defies the convention and attempts to impose realism by the communist party, Picasso draws at that moment on his sketches of November 1945. As we had seen, in the drawings there was an affinity with the Carnet de Juan-les-Pins of 1925. This notebook, actually made in the summer of 1924, during the holidays with Olga in that seaside resort on the Cote d'Azur, was reproduced in part at number 2 of the magazine La Révolution Surréaliste published on January 15, 1925. It is a series of 24 pages of designs, a part of which are composed of lines joined by points that schematize to the extreme different topics. The drawings were soon passed to wood by master engraver Georges Aubert in order to be incorporated as illustrations of artist's books. In 1931, part of the woodcuts –16 pages– are used in the book Le Chef-d'oeuvre inconnu by Balzac, edited by Vollard (Cramer 20). The rest will be to illustrate another book of Picasso: Hélène chez Archimède, a project of Vollard from the same period but that did not materialize until 1955218. The summer notebook continues in Paris during the month of October, 217 Gilot & Lake 1998, pp. 262-265 Suarès, André Hélène chez Archimède, Nouveau Cercle Parisien du Livre, Paris, 1955 No en Cramer, pero recogido con el número B22 en Horodisch, Abraham Picasso as a book artist, The World Publishing Company, Cleveland y Nueva York, 1962, pp. 39-42. 160 218 and there the designs become clear predecessors of the Chant des Morts, as is the case of those cataloged by Zervos with numbers ZV.343-345 and 355. The last one in particular consists of curved lines and straight lines all finished not in points, but in circles, which cross each other. The intersections are also marked by circles. Given that many of the nonlinear drawings of the first notebook resemble stringed musical instruments, Josep Palau i Fabre intuits that the line drawings correspond to what the astral charts would say if Picasso had wanted to see musical instruments in the stars he contemplated in the sky219. In reality, the constellation cards are nothing but a conventional grouping of stars, looking for a form that is achieved by drawing an imaginary line between some of them. Picasso would have liked to imagine no great bears, sagittarius, etc., but guitars or mandolins. The linear drawings of the notebook give rise to various interpretations, especially by his Surrealist friends. But Picasso rushes to cut them clean, taking advantage of a tasty text in which he tries to disprove the theories of critics who seek to explain Cubism through scientific or ideological considerations and in which he states that what is represented on the notebook are simply constellations. It is the Letter on Art that begins with his famous boutade “I do not look for. I find”, published in Moscow on May 16, 1926 in the magazine Огонёк (read Ogoniok, The Light) 220. Although, as we say, the object of the letter is the lucubrations about the origin of Cubism, the best example that the Andalusian finds to dismantle the theories of art critics is the Carnet de Juan-les-Pins. Picasso ridicules the surrealists who "found with surprise in his album sketches and pen drawings in which there were only points and lines" and gives a totally simple explanation of these designs: “The fact is that I admire the astronomy charts a lot. They seem beautiful to me, regardless of their ideological significance. Therefore, one day I started to draw a group of points, joined by lines and spots that seemed suspended in the sky. My idea was to use them later, introducing them as a purely graphic element in my compositions. But those clever surrealists have discovered that these drawings responded exactly to their abstract ideas.” 219 Palau i Fabre, Josep Picasso 1917-1926, Könemann, Colonia 1999, p. 419 Translated into French by the art review Formes in its Nº 2 of February 1930 (pages 2 to 5). See the full text of the letter at http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6101980w.image 161 220 For Pierre Daix this famous letter would be false, invented by the Russian painter and critic Georgi Jakulov, plagiarizing the interview of Marius de Zayas of 1923221, but it looks genuine enough to us. It seems evident that the text was presented by Jakulov to the Soviet magazine, and that more than a text of the painter is Picasso's statements to the critic, which he had undoubtedly known in 1925. It also seems clear that he uses Zayas's interview, but of course it is not his only source. The references to the Carnet de Juan-les-Pins –published only in 1925– are more than likely authentic. It is probable that Jakulov asked the painter about the illustrations of the notebook published in La Révolution surréaliste. In short, Picasso has created with his Carnet a reserve of arbitrary designs that he plans to use some day in his artistic work. And it will not be long before an opportunity presents itself. As we remember, the drawings were made in the summer of 1924, and made known in January 1925. Long before that, in November 1918 his friend and disseminator of Cubism, the poet Gillaume Apollinaire, died in Paris from a flu. Immediately a committee is set up that decides to build a monument and Picasso is entrusted with carrying it out. But when in 1921 the director of the magazine Mercure de France, in which the Pole Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary of Kostrowicki (Apollinaire) wrote, publicly denounces the 'metic, cubist, dadaist and other boches' members of the committee, the Spanish painter withdrew immediately. Seven years later, and when the tenth anniversary of the death of the poet approaches, the City Council of Paris constitutes a new committee that once again asks the Andalusian to make a monument to Apollinaire. This time, Picasso went to work in the fall of 1928 in the workshop of sculptor Julio González, his friend from Els Quatre Gats, on Rue du Médéah, near the Montparnasse station. He made a series of models with wire that will be rejected one after another by the Committee. The models were unveiled in May 1933 thanks to a Brassai photograph published on page 11 of the first issue of the Minotaure magazine. These sculptures are the simple rendering in three dimensions of some of the drawings of the 221 Marius de Zayas 'Picasso Speaks,' The Arts, Nueva York, May 1923, pp. 315-326; reproduced in Barr, Alfred Picasso : Fifty Years of His Art, Museum of Modern Art, Nueva York 1946, pp. 270-271 162 Juan-les-Pins notebook. After several adventures222, one of which we will report later, the project will take decades to be realized in two monumental versions, one at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, in 1972, and another one at the Picasso Museum in Paris in 1985 (MP 265). Apollinaire was no stranger to the questions of freedom of artistic expression posed to Picasso in that winter of 1947 to 1948. As recalls Peter Read, professor of French Literature and Visual Arts at the University of Kent, the poet had warned in a preface of 1917 to Baudelaire's book Les Fleurs du mal that “The great democracies of the future will allow little freedom of expression to writers” 223. Apollinaire knew what he was talking about, and not only because of his rebellious attitude, but also because according to a recent study, he himself would have worked as a book censor precisely after the publication of the latest edition of Baudelaire's text 224. Picasso identifies in 1948 the drawings of the notebook with Apollinaire. And the return to them is no coincidence either, since in 1948 the 30th anniversary of the death of the poet is approaching, and if the 20th had not been celebrated in 1938 due to the political turbulence of the moment (fall of the Popular Front in France, Munich Agreement, etc.), the third decade could be conveniently celebrated. Françoise Gilot claims for herself the origin of the idea of the mode of illustration of Le Chant des Morts that will capture the new aesthetic, noting that it was she who “years ago” had discovered illuminated manuscripts of the eighth century in Montpellier, with large abstract initials in red, suggesting to Picasso that he adapt that model to illustrate Reverdy's book, of which publisher’s order they often spoke. She also relates that in 1948, a bookseller had offered Picasso some manuscripts, among which one very old one which also had large initials painted in red, with a clear Arab influence and which reminded Françoise of the Montpellier manuscrip. Picasso bought them and, according to his partner, immediately went to work on the book225. 222 Ver la génesis y evolución del monumento en Lichtenstern, Christa Picasso: Monument á Apollinaire, Éditions Adam Biro, París, 1990 223 Read, Peter Picasso & Apollinaire: The Persistence of Memory, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2008, p. 216. In fact it is L'OEuvre poetique de Charles Baudelaire : les Fleurs du Mal - texte definitif avec les variantes de la premiere edition (1857) les pieces ajoutees dans les editions de 1861, 1866, 1868, suivie des poemes publies du vivant et apres la mort de l'auteur / introduction et notes par Guillaume Apollinaire, published in 1917 by La Bibliothèque Des Curieux, Paris. 224 Forcade, Olivier : Censure, secret et opinion en France de 1914 à 1919, published in the review Matériaux pour l'histoire de notre temps, Vol 58 – No 1, París 2000 p. 46. 225 Gilot & Lake 1998, p.. 258 163 But the interpretations of what Picasso wanted to do in that fabulous book do not stop there. Expert François Chapon does not see in the illustrations Oriental designs, Korean calligraphy or inspiration of the medieval illuminated manuscripts. What he sees is simpler and closer and more suitable for the text that is illustrated: it would actually be bones, vertebral columns, femurs and dislocated tibias226. Professor Richard L. Hattendorf of the University of East Carolina, specializing in the relationship between illustration and text in artist's books, has made an interesting comparison between Reverdy's words and calligraphy and Picasso's lithographs that he defines as a 'archaeological experience' in which the two media project themselves on each other to give birth to another composite aesthetic reality 227. The description of Françoise does not match the information we have. It could be plausible if the first lithograph tests described above had been made after the visit of the Parisian bookseller Lucien Scheler, friend of Éluard, in 1948. We could then think that the essays are based on what Picasso has seen in the manuscript he bought. But in fact the initial lithographs are dated between 10 and 12 November 1945, when the painter has not seen the manuscripts and has not seen Françoise for months. In view of the last attempt, misnamed by Mourlot Arabesque (Reuße 70) we can be sure that Picasso already had the problem solved in November 1945. Picasso had already used the inspiration of the Carnet de Juan-Les-Pins in some works, but sporadically. For example, in 1939 and 1941 he made two series of portraits of DoraMaar sitting in an armchair outlined with black strokes ending in thick points; in the Carnet de Royan of 1939 he repeated these designs and took up the geometric drawings; in 1944 he uses the grid structure in the manner of Juan-Les-Pins to make a still life (Nature morte au bougeoir/Nature morte à la cafetière Z.XIII: 240), a structure that also applied in March 1945 to Vue de Notre -Dame de Paris (Z.XIV: 105). And after having made his first designs of the Chant des 226 Chapon 1987, P.. 240 Hattendorf, Richard L., The Ensemble Concertant Of Reverdy And Picasso's Le Chant Des Morts, published in the review The Comparatist, nº 16 (May 1992), Society of Comparative Literature and Arts, Raleigh, NC, pp. 123-139. 164 227 Morts, he used profusely in May 1947 the curved line ending in two thick points in his still life Les cerises (Z.XV: 59). But in these cases it is not about developing a new aesthetic, but about using some element of it. In any case it is clear that in January 1946 Picasso already had a basic design that he would later use to deploy it. But he lacked time to actually do it and perhaps also a reason to get to work, which is provided by the evolution of the political debate. According to Mourlot in Volume II of Picasso Lithographe, the whole process takes place precisely at the time when the harsh debate on the aesthetics of the PCF is hardening. Picasso begins to work on the book according to Mourlot in January 1946 –just when the controversy breaks out– making, in the workshop as in the last essay, lithographs drawing with a brush directly on stone. But the process is slow and requires the constant presence of the painter in the workshop, with which the printer suggests working on zinc plates, which Mourlot will bring to Picasso’s home. The printer affirms that, already in 1947 –when the controversy is at its peak– Picasso takes up the project on zinc plates, on which he works again in the winter of 1947-1948 in plates sent by the printer to Vallauris. A Mourlot already nervous about the delay sends new zinc plates to Vallauris, in which Picasso continues to work on the illustration of the book, always following the story of the printer. The latest proofs are rejected by the artist because of the 'toad skin' effect produced by the oxidation of the plates 228. However, Françoise Gilot does not talk about that intermediate work on zinc in 1947. According to her, the painter does not see the zinc plates until Mourlot deposits them in the Ramié workshop in March 1948. In any case, Picasso makes the illustrations at one go, as a single and uniform work and not in several installments. It is not about 125 lithographs or 63 zinc plates, but a single symphonic work. Françoise remembers that since Picasso wanted at all costs to finish the book, he had asked Mourlot to send him again some 70 plates of zinc to Vallauris, where he had them spread out in the drying room of the ceramic workshop of Suzanne and Georges Ramié, in which he worked those days. For two weeks he locked himself with the plates until he completes the book in March 1948 229. 228 229 Mourlot 1950, p. 72 Gilot & Lake 1998, p.. 259 165 The way in which Picasso makes the 125 lithographs for the book is not without interest, since from the aesthetic point of view it is not the same for the painter to draw the illustrations on a table, one by one, separating them at the end of each plate, than doing it with all the plates spread on the ground. The way he actually did the work, the painter had before him the whole of the series and could conceive it as a set composed of mosaic pieces that build a large painting. Distributing the 63 zinc plates in eight rows of eight plates (one of 7), glued to each other, give us an enormous picture of 3.4 meters high by 5.20 wide, that is, as high as the Guernica ( 3.49 m) although less wide than the mural of 7.76 m. The Reina Sofía Museum has tried to reproduce the scene, placing the lithographs aligned in the exhibition room in the same way. But with a single copy of the book you can not fully reproduce the circumstances, since the lithographs are printed on both sides of each page of the book, which makes for example that if you shows pages 20 and 21, numbers 19 and 22 are hidden in the reverse. The Museum can only show half the illustrations, and has aligned them in six rows of five columns each, which gives a total of 30 double plates covering 60 lithographs. Felix Reuße states in his catalog that the lithographs of Le chant des morts were “probably” made on transfer paper, and not on stone or zinc plate, as Mourlot says. He adduces two convincing reasons: the first is that Picasso was very careful about the distribution of spaces between illustration and text; the second is that, having to work with Reverdy's text, it would have been very difficult for the artist to work directly on stone or zinc, since his drawing on the plate would eventually appear in the wrong side of the sheet, while working with transfer paper if he made a drawing to the right of the text, the double transposition of the image – first from the transfer paper to the stone and then from the inked stone to the paper of the book– would avoid the complication230. Although the explanation is convincing, it clashes with Mourlot's assertions and does 230 Reuße 2000, p. 96 166 not at all seem to match the known trouble the printer takes to get Picasso an enormous amount of zinc plates, wherever the artist may be. Regarding the problem of the centering of the drawings with respect to the text and the inversion of the image, Françoise Gilot points out that this had been solved by Mourlot by indicating on each plate the space occupied by Reverdy's text, so that the artist knew exactly the extension that was available for the illustration. Gilot also insists that, although it would have been much easier to use transfer paper, Picasso insisted on using zinc plates to get as close as possible to the quality of printing achieved by the stones, which could not be transported in good conditions to Vallauris231. The most plausible explanation of the origin of the Chant des Morts aesthetic is, in our view, a combination of the different interpretations developed by Gilot, Mourlot, Chapon, Hattendorf and even –as we shall see later– by Pierre Daix, although the latter applies his theory to the painting La Cuisine, made in November 1948, and not the Chant des Morts made in March. To enunciate our vision in a credible way we must depart from the basis that Picasso was looking for this book, that he wanted to illustrate page by page –which constitutes a notable exception in the bibliophile work of the painter– a complete and new aesthetic. As we have seen, in November 1945, and pressed by Reverdy and Mourlot, he makes his first attempt. On the 12th he finds the solution in terms of technique, stroke, size and color (Reuße 70). He already has the base idea of completely elaborated, but from it he has to develop an aesthetic. When two and a half years later he decides to complete the work, and perhaps influenced by an illuminated manuscript he bought, the painter develops the idea over more than 120 pages. Despite the absence of date on the plates, understandable insofar as they are works of musical accompaniment of a text and not independent lithographs, we have found several elements that allow us to identify the more or less exact dates of execution of the 125 lithographs of the book, which Mourlot indicates the painter has made “between two days of ceramic work” 232, a duration that must be understood in the sense that it is a parenthesis between two periods of ceramic works. In the first place, we have the fact that the artist ends up with seven extra zinc plates left over from those Mourlot has given him to make Le Chant des Morts and he uses them immediately to make seven magnificent lithographs. Françoise says that there were four left over 233, perhaps thinking that the following lithographs were made two per plate as in the book, but obviously she is wrong, because although the seven plates are large, the 231 Gilot-Lake 1998, p. 259 Mourlot 1950 , p. 64. 233 Gilot-Lake 1998, p. 259 232 167 seven lithographs are also big (Reuße 368-374, M.110-116). The works, printed on 77 x 57 cm paper, are drawn on the plates that Picasso uses to make two lithographs of the book in each one. Of these lithographs, the first (Le gran d Hibou) is one that uses the graphic elements of the Chant des Morts. These seven large lithographs have been dated on Wednesday, March 10, 1948. And as we know from Françoise Gilot that Picasso took two weeks to complete all the lithographs in the book, we can conclude that the book's illustration work was done in the last week of February and the first of March of 1948. We have even found new evidence that confirms that date: it is the cover of the book Góngora (Cramer 51), which he makes precisely on Tuesday, March 9 234. The date is indicated by Cramer, who does not find however (and therefore does not give) the date of completion of the other 40 aquatints that the book contains. We have reviewed photos of some of the copper plates used by printer Jacques Frélaut until 1983 when he cancelled them and that the Galerie Michael of Beverly Hills in California had on sale. Contrary to the prints that Sebastian Goeppert saw to make Cramer's catalog, the copper plates did have the date of execution inscribed, which was erased when they were printed. Well, we can not only confirm that the cover plate was made on March 9, 1948, but that the other plates whose photograph we have examined had the following grouped dates: February 27, June 27 and June 29, 1947 , February 4 and February 6, 1948. In short. Picasso made the first plates of the book Gongora, including the calligraphy of the poems in February and June 1947, but then left the work parked until in February 1948 he completed it, more than likely adding to the pages of calligraphy marginal ornaments that would appear in the final version and remind the way of illustration of the Chant des Morts. When he finished Góngora he made the illustrations for the book Deux Contes by Ramón Reventós on February 17th and then he turned to the Chant des Morts, and when he finished, on March 9, 1948, he made the cover of the first book, in which he wrote the name Góngora with thick brush strokes with a "G" taken from the aesthetics of the Chant des Morts. The next day he would realize his Great Owl. 234 Mallén gives another date for this etching, the 4th of February 1948, but he does not cite any reason or source for this date. 168 At the level of anecdote, we will recall the confusion that the lithographs of the book create in some experts, and that provides a new proof of the lack of attention suffered by Le Chant des Morts. And it is nothing less than the Swiss Bernhard Geiser, the first critic who deals with the graphic work of Picasso, which he had been cataloging since 1928. When Geiser explains Picasso's love for abstract designs in a preface of January 1955, thas it is not long after the painter carried out these works, he pretends that “Picasso goes so far as to take the abstract elements of Françoise's series out of their context and re-employs them as arabesques in the hundred and twenty-four illustrations of Le Chant des Morts of Pierre Reverdy” 235. In short, he claims that the origin of the aesthetics of the book is in Françoise's lithographs, and not the other way around. Here the critic's error derives from a lack of attention on his side. He cannot refer to the portraits of Françoise reproduced on pages 124 and 125 of his book (Reuße 153, Mourlot 46 and R. 149, M.42), which are actually made on June 14, 1946, that is, before of executing the plates of the Chant des Morts in March of 1948, but that do not use the aesthetics of the book at all. Geiser speaks by heart, has been confused and actually remembers a whole series of lithographs that he has seen. Although they are not cataloged as portraits of Françoise they are without any doubt and contain the graphic elements of the Chant des Morts. This is the first of the series La Femme au fauteuil (Reuse 397 to 431, Mourlot 133-138), whose third state leaves no doubt about who is the model. The problem is that these lithographs are made between an indeterminate day of November 1948 and December 17, 1948, that is, seven months after the painter completed the lithographs of the book and just after its publication. Another series of portraits by Françoise uses again the designs of the book between January and March 1949 (Reuße 444-447, 453-454, 458, 471-472479-481 and 486-503) The book can not have been inspired by the lithographs of Françoise, but vice versa. The availability of the date of execution of the lithographs of Le Chant des Morts is not enough to testify to the influence that the aesthetics of this book exerts on the later pictorial work of Picasso. In fact, between March 1948 when he made the plates of the book, the lithographs Le Grand Hibou and others clearly inspired by the book, and the autumn of that year, the painter does not perform any work that we could describe as close to the book. We therefore have to wait until the beginning of October, when an overwhelming production of several dozen works inspired by the book's graphics begins in just a couple of months. In short, Picasso 'forgets' Le Chant des Morts on March 10, and does not return to it until October. The only thing that explains this absence is that he awaits the publication of the book. As Gilot points out, Mourlot picks 235 Geiser-Bolliger 1965, p. XVI. 169 up the 63 zinc plates quickly and takes them to Paris, probably shortly after March 10th. Tériade was in a hurry and pressed Mourlot and also Picasso. When the printer sent the Zinc plates to Vallauris, probably in February 1948, he warned the publisher at the same time, and Tériade invited Reverdy to his residence (villa Natacha) in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, a few kilometers from Vallauris, and he dispatches him to see the painter to find out how the work is going236. Another visitor that Picasso receives precisely in those days was Joan Miró, who came to Vallauris on the 4th of March 237, precisely when Picasso was doing the lithographs of the Chant des Morts, which he most probably saw. That same year, Miró began to work on the illustration of Tristán Tzara Parler Seul's book, which he would not complete until 1950. This work, another of the summits of the artist's book of the 20th century, bears a certain resemblance to Picasso's 238, although the Catalan omits here the design of the thick line of a curve finished at both ends in a ball of the same color, so used by Picasso in his book, and which, however, Miró himself had already used in earlier lithographs, as in the Barcelona series and the poster for the exhibition Le Surréalisme of 1947. In relation to the Barcelona series, drawn in 1939 and printed in 1944, it is not useless to remember that in reality it is the precursor of its famous series of 23 gouaches called... Constellations , which also includes designs close to those that form the basis of Le Chant des Morts. The book Le Chant des Morts does not contain any express indication of the date of publication. However, Patrick Cramer (son of gallerist and publisher Gèrald ) explains with Swiss precision in his catalog raisonné of the illustrated books of Picasso the fact that the printing was completed on September 30, 1948239. In addition, we know that the 125 lithographs of the book were shown in an exhibition in the Louis Carré Gallery that lasted from December 17 to 31 and for which Mourlot made a poster announcing it. In short, the interval of non-use of aesthetics is closed when the painter receives the 236 Gilot & Lake 1998, p. 259 See Orozco, Miguel La odisea de Miró y sus Constelaciones, Visor, Madrid 2016. p. 312 238 See the illustrations of the book in Mourlot, Miró Litógrafo I, 1972, pp. 177 a 202 239 Goeppert 1983, p. 136. 170 237 first copy of the book. That is to say, that the painter parks the aesthetics when Mourlot picks up the plates of the book in March and takes it back two days after they deliver him a copy, possibly the same Thursday, September 30, when he has just returned from Vallauris to Paris. Picasso would not return to Vallauris until February 8, 1949, to come back to Paris on the 16th and not return to the Riviera until October. One of the reasons for his continued presence in Paris, besides the birth of his daughter Paloma, could be his willingness to assess the impact that his new aesthetic would have on critics, and especially among his comrades in the Communist Party. The Chant des Morts, made outside the party and his friends in it, which uses an aesthetic that can be defined as the opposite of the realism that the party demanded, and which illustrates a text impregnated with mysticism, by a writer totally removed from the ideological debate of the moment and intimate of collaborationist Coco Chanel, will constitute an editorial disaster. It will be ostracized by all, there will be no recensions in the literary and artistic newspapers and magazines that the party controls and Tériade will hardly sell copies. In spite of everything, it will constitute not only one of the most considerable achievements of the whole Picasso work, including its pictorial and sculptural work, but also the aesthetic basis of multiple later works. It is also a new reserve of designs, like the previous one of the Carnet de Juan-les-Pins that had been used in Le Chant des Morts. It is in lithography where the influence of the new aesthetic is more clearly expressed. What Picasso does is to use many of the 'signs' that he invents for that book as part of the drawing of figurative works. Take for example Le Grand Hibou (The Great Owl, M. 110, R.368), the first lithograph of 1948, apart from those of the book, made when the book ends and with one of the zinc plates that have been left unused. In this large-format lithograph (76 x 57 cm), made like those of the Chant des Morts with brush and scraper drawing on a zinc plate, the lines that normally make up the wings and feathers of the raptor are made up of a series of designs clearly derived from those of the book. The strokes used in the book seem to have inspired the realization of the Tête de femme that Picasso draws with wash on zinc on November 10, 1948 (Mourlot 122, Reuße 386). The other eleven lithographs done that same month (M. 126 to 131, R. 385 to 396) also use the aesthetics of the book. 171 9. The kitchen of all sauces The aesthetics of the Chant des Morts does not impregnate only the lithographic work of Picasso, but he also uses it in painting. The most significant example is his large canvas La cuisine in its two versions of equal size (175 by 250 cm, Zervos XV.106 and 107, Museum of Modern Art in New York and Picasso Museum in Paris, both from November 1948 ) composed with pictorial elements extracted from the aesthetics of the book. This painting appears to us as one of the most complex ever made by the Andalusian. He arrives there by different paths that come from his youth and in it he sublimates aspirations which are at the same time aesthetic, moral, political and affective. Françoise Gilot was present in the genesis of the painting and even participated in its elaboration, so her testimony is very useful to clarify some details. Françoise recalls that once he finished the first version of the painting, on November 9, Picasso ordered her to make an exact copy to make the second version, which proves the importance that the painter attributed to the project. The task was arduous, both for the size of the painting and also for the fact that the canvas that had been supplied was not exactly of the same size as the previous one. In the end the work needed the collaboration of the nephew of the painter Javier Vilató 240. Pierre Daix explains in his Dictionnaire Picasso that these are two of the most abstract works of the painter's œuvre, which would explain why Picasso did not want to sell them and kept them until his death, “as witnesses of his boldest achievements” 241. In the same way, the painter managed to have Christian Zervos catalogue them immediately. The critic and publisher published photos of the two paintings accompanying a long 240 241 Gilot & Lake, 1998, p. 296 Daix 1995, pp. 230-231 172 article (Oeuvres récentes de Picasso exposées à la Maison de la pensée française) in the second issue of his magazine Cahiers d'Art of 1949. According to Pierre Daix, who as we have seen was then an ascendant figure of the French Communist Party, the fact that Zervos rushes to publish the pictures of the painting in his 1949 article is not casual. On the contrary, Zervos uses them as a sign of the challenge by Picasso to the artistic guidelines of the party. Daix concludes that if Picasso tried to avoid participating in the partisan controversies, he showed, however, when he would not renounce his “formalist explorations” to conform to the demands of the party. As early as March 1948, the painter had reacted to the authoritarian turn the party had taken by making his Chant des Morts and a few weeks before painting La Cuisine, a Soviet delegate at the Wroclaw Congress had attacked the painter, denouncing him as “decadent and bourgeois” 242. The negative impression that the debate developed then leaves on the painter reaches the point of causing nightmares even 20 years later. According to Mariano Miguel Montañés in his diary, on October 15, 1968, the painter tells some visitors at Notre Dame de Vie that the previous night he had had a nightmare that had become recurrent for years. He dreamed he was back in a people’s democracy. “I'm in a conference with painters and sculptors. We discuss beauty, and as often happens between colleagues, we do not always agree”. The painter, now far from the partisan quarrels, is not 242 Gilot & Lake 1998, p. 292 173 excited to describe it, but the fact that he has not been able to sleep because of the nightmare indicates how the problem was recorded in his memory. In fact, Picasso relates this nightmare with others that do not let him sleep either, as he tells his audience that same day: he dreams that he arrives in England without money. He looks at his pockets, but only finds a gold coin, but so small that it will not be enough to pay for a hotel night 243 . The debate around the aesthetics of the party had run its course since we left it in the previous chapter. On September 9, 1948, a few weeks before Picasso painted La Cuisine, Aragon renews his firm call to the realistic artistic discipline, affirming in an obituary article of Les Lettres Françaises entitled "Zhdanov and us" that intellectuals must submit necessarily to the orthodoxy of the party 244. Christian Zervos replies to the PCF publishing in Cahiers d'Art (nº 1 of 1949) an article in response to Laurent Casanova where he defended the creative freedom of modern art and resumed Éluard's thesis: “We can not deny that if we put obstacles to development today of modern artists, we would later deprive the people of completing their knowledge and strengthening their spirit and we would endorse the grave responsibility of not having favored and served the innovators in order to raise the common level to higher levels ... It must be recognized that on this Marxism has not helped the people 243 Miguel Montañés, 2004, p. 40 See Verdès-Leroux, Jeannine L'art de parti: le parti communiste français et ses peintres 1947-1954 in the review Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales del Centre européen de sociologie et de science politique de la Sorbonne Vol. 28, París, June 1979 pp. 33-55 174 244 and owes them reparation” 245. Pierre Daix, who overlooks the deliberate stance Picasso has taken in making Le Chant des Morts, can not continue making deaf ears and points out now that the position of the Andalusian in the party controversy is reflected in the text by Zervos 246. For Daix, then, Picasso's pictorial response to the party's guidelines is La Cuisine, and in case its aesthetics does not make it clear enough, Christian Zervos takes care of making it explicit in 1949 in a new article in Cahiers d'Art (Oeuvres récentes de Picasso) that accompanies reproductions of the two versions of the painting, as well as of numerous canvases that use the aesthetics of the Chant des Morts that we will describe later, all of which fell within the 'formalism' reviled by the PCF. Zervos accompanies the photos of the paintings exhibited in July 1949 at the Maison de la Pensée Française with a commentary in which he again attacks the narrowness of “post-Leninist Marxism” and denies that Picasso can be linked to socialist realism, while at the same time he affirms that the artist's political commitment, derived from his deep and sustained love for the people, has never prevented him from rejecting vehemently everything he interprets limits his essential artistic freedom. If the fact that the Chant des Morts forms the basis of a new aesthetic is evident to us in view of the 125 lithographs, the works that precede it chronologically and those that follow it, this has not been reflected in the treatises. Although in fact our interpretation was implicit in the second article of Zervos in Cahiers d'Art of 1949. The article is quoted in numerous works on Picasso, but only to make reference to the ideological aspect. Examining the article 247 with care, we nevertheless find ourselves with a rationalization of the new aesthetic. Zervos begins his piece by claiming to have recently read in Italy a critique of Picasso’s work published on the occasion of a painter’s trip to Rome to attend the November Peace Congress, an article that he estimates is “plagued with errors that need to be corrected”. According to the critic, the article had been written by a painter who had just broken with abstract art to embrace the aesthetics of socialist realism. He refers no doubt to Renato Guttuso, a friend of Picasso who tries to develop 245 Zervos, Christian Réponse à Laurent Casanova, membre du bureau politique du PC, in Cahiers d’Art, Nº 1 1949, pp. 73-80 246 Daix 1995, p. 915. 247 Zervos, Christian Oeuvres récentes de Picasso exposées à la Maison de la pensée française, in Cahiers d’Art, Nº 2, 1949, pp. 237-272 175 a “third way” to reconcile creative freedom with socialist realism 248. The Italian painter had published at the end of 1947 in L'Unità, organ of the Italian Communist Party, an article entitled Pablo Picasso e le Guardie Bianche in which he affirmed that the Andalusian had taken an important step “towards revolutionary art, towards realism”, Pointing out in passing that the real enemy is not formalism itself, but “intellectualist formalism” 249 . The objective of the Italian’s text would have been, according to Zervos, to reconcile the art of Picasso with the aesthetic defended by the party. To ridicule the author, Zervos affirms that he would have pretended that the allegories of the bodies of women or children that Picasso made in his recent period of marital happiness would be nothing but the ammunition used by the Spaniard to show the decomposition and disintegration of the dominant classes. Identifying the author of the article with the the party bosses, Zervos derides communists unable to see in these images so mismatched to their aesthetics nothing more than the confirmation of their ideological superstructure, thus giving up the possibiliby of raising their heads and recognizing the obligation that the artist has to follow the creative spirit that prefers, says Zervos citing Blaise Pascal, search to possession, hunting to capture. For Zervos, everything that happens in the world leaves in Picasso a vivid impression that makes him adopt as his own all the human concerns that thrill him. Although the painter does not find anything better than “the deep and continuous friendship for the people”, he does not let himself be carried away by the siren songs of popularity. And he has always opposed, he says, any dependency that limits the artistic freedom that has allowed him to bring new perspectives to aesthetics. If the communist ideology grants little margin to “individual power” and intuits a direct influence of the imperatives of history on individuals, including the most distinguished, it can not at the same time deny them control over their time or the power to give their initiatives the energy of a conquest. No need to be very clever, adds the critic, to see the height of the work of Picasso and his famed contribution to the renovation of the plastic of the century. And he wonders if it would not be much better to take advantage of the contributions of the artist's talent than to confine him to the role of “avenger of the popular masses”. Picasso, he says, possesses divine sparks capable of illuminating the path he transits, and possesses a nature 248 See The third way. Renato Guttuso and realism in Europe, James Hyman Gallery, Londres 2003. http://www.jameshymangallery.com/pages/publication/509.html 249 L’Unità, Sunday November 2, 1947, p. 3 Available at http://archivio.unita.it/esploso.php?dd=02&mm=11&yy=1947&ed=Nazionale&url=/a rchivio/uni_1947_11/19471102_0003.pdf&query=picasso&avanzata= 176 that makes him discover more than knowing and allows him to brandish a great truth and express it at once. According to Zervos, Picasso is therefore “a revolutionary” by virtue of his natural behavior, his verb and his ability to drag. And that Picasso revolution is the opposite of a vengeful attitude in the service of a party and of “falsification of reality”. His contributions show that there he has devoted completely to that revolution. His works, he says, produce enchantment and seek to evoke, not paint pamphlets against the bourgeoisie or stoop to adulation. He never seeks to reflect beings and things in the simple correspondence of their form to their matter, but to capture the secret of each object and express it in the proper way. It is about the metamorphosis of the physical world, says Zervos. When the Andalusian paints a woman or a child in his crib, he seeks to evoke both what he has in front of his eyes and what he guesses. In 1948 Picasso is fed up and has decided to put an end to the controversy with the PCF by creating a decidedly formalist aesthetic and therefore guilty. And Zervos clearly states it in his name when he points out that it is normal that, at first sight, the observer is not able to grasp how Picasso's imagination intends set reality on march and show it beyond its appearance and how he pursues in the uninterrupted renewal of the images a replica to the repetition of births in cosmic life. All the more reason for it to escape socialist realism that refuses to see in art the conjunction of reality and inspiration. The plans of the Andalusian have therefore, Zervos says, nothing to do with the flimsy copies of the world prescribed by today's Marxists. And the abyss that separates them only gets bigger every day. The critic deepens the chasm by pointing out what is on each side of the trench: on the one hand the representation of things in their second state, boasting of making exact reproductions, and on the other a lyricism achieved by the artist without the hindrance of external artifices, without the apparatus of means emptied of their primitive energy to become the rites of a formalism, lyricism that thanks to its force, finally reproduces the exaltation of life itself. For Zervos, the more one reflects on the works of the Andalusian exhibited in July, “full of daring, saturated with invention and rich in resonance”, the better is understood why they translate into painting what is often lacking in the poetic art of time and the more they can be considered as essential for poetry. And, in a direct denunciation of Guttuso, he adds that those who hoist the Picasso banner on the building of Marxism and try to associate the artist with his attempt at reconciliation do not want to confess that the plastic paths imposed by themselves never lead to creation. For Zervos, the new aesthetic of Picasso provides images insensitive to all demagogic eloquence and provide the primal freshness that is in the tenacious rediscovery of the 177 universe, thus renewing the genius of the primitives. And he also sees in the new paintings of the Andalusian a tenacious reaffirmation that will prevent him from going in the direction that the Marxists would like him to follow: Leonardo da Vinci's conclusion that “art is a mental thing”. The Spanish painter does not do with his new aesthetic but to take this conclusion to its ultimate consequences, going from paying attention to the sensitivity to the real to deal only with the deliberations of his spirit. The figures of the new aesthetics are all addressed from the side of the intellect. Thus, explains Zervos, the elements of the face and eyes are reduced to the state of signs, treated according to mental conventions, clashing violently with traditional human representations and reaching almost the extreme limit of the mental. His characters, full of “parentheses” (the curves of the Chant des Morts) appear therefore as “pure conceptions of the spirit”. Zervos characterizes these works of the painter saying that they lack “punctuation”: the inventiveness of the artist does not take time to breathe and in the rush to say as many things as possible he forgets the conventional signs that distinguish some images from others, the partial senses that constitute those images and the different degrees of subordination that suit each one of those senses. The rapidity of the painter's spirit is such that he does not allow time for his hand to add or correct. But observing his works in detail, Zervos discovers that if he does not rework his images it is because they almost always reach the tip of his brush chosen, retouched and almost definitive, because the cuts and corrections of the model have been done before in his spirit and the crossouts have been made in his eye. For the critic, nothing more was needed to irritate people whose hesitant nature prevents their spirit from accepting risks in the presence of works that leave in the mind not calmness and security, but effervescence. Zervos recognizes in some way the reason why Picasso and himself have had to react by publishing this second and important article when he affirms that Picasso's new aesthetic has “gone almost unnoticed”. He explains it by saying that in general one is not sensitive but to the findings that jump to the eyes, those that are presented in contrast to the previous discoveries, and that with Picasso can sometimes appear as repetitions or absences of announcement or inauguration what are in reality a series of inventions clearly presented, but which call the attention of the eyes that “know how to see”. And he explains that the lack of visibility can be due to a certain modesty: the artist has not presented strictly new forms, has deliberately forgotten the effects that collide and are recorded, has neglected to take care to assert himself through the unprecedented and the pretension of presenting unusual images, and finally has resigned to present his discoveries as before in waterfalls and with a superb and tumultuous verve. 178 For those who still have some doubt about the deliberate purpose of Picasso when creating his new aesthetic, Zervos reminds them that these paintings “do not only express their plastic merits, but they declare a number of hidden” purposes. And immediately he designates the enemy: those whose nature avoids at all costs the debates of conscience and the partisans who always act with hidden intentions. Picasso affirms through Zervos that he will not renounce the vehemence of his struggle for peace, but that it will not separate him from his furious reprobation of everything that presents itself to his eyes as an obstacle to the freedom of the artist. Whether it is intellectual, moral or political control, Picasso has refused to let himself be destabilized by it since his youth. And he concludes by stating that if he has created this new aesthetic it is precisely to establish clearly the disparity of his work with the resolutions of the Marxists, all whose thoughts must adhere to their ideological system. The article by Zervos closes on page 272 of the magazine with a painting by Picasso that uses the aesthetics of Le Chant des Morts (L'enfant au cheval de bois) painted in June 1949. And to complete the offensive, on the opposite page is a new poem by the resistant René Char entitled “The inventors”, dated September 30, 1949 and to our understanding written expressly to accompany the text of Zervos and the illustrations of Picasso. The poem can not be more explicit in its denunciation of the totalitarian danger: “They came, the men of the forest on the other side of the mountain, those we did not know, the rebels to our customs ..... We have come, they said, to warn you of the next arrival of the hurricane, of your implacable adversary.... We thanked them and let them leave.... We could have convinced them and captivated them... Yes, the hurricane was coming; But was it worth it to talk about that and trouble the future? At the height that we are there are no urgent fears” 250. Char, intimate of the Zervos, and especially of Yvonne, who was his 250 Char, René Les Inventeurs, published in Cahiers d’Art nº 2, 1949, p. 273. Included later in the book Les matinaux. Gallimard, París 1950. In English: Char, René The Inventors: And Other Poems (The French List), Seagull Books, Calcutta 2015 179 lover, is not unknown to Picasso, who illustrated several books by the poet, the first of them in 1936. In January 1939, Char had paid tribute to the painter in a Note on Picasso, in which he declares to see in him a lookout who can get France out of its lethargy. The Andalusian was then for Char a subversive whose violence is the best antidote against the Nazi plague. It is thanks to Picasso that the painting will have fulfilled its destiny to overflow the creation, to widen the sensibility of man and push him to more demand, knowledge and invention, says the poet. For Char, the Nazi terror looms over France and it is the work of the Andalusian that provides a counter-terror that the French must use in the situation that they will soon have to face. Picasso, encouraging the French with the cry of "Up the wolves, Time to fight !” is for Char the carpenter of a thousand plates of salvation “for Paris, the perjured capital” 251. But the French Communist Party does not take notice. And in the XII congress, held from 1 to 6 April 1950, Maurice Thorez insists again and recommends painters to concentrate on making realistic painting, in an appeal that seems a response to the Chant des Morts and La Cuisine by Picasso: “To the formalism of the painters for whom art begins where the painting has no content we have opposed an art that would be inspired by socialist realism and be understood by the working class, an art that would help the working class in its struggle for liberation” 252. The intervention of the Secretary General is undoubtedly a response to the article by Christian Zervos, published a few months before. Professor Read also wants to see in the “radical declaration of artistic insubordination” that constitutes Picasso’s La Cuisine an homage to Apollinaire, champion of freedom of expression. And Read cites the aforementioned preface of 1917 predicting that the democracies of the future will allow little freedom of expression to writers. Pierre Daix does not link La cuisine with Le Chant des morts, a work that he undoubtedly underestimates, but attributes the origin of its aesthetics directly to the Carnet de Juan-les-Pins of 1925, which, as we have seen, is intimately linked to Apollinaire. Although it does not appear to us as suitable, the link that Daix establishes between the painting La cuisine and the Juanles-Pins notebook is timely, insofar as, as we pointed out before, this has been one of the sources of inspiration of Picasso to make the lithographs of the book. But instead of going back to 1925 to look for the origin of La cuisine, Daix should have looked for a link closer in time and more direct from the artistic point of view: the book by Reverdy and Picasso. In short, 251 The note was nor published in 1939 but circulated widely among the intellectual resistance. It was published in 1969 under the title Mille planches de salut, as preface of the book by Charles Feld Picasso Dessins 27.3.66 – 15.3.68, Éditions Cercle d’Art, París 1969 252 Thorez, Maurice Rapport au 12ème congrès national du PCF, Gennevilliers, 2-6 avril 1950, pp. 54-55 Cited in Verdès-Leroux 1979, p. 44. 180 and as we saw in the preceding pages, before serving to shape La cuisine, the Carnet de Juan-les-Pins had gone through a new sieve that was Reverdy's book. What Picasso uses in the painting are the lines and designs of the Chant des Morts distributed in the canvas with the matrix structure that he recreates again but that he had already anticipated in the notebook. Although some critics, such as Carsten-Peter Warncke, have wanted to see in these two paintings a simple continuation of Picasso’s series of misery and deprivation during the war 253, we cannot forget they are painted four and a half years after the liberation of Paris. In fact, in those days, Picasso painted rather still lifes well-stocked with lobsters and fruits. The feeling of simplicity, fragility and emptiness do not come as Warncke intends from an attempt to portray the misery of an empty kitchen without food, but from the deliberate objective of the painter to perform the pictorial experiment that we try to describe. As we saw in Le Chant des Morts the signs of the Juan-les-Pins notebook, if we look closely at the two versions of La cuisine, the use of the graphic elements of Reverdy's book is evident. If the paintings are painted one on November 9, 1948 and the other, more worked, some day later, we can not forget that the publication of the book has occurred a month before and that the painter does in those five weeks of interval, during the period in which he paints the two paintings and also afterwards, numerous lithographs and canvases in which the application of the aesthetics of the Chant des Morts is very clear, borrowing in a very explicit way elements of the book that he has just rediscovered in his final realization. No one can escape in any case the presence in La cuisine of the essential basis of the illustrations of the book, the curved line ending in thick points, which appears in the book on the cover and back cover, as well as on pages 32, 34, 35, 38, 42, 43, 44, 54, 58, 59, 67, 68, 74, 82, 83, 95, 104, 106, 111, 115, 118 and 120. In the painting it appears repeated innumerable times. As for the horizontal line finished in two vertical strokes and touched at its center by a circle, which appears on the left side of the painting, it seems clearly copied from the drawing on page 38 of the book. The vertical line joined by another to a circle, which appears several times in the painting, also seems inspired by the designs on pages 1, 77, 81 and 89 of the book. The same happens with the horizontal line that opens at both ends in two, reflected on pages 1, 66, 88, 93, 102 and 118 of the book. As for the straight lines joined by points, which form the basis of the canvas La cuisine, they also appear on pages 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 25, 26, 27, 52, 63, 64, 69, 72, 73, 88, 90, 91, 92, 97 and 116 of the 253 Warncke 2002, pp. 461-462. 181 book. Finally, and without being exhaustive, we will point out that the design of the curved line finished in thick points and from whose center another straight line prolongs into a point, which is also repeated in the painting, it can not but find its inspiration in the drawings on pages 17 and 24 of the book. And unlike other paintings and lithographs, in which Picasso uses elements of the aesthetics of the book to insert them among other pictorial elements, in La cuisine, the strokes of the book are all there is. There is nothing else. As we have seen and will develop later, the link between La cuisine and Le Chant des Morts is clear, although it has escaped Picasso experts and scholars. The only two exceptions we know are Brigitte Léal, then director of the Picasso Museum in Paris, who in an article in the exhibition catalog Picasso 1937-1953. Gli anni dell'apogeo in Italia, held at the Gallery of Modern Art in Rome between December 12, 1998 and March 15, 1999, points out that the schematization of the lines that make up the painting is “very close to the signs he used to illustrate the fortytwo poems that make up Reverdy's Le Chant des Morts” 254. That same comment is reproduced in a Spanish exhibition catalog a year later 255. The second exception is that of Peter Read, who in 2003 noted in a study published in the Revue du Louvre that the lines of the Carnet de Juan-les-Pins had gone through the middle stage of Reverdy's book before reaching La Cuisine 256. When Picasso painted the first version of La Cuisine on Tuesday, November 9 and asked Françoise and Javier to reproduce it to make the second version, he began to make 254 Mantura, Bruno, Mattirolo & Villari (editors) Picasso 1937-1953. Gli anni dell'apogeo in Italia, Umberto Allemandi & C.Turín & London, 1998, pp. 43-69. 255 Ocaña, Maria Teresa; Bozal, Valeriano; Léal, Brigitte; Grace Galassi, Susan &Vives, Rosa Picasso: Paisaje interior y exterior; Electa/Institut de Cultura de Barcelona/Museu Picasso, Barcelona 1999. P. 268 There are English and Catalanb versions of this book (Picasso-Indoor and Outdoor Landscapes, Picasso. Paisatge interior i exterior). 256 Read, Peter Dans 'La Cuisine' du peintre: connotations littéraires et politiques d'une oeuvre de Picasso, Revue du Louvre No. 3, París 2003, pp. 79-81 182 lithographs, doing several series whose obvious inspiration was the aesthetics of the book. The same November 10, he draws with wash on zinc plate a dark Tête de femme (R. 386, M. 122) with curved lines and points that remind the book, but that is not marketed, according to Mourlot, because the plate has been damaged. Mourlot placed just behind in his catalog two undated lithographs, but the printer suggests that they were also made the same Wednesday, since the next one is also dated on Wednesday 10. These two prints, entitled Tête de taureau, tournée à gauche (R.395, M. 123) and Tête de taureau, tournée à droite (R. 396, M. 124) are made with brush and lithographic pencil on a zinc plate of 65 by 50 cm. And in both, the outline of the bull's head is made of two thick curved lines with points at their ends, that is, the basic essence of the Chant des Morts. Both are published commercially. That same day, he made L'Atelier (R. 385, M. 125), a dark drawing of the interior of the studio, made with pencil, pen and lithographic wash on a zinc plate of 65 by 50 cm. 50 numbered and signed copies are published. 183 On Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 November, Picasso returns once again to the aesthetics of the book, and also to the Carnet de Juan-les-Pins, by making eight lithographs that basically use the designs of the Chant des Morts. They are Figure noire (R. 387, M. 126), Composition (R. 388, M. 127) and the series Figure (R. 389-391, M. 128-130) and Figure stylisée (R. 392- 394, M. 131), made with brush, lithographic pencil and scraper on a zinc plate. The first is a woman's bust, while the second is an abstract composition very similar to those of the notebook and published in 1931 in Le Chef-d'œuvre inconnu and in 1955 in Hélène chez Archimède and which seems to represent a musical instrument, but done the opposite way from the xylographs: here is a black background and the drawing is marked by the blank spaces and the lines scraped on the plate. In the following six, each made on a different plate, the musical instrument is transformed until it becomes a woman's bust. 184 The link of La cuisine with the aesthetics of the book, palpable from the artistic point of view and, as we have seen, also chronologically, will be revealed even more clearly as we see how the idea of the painting emerges and analyze its components and deep spirit. But first let's focus on the relationship with Apollinaire, because in the fall of 1948, the 30th anniversary of the death of the poet is imminent. On November 2, Jacqueline, the poet's widow (Picasso had been best man at the wedding) wrote to the painter reminding him that Dr. Robert Lemasle –collector and friend of Marie Laurencin– had written asking Picasso to preside over a new committee with a view to finally building a monument to Apollinaire. The widow asks the painter to give a favorable response in memory of the friendship between the poet and Picasso257. The Andalusian, who, as we saw in the previous chapter, had already thought about the anniversary since March, showed his willingness to collaborate and began to think again about Apollinaire, doing on November 7, that is, two days before painting the first version of La Cuisine, two portraits in profile of the poet with a laurel wreath. One of them was given to Louis Aragon, who published it in a special issue of Les lettres françaises on November 11 (day of the armistice) and keeping the other (Picasso Museum, Paris MPP Inventory: 1990.89). But as Françoise Gilot reminds us, the project, which needed the approval of Paris the city council, was parked again, according to her because of the clashes between communists and conservatives. And Picasso did not accept impositions either, telling them that if they asked him to do the job he would do it as he wanted to or not do it at all: “If you want me, I will do something that corresponds to the monument described in The Poet Assassinated. That is to say, a space with a vacuum, of a certain height, covered with a stone”. Françoise explains that what the painter wanted was to create a structure “that gave shape to the vacuum in such a way as to make us think about the existence of this emptiness” 258. And precisely on November 9, the 30th anniversary of the death of Apollinaire, Picasso painted La Cuisine, in which, as Françoise explains in another different passage of the book, the Andalusian wanted to reflect the thrust or rhythmic pressure of space on form. For this he took the “empty white cube” of the kitchen of Grands Augustins, painting all the lines of force that make up the space in it and joining with them the objects present in it (household, bird cages, Spanish dishes hanging on the wall, etc.). For Professor Read it is clear: with its complex network of intersecting lines, Picasso creates on the canvas a two-dimensional representation of empty space and nothingness. 257 258 Read, 2008, p. 210. Gilot & Lake 1998, p. 428 185 La Cuisine is therefore a pictorial monument to Apollinaire on the 30th anniversary of his death 259. Up to now everything reminds us of death: Picasso starts painting the canvas when he has just received his printed copies of the Song of the Dead, whose aesthetics he uses in the new work; we are in the days following that of All Saints and a few days before November 11, the day of the Armistice in which tribute is paid to the eight million dead and nine million invalids that caused First World War, among them Apollinaire, He died of the flu but was still convalescing from a serious war wound on his head received a few months earlier. But still another element of death can be introduced in the genesis of La cuisine. We will recall that Picasso spent the year 1948 almost entirely in Vallauris, leaving the French Riviera only on the 22nd of August to fly three days later to Wroclaw, Poland, where he attended with Paul Éluard and Pierre Daix the Congress of Intellectuals for Peace. Pierre Daix recalls that the real objective of this meeting, organized by Alexandre Fadeïev, president of the Union of Soviet Writers, was to obtain international recognition of the new Oder-Neisse border between Germany and Poland that the Russian army had imposed on its advance towards Berlin 260. Spanish communist leader Manuel Azcárate says that he was asked by PCE boss Santiago Carrillo to persuade Picasso to receive the minister of culture of the new Polish communist government, and that the minister had the audacity to ask Picasso to visit the ruins of Warsaw in order to paint a picture “more important” than Guernica 261. When the Congress was over, Picasso was invited to visit other regions of Poland, starting with the immense flat land where the Warsaw Ghetto had been located, razed by the Germans five years earlier. Daix remembers that the painter's hands trembled as he observed the destruction and remembered the fate that had suffered many of the nearly 400,000 Jews that the German occupier amassed in the area in 1940. Picasso did not say 259 Read 2008, p. 214 Daix 1995, p. 910 261 Azcárate, Manuel Derrotas y esperanzas: la República, la Guerra Civil y la resistencia, Tusquets. Barcelona. 1994, p. 316. 186 260 a single word, but when they were invited for lunch by the authorities of the city and a local authority had the audacity to affirm that Poland was not composed only of Jews and that in fact with the new regime the Hebrews were overrepresented in the political instances, the painter shook his head and with a ferocious smile, and recalled: “When I am asked, I have always say that I am a Jew. In addition, my painting is nothing but Jewish painting. Ask Éluard if his poetry is not Jewish! And Apollinaire? Exactly like Max Jacob”. Pierre Cabanne relates in the same way that when someone asked the painter, confidentially, if he really had Jewish blood, Picasso answered: “No, but I would have liked to have it” 262 . At another point in the visit to Poland they were taken to see the wellkept museum of the Auschwitz labor camp, where tribute was paid to the Polish and Russian socialists and communists there imprisoned, exploited and partly executed by the Germans. But the Polish organizers had not foreseen any visit to the neighboring camp of Birkenau, where nearly one million Jews were exterminated. Daix, who had spent more than a year deported in the Mauthausen camp, demanded that the organizers extend the visit to Birkenau, only a few kilometers away, but the Poles refused, claiming lack of time and the absence of a good road. Daix shouted then to be heard by all the foreign intellectuals who formed the delegation: “Is not it that we are not going to Birkenau because those who were exterminated there were Jews?” The organizers finally agreed to make the move, and so Picasso could see the bleak panorama of the dozens and dozens of lined up buildings, the remains of the crematoria that the Germans had hurriedly blown up just before leaving and the cages on several floors where the detainees were kept awaiting their extermination. Picasso observes everything with clenched teeth, frowning and silently and then thanks Daix who insisted on making the visit: “You were right, you had to come to understand”. When he says goodbye to Daix at night in the hotel, Picasso embraces him excitedly and whispers in his ear “And to think that before painters thought they could paint The Massacre of the innocents ?” 263. He was referring to Rubens, who like other painters before and after him painted two versions of that New Testament drama in 1611 and 1638. What he meant by that last sentence is the same as a year later, Theodor W. Adorno said in his Cultural Criticism and Society: “to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric” 264. In short, Picasso comes to say that he could never represent the enormity of the holocaust in a figurative 262 Cabanne 1992, p. 130 Daix, Pierre Picasso at Auschwitz. ARTnews, September1993, pp. 188-193. Cited also in Daix, 1995, pp. 911-912 264 Adorno, Theodor W., Crítica de la cultura y sociedad I, Akal, Madrid, 2008 p. 25 187 263 painting. We will remember, however, that he himself had painted Guernica in 1937 and Le Charnier (The Charnel House) between February and April 1945. This last painting, inspired by Goya's Ravages of war, was made precisely when photos of the Nazi concentration camps that the Red Army was liberating were being disseminated. Although the reference to the Holocaust in Le Charnier has been contested by experts, the press, and especially L'Humanité, had published numerous testimonies of the genocide before Picasso painted the picture. For the rest, one of the first photographers who revealed to the world the magnitude of the massacre was precisely Lee Miller, ex-wife of Man Ray, lover and then wife of Roland Penrose, who was also an intimate friend of Picasso since the 1930s and she walways visited him when she came to Paris. No doubt she gave him his testimony of what she had seen and photographed. In case there is any doubt that Le Charnier was about the concentration camps, two months after visiting the Birkenau camp, Picasso paints the enigmatic La Cuisine, on designated dates of commemoration of death, but here the expression of supreme barbarity abandons all signs of figurative representation. Professor Read, who guesses in his 2003 study in the painting “the calligraphy of the unspeakable” discovers even in 2008 the spectral presence of a skull in the center of the painting, the eye sockets being formed by the two plates. In the first version of the painting, more abstract and without volume, the skull does not appear so obvious, but in the second the painter has redefined the outline of the skull, has adjusted the composition obscuring certain areas of the painting, adding lines and other details, so that “the head of a dead man appears from the heart of the painting”. In this way, says Read, the Holocaust and a symbol of mortality invade the domestic space 265. 265 Read 2008, p. 215 188 But let's return to the formal motif of the La Cuisine painting itself. As Françoise Gilot recalled, Picasso's aim with the painting was to register his reflection on the space of his kitchen. Picasso had told her –not when he paints one of the lithographs of the Polish coat (Femme au fauteuil), as Françoise says, but necessarily a few days before, since the lithographs are actually done after La cuisine– that he wanted to take care of the space surrounding the objects, reducing these to the maximum. Remembering Cezanne, the painter points out that what he painted were not apples as such, but the weight of space on them. What counts, concludes Picasso, is the thrust or rhythmic pressure of space on form. According to Pierre Daix, the two La cuisine paintings constitute an abstract reconstitution of the elements of the kitchen-dining room of the studio-house of the painter in Grands Augustins. We will add, paraphrasing Picasso, that in that reconstruction the objects become hollow areas to which the painter applies the pressure of the space that surrounds them. The painting was the subject of critics' interest since its photo was published in Cahiers d'Art, giving rise to different interpretations, but scholars were unaware of the existence of a recently appeared painting that would seem essential to understand La Cuisine. It is the oil on canvas of abstract character Vue de la fenêtre (cataloged by Mallén with nº OPP.48: 028), allegedly painted by Picasso on Monday, November 8th. Strangely, this 81 x 100 cm painting was not registered by Zervos (who was nevertheless part of the Chant des Morts/La Cuisine conspiracy and photographed La Cuisine in Picasso's studio). It was not photographed either by Herbert List –who made the most famous photos of La Cuisine– 189 or any of his colleagues. Perplexing indeed. And it was not known until 1999, when it was unveiled at the exhibition Picasso: Interior and exterior landscapes, held between October 26, 1999 and January 30, 2000 at the Picasso Museum in Barcelona. The curator of the exhibition was María Teresa Ocaña, who was director of the Museum since 1983, and is considered one of the leading Picasso experts in the world because of that position and the fact that she is the author, co-author or publisher of numerous works on the Andalusian published in several languages266. The catalog of the exhibition, compiled by Ocaña, states only that the painting is dated on the back "8.11.48", that it comes from the artist's studio, that it has not been previously exposed and that it belongs to a private collection. In the acknowledgments of the book-catalog, it is pointed out that among the private collectors who contributed works to the exhibition, some preferred to remain anonymous. The painting is placed in the catalog of the exhibition on a page next to the second version of La Cuisine, which the Picasso Museum in Paris lent to the event. And the catalog indicates that Vue de la fenêtre was painted one day before the first version of La Cuisine (the one in MOMA), and that the game of geometric planes allows to identify several of the elements that adorn La Cuisine 267. The size of the painting, 81 per 100 cm seems a bit too big to have served as a simple sketch, but in those months Picasso has canvases of that size, like those used to paint Femme assise dans fauteuil (Z.XV.103) , Enfant à la balle II Claude (Z.XV.109), or Femme dans un fauteuil (Z.XV.115). In any case, Vue de la fenêtre, authenticated by the Barcelona exhibition and Ocaña’s authority, should appear as the forerunner of La Cuisine, and not just because it was painted the day before. The similarities, especially with the second version of the painting, but also with the first, painted precisely the next day, that is Tuesday November 9, are incontestable. There is in Vue de la fenêtre a division of space in vertical panels, in the manner of a screen that could be a mirror that shows the interior of a 266 Picasso. La Grande grafica. 1904 – 1971, Milán, 1986; Picasso Dibujos 18991917, Valencia, 1989; Picasso: The Ludwig Collection - Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Ceramics, Prints, Munich, 1992; Picasso Landscapes 1890-1912. From the academy to the avant-garde, Nueva York, 1994; Picasso and Els 4 Gats: The Early Years in Turn-Of-The-Century Barcelona, Nueva York, 1996; Picasso: The Development of a Genius 1890-1904, Madrid, 1998; Painters in the Theater of the European Avant-Garde, Madrid, 2001; Picasso: las grandes series, Madrid 2001; Young Picasso/Picasso joven, La Coruña, 2002; Picasso: From Caricature to Metamorphosis of Style, Londres, 2003; Picasso: War and Peace, Barcelona 2004; The Picassos from Antibes, Museos Barcelona, 2006; Picasso, l'homme aux mille masques au musée Barbier-Mueller d'Art précolombien de Barcelone, 2006 ; Picasso et le Cirque, Martigny, 2007; Picasso, Laboratorio de Estilos, La Coruña, 2007. 267 Ocaña, Bozal, Léal, Galassi & Vives, Picasso: Paisaje interior y exterior Electa, Barcelona 1999, p. 268. 190 room, but also reflects the exterior. The panel on the left is an open door with its handle seen from both sides, and in the next three there are three circles (the Spanish ceramic plates), inside each of which are placed other circles surrounding a black dot. In the two panels of the center, the light decomposes the image of the reflected space in triangles, but the panel on the right is in shadow and decomposed itself into triangular shapes. In the center of the panel on the right is a plant. But Vue de la fenêtre does not seem to have been painted in the kitchen, but in the study of the upper floor of Grands Augustins. It is true that Picasso often painted by heart, but some aspects of the painting make us think that it reflects the study and not the kitchen. For example, the decomposition of the panels into triangular shapes seems to have its origin in the fall of the sloping ceilings of his studio, which as we can see in some photos of the time made by Brassai, Lee Miller, Robert Capa or Herbert List coincide in their shape 268. In some of those same photos, in which the main window is photographed taken from inside the studio, you can see the roofs and chimneys that coincide in your perspective with those that appear in Vue de la fenêtre. The problem is that the kitchen is located on the second floor of the building, which is where Picasso actually painted Guernica, and not as they say in the famous studio on the third floor where he received visitors and always appears in the photos. The painter's studio was not high enough for the monumental 3.50-metertall painting, although it was enough to paint La Cuisine, only 175 cm high. There is a graphic testimony that La Cuisine was painted in the studio, because a few days after completing the painting Picasso invited German Jewish photographer Herbert List to come to his studio and he portrays him in front of the painting. Well, the kitchen is on the second floor, but in the Vue de la fenêtre painting the view of the roofs corresponds to that of the third floor and not of the second. It could be then that painting in the studio Picasso reproduces the view from that third floor, but incorporating in it the 'interior landscape' of the kitchen, which he remembers by heart, although we still have the problem of the sloping ceilings. In any case, it appears as a painting in which the interior is mixed with the exterior of the studio of Grands Augustins, distorted by a cubist interpretation. It could also mix the second and third floors of his residence. And the three circles that Françoise certifies were the decorative plates constitute structuring elements. As we will see later, Picasso still introduces more different visions in La Cuisine. If we look at the first version of La cuisine, we can see from the start the same three structuring circles that appeared inside Vue de la fenêtre. We 268 See for example the photo by Lee Miller Picasso in his studio, published in the American edition of Vogue on October 15,1944, p. 98. See also Brassai’s photo L’Atelier de Picasso/Picasso’s Studio dated May 9 1944. 191 also see on the left the door with its handle of the previous canvas and a less evident but palpable structure on vertical panels. What would have been added of course is all the paraphernalia of lines of the aesthetics of the Chant des Morts, which alters the perception, because we went from the straight lines and the edges of Vue de la fenêtre to the curves and points of the book. The panel structure is less obvious because other petal-like structures surrounding the plates have been introduced. Also present, almost in the same place, is the plant of Vue de la fenêtre, but in this version it has been simplified in the manner of the bull’s lithographs to become a simple arrow placed vertically. The arrow becomes in the second version of the canvas, whose base was made precisely by Françoise Gilot, in a plant as in Vue de la fenêtre, but combined with the arrow of the first version. Peter Read wants to see here a representation of the pregnant woman, which in the Picasso sculptures of 1948 and 1949 is represented by perpendicular arrows269. Indeed, shortly after painting the canvases, Picasso made for example the sculpture in bronze Femme enceinte, constituted by an arrow of 130 cm long by 37 wide with a sphere of 11.5 cm in diameter in the center (Collection Musée Picasso de Paris MPP: 334, Werner Spies 347.II). But we can not forget that the arrow is also the sign of Sagittarius, the zodiacal symbol to which Françoise, born on November 26, belonged, nor that on November 9, 1948 her partner is three and a half months pregnant with her daughter Paloma. On the other hand, if Picasso planned, according to all indications, to make a large picture with the new aesthetic of the Chant des Morts and tells Françoise that he will paint “the empty white cube” of the kitchen (“I will make a canvas of that..., that is, nothing” 270) it is strange that the day before he painted a sketch that although it has a slightly abstract facture does not come anywhere near the level of abstraction of La cuisine. In our opinion, Vue de la fenêtre would be superfluous in the preparation of the two great paintings, to which the Andalusian can arrive from only his idea of painting the vacuum, the aesthetics of the Chant des Morts and another series of works, derived from the book, that he produces precisely immediately after receiving of printed copies of the book. At this time it is appropriate to recall the criticism that Louis Aragon had made to Picasso in the aforementioned article L'art zone libre ?, in which he denounced the painting The Charnel House, stating that the Andalusian insists on seeing death and desolation instead of what arises from death. If La Cuisine evokes the Holocaust and death, the painting also makes room for birds, kitchen utensils and the life that comes with them. And there is even more: according to our interpretation, in the 269 270 Read 2003, p. 77. Gilot & Lake 1998, p. 296 192 many paintings in one (or two) that La Cuisine represents, there is not only a tribute to Apollinaire and a reminder to the war dead of the Reverdy book and the Holocaust. Nor is there only a longing for rebellion against the artistic guidelines of Soviet communism and a representation of the lines of force of the kitchen of Grands Augustins. In fact there is also... a still life. In fact, the link between La cuisine and Le Chant des Morts is even more evident if we carefully examine the paintings and sketches that precede these canvases. We shall recall that Picasso has a quite eventful 1948, and since he makes the book's plates in March until the very first of October, when the book has just been printed, his artistic production is abnormally low and limited to ceramics and lithographs. According to Françoise Gilot, this is due to the preparation work for the exhibition of 149 ceramic pieces at the Maison de la Pensée Française in Paris, another institution of the PCF, in November. Probably Mourlot or Tériade did not bring to Picasso a copy of the Chant des Morts on the same Thursday, September 30, the day of its printing. Perhaps, more likely, they waited until the papers dried up and took it the next day, Friday, October 1st. In any case, and after seven months of forgetting the aesthetics, the painter produced that same Friday, on paper of 66 x 51 cm two drawings with graphite pencil titled Femme-fleur (Zervos XV.86-87) in which the the use of the lines of the book is evident. The next day, on Saturday, October 2, the painter completes the series with another drawing of the same size, but this time done with wax colors, black ink and pencil (Zervos XV.89). And that same day he paints the small oil on cardboard Melon et figues de Barbarie (32 x 33.5 cm, Zervos XV: 99), the first and clearest example of the series of oil paintings inspired by the signs of the Chant des Morts. Here not only the designs are those of the book, but strokes are the same. the On Sunday, October 3, he develops the theme of prickly pears with four drawings, the first two with colored pencils and the last two with graphite 193 pencil, on 51 x 66 cm paper. These are Figues de barbarie VI (Zervos XV: 90), Fruits et cactées V (Z. XV: 92), Fruits du Midi (Z. XV: 91) and Cactées (Z. XV: 93). The four depart from the structure of the small canvas of the eve, from which thet undoubtedly derive, but they abandon the aesthetic elements of the Chant des Morts. The painter returns to the theme the following Thursday October 7, to make a drawing with colored wax pencils. It is Nature morte aux figues (not in Zervos, Christie's # 486, 6418, 02/08/01, Mallén OPP.48: 010). This drawing is undoubtedly part of the previous ones, but it is larger (49.4 x 75.8 cm) and in it the fruits are stylized, the aesthetic elements of the book are incorporated again and the lines are extended so as to occupy all the paper. That same Thursday, October 7, Picasso also paints another small oil on cardboard of 34 x 34 cm, Tranche de melon (Zervos XV: 100) that appears as a new version of the oil of October 2, and in which he keeps the aesthetic elements of the book. The next day, Friday, October 8, Picasso transfers the drawing with colored waxes from the previous day to a canvas of 60 x 100 cm. It is Nature morte à la tranche de pastèque (Zervos XV: 94) that seems as if it had started from an impression of the previous one, since it is turned from left to right. The shapes of the fruits are here more stylized and the lines show even more clearly their desire to occupy the whole canvas, to structure the space. But here a parenthesis of a month takes place, because the painter does not take up these subjects until Tuesday, November 9, 1948, the 30th anniversary of the death of Apollinaire. It could be that when making the first version of La cuisine on Tuesday, November 9, Picasso took into account the painting allegedly painted the previous day, that is, Vue de la fenêtre, whose straight lines and edges he abandons to adopt the softest and smoothest of the Chant des Morts. But if that were so, the main question is through which filter it passes, what other vision penetrates and transforms the structure of the picture. To find out we have to return to the series of prickly pears made between October 2 and 8. Because the last of the series, made on October 8 is the small oil on cardboard of 30 x 40 cm Composition (Zervos XV.80) 271, which appears as the other sketch for La cuisine, and in which the outline and pictorial elements are clearly those of the Chant des Morts. In this small sketch appear the pictorial elements that are in La Cuisine but were not in Vue de la fenêtre: the structures in the shape of petals, which we now see are figs, the union of the different representations with lines that incorporate the aesthetics of the Chant des Morts, the sun, etc. This painting is key to demonstrating how the two versions of La cuisine derive from the Chant des Morts, and not the Carnet de Juan-les-Pins, as Daix claims. In the sketch, the strokes are, as in the book, thicker and 271 Mallén dates it erroneously on November 8, but Picasso dated it himself on 8.10.48. 194 more 'careless' than in La cuisine and the structure of 'lattice' of the picture is taking shape. In short, in the personal, historical, political and emotional context of that month of November 1948, to paint La cuisine, Picasso has descended to his prosaic series of figs, which from the classic still life that was on October 3 has evolved until totally structuring the space. Then he used the theme of the kitchen of Grands Augustins, perhaps from Vue de la fenêtre and its panel structure, deforming it to make room for the latest version of the figs. And all this is structured thanks to the pictorial elements of the book Le Chant des Morts, intertwined as a mesh as in the drawings by Juan-les-Pins. The link between the book and the two paintings is clearer if we look at another painting whose structure is remarkably similar to La cuisine: Nature morte au porron (Zervos XV.116), painted on December 26, 1948, that is, six weeks later. This oil on canvas, much smaller (50 x 61 cm) than La cuisine, preserved in the National Museum of Wales, uses only some of the Chant des Morts designs used in the previous one: the horizontal line that opens in both ends in two, the horizontal line ending in two vertical lines, the straight line ending in two thick points and, of course, the curved line ending in two thick points. But this canvas is especially interesting to establish the relationship with Reverdy's book to the extent that while in La cuisine the strokes are all together forming a network, as in the drawings by Juan-lesPins, in Nature morte au porron they overprint the elements of a still life, as if marking its skeleton or its limits, in the same way that they are used in some lithographs of the time. Something similar happens in his painting Crustacé et bouteille (Z. XV.114), also dated December 26, although here the strokes are part of the structure of the still life. Picasso still makes another version of this painting on December 31 (Le grand homard rouge, Z. XV.96). 195 10. More sequels to the Chant des Morts La cuisine and the aforementioned still lifes are not the only (or the first) non-lithographic works in which Picasso uses the designs of the Chant des Morts, but are inserted in a period of several months in which much of his work uses that aesthetic. As he does in lithography, Picasso continues to use the aesthetics of the book in painting in the months following its publication. On October 23, 1948 he painted the oil Claude in costume polonais (Z.XV.101), also reproduced in Cahiers d'Art on page 250, and which the painter had in his studio next to the second version of La cuisine, as we see in a photograph by Herbert List taken the same month of November of 1948272. In this painting, some elements of aesthetics are also distinguished, as is also the case in the October 30 oil painting Claude dans les bras de sa mère (Maternité) (Z.XV.110). Picasso also uses the aesthetics of the Chant des Morts in the ceramics he makes during those days, as evidenced by his jug Personnages stylisés (OPP.48:500), his dishes Visage (MPP 3728273) and Tête de femme (MPP 3727), which use the lines of the book. In 1950 he would make a tapestry, La serrure (OPP.50: 181), which also uses these signs. In his famous painting of February 1950 Les Demoiselles au bord de la Seine (Zervos XV, 164, Basel 272 Herbert List, Pablo Picasso at his studio 1948. Ref Magnum Photos LIH1948003W00012C (PAR144104) 273 Bernadac, Marie-Laure ; Richet, Michèle & Seckel, Hélène Musée Picasso: Catalogue sommaire des collections, I, Peintures, Papiers Collés, Tableaux-Reliefs, Sculptures, Céramiques. Paris: Réunion Des Musées Nationaux. 1985 196 Museum), very late to be reproduced in the second article of Zervos of 1949, the painter seems to have passed the painting of the same title of 1856 by Gustave Courbet through the filter of the Chant des Morts. The painting is possibly a new challenge by Picasso to the PCF and is painted in the middle of the partisan controversy and only a few weeks before the party congress in which Thorez crushes the formalist painters. In fact, the French Communists and their inspiring Soviet theorists like Aleksandr Fadeïev, the one who had attacked Picasso at the Wroclaw Congress in 1948, had appointed Gustave Courbet as the highest representative of the great French realist painting. Aragon, who together with Jean Cassou –then at the PCF– and the Association des Ecrivains et Artistes Révolutionnaires had already appointed the provocateur Courbet as an artistic model in 1935, repeated that theory in his book L'exemple de Courbet in 1952, the one which tries to link the two painters reproducing in his pages a sculpture of Courbet and a drawing by Picasso representing a woman's face crowned by two wings. In fact, the process is reversed: once the model to be followed by painting is defined, which they called “new realism” to distinguish it from Soviet realism, a painter corresponding to the model was searched in the 19th century and found it in the republican and socialist Courbet, even if he had he had painted, in an excess of realism, L'origine du Monde. Well, what Picasso does with Courbet is precisely to eliminate all traces of realism in him. He decomposes and fragments the elements of the painting and introduces in it the aesthetics of the Chant des Morts, realizing everything that the Soviets denounced as formalism. He eliminates the elements of the realistic landscape and focuses on the two recumbent young girls, but encloses them in a geometric grid of lines that cut out each element of the dresses, the body and what remains of the landscape as in facets of a diamond. The faces are divided into two parts, one positive and one negative as the drawings of the Carnet de Juan-Les-Pins reproduced in the books Le Chef-d'oeuvre inconnu and Hélène chez Archimède. 197 Besides, the two versions of La cuisine are made while the painter is engaged in his ambitious project to make a relatively large size lithograph. It is the long series Femme au fauteuil, about which we will talk about later and to which Françoise Gilot refers in her book with the name of Portrait with the Polish coat, no doubt because she posed wrapped in the garment that the painter brought her from the communist congress of August. In a not uncommon process in Picasso (as well as in Braque), the painter makes a series of 'minor' paintings in which the use of the signs of the Chant des Morts is palpable, and which serve as sketches for lithographs or that are derived from lithographs. As the collector and Braque specialist Castor Seibel recalls, for Braque lithography was not a subordinate part of his pictorial work. In fact, Seibel says, many of his lithographs related to paintings were not, as has been erroneously believed, graphic translations of works that were made in another technique; rather, Braque made multiple gouache, and even oil paintings –such as Theiere aux citrons or Char verni– with a view to elaborating lithographs and etchings from them274. Well, in fact, the 'precursor' of this series of lithographs by Picasso seems to be the canvas Femme dans un fauteuil (Françoise) (Z.XV.108) made between October 30 and December 25, 1948, in which appears the structure of the first state of the lithograph (Reuße 397). This painting appears reproduced in the article by Zervos de Cahiers d'Art on page 252. On November 1, a new oil painting, Femme au chignon assise (Françoise) (Z.XV.111) reproduced on page 257 of Zervos' article, reuses the aesthetics. He again based himself on the lithographs of the series when in those same days he paints the oil Femme assise dans fauteuil (Z.XV.103), which besides using some strokes of the aesthetic, is clearly inspired by the second and third states of Femme au fauteuil (d'apres le noir) (Reuse 427 and 428). The reduction of the head makes this relationship evident. What actually happens is that Picasso has in mind to make the lithograph Femme au fauteuil. And he turns the project around in the long weekend of Saturday, October 30 to Monday, November 1, All Saints' Day and in which the Mourlot workshop is closed. He then made several 'sketches' in oil, and on Tuesday, November 2 rushed to the workshop, where he 274 Bärmann, 2002, p. 12 198 began to make this lithograph, on which he will work from November 1948 until the end of 1949. A good example of how Picasso can use the painting as an auxiliary technique in a project that is basically lithographic. In his 1949 article, Zervos reproduces, among others, the following paintings by Picasso among the 64 exhibited in July at the Maison de la Pensée Française, linking them to the new aesthetic that he explains in his text: Page 250: L'enfant au burnous 24-10-1948 (oil on canvas, 132 x 54 cm), cataloged later as Claude en costume polonais, Z.XV: 101. Page 252: Femme assise, 30-10 to 25-12-1948 (oil on canvas, does not cite measurements), cataloged later by Zervos as Femme dans un fauteuil (Françoise) 92 x 73 cm; Z.XV: 108. Page 253: Mère et enfant, 10-301948 (oil on canvas, 92 x 73 cm); cataloged later as Claude dans les bras de sa mère (Maternite) with the number Z.XV: 110. Page 254: La cuisine I 9-11-1948 (Zervos does not measure and gives the dimensions of 300 x 200 cm); then classified as Z.XV: 106 with the correct measurements of 175 x 250 cm. Page 255: Lénfant dans son lit, 25-12-1948 (oil on canvas 130 x 97 cm) Cataloged later by Zervos himself as Claude à seize mois dans son lit Z.XV: 112. Page 256: La cuisine II, November 1948, (measurements "by eye" of 3 x 2 meter); cataloged later as Z.XV: 107 with the correct measurement of 175 x 252 cm. Page 257: Femme au chignon assise, 1-11-1948 (oil on canvas 116 x 89 cm) Later cataloged by Zervos himself as Femme au chignon assise (Françoise) Z.XV: 111 and with different dimensions: 92 x 73 cm . Page 258: Femme assise, 12-291948 (oil on canvas 130 x 97 cm); cataloged later by Zervos as Femme dans a fauteuil Z.XV: 115. Page 259: L'enfant dans la voiture, 1-3-1949 (oil on canvas 130 x 97 cm), cataloged later as Claude à deux ans dans sa petite voiture Z.XV: 121. Page 260: Femme assise, 1-3-1949 (oil on canvas 130 x 97 cm). Page 261: Femme assise à la main droite pendante, 20-2-1949 (oil on canvas 130 x 97 cm), cataloged later as Femme assise sur cathèdre brune, robe quadrillee grise et bleue, fenêtre noire Z.XV: 119. Page 262: Femme assise, 15-3-1949 (oil on canvas 130 x 97 cm); cataloged later as Jeune femme à la robe rayée Z.XV: 131. Page 263: Femme assise, 13-3-1949 (oil on canvas 130 x 97 cm); cataloged as Z.XV: 129. Page 266: Femme assise, 14-3-1949 (oil on canvas 130 x 97 cm); cataloged later as Femme dans un fauteuil (Françoise) and with dimensions of 116 x 89 cm Z.XV: 128. Page 267: Femme assise, 23-31949 (oil on canvas 100 x 81 cm), cataloged later as Femme en bleu assise dans a fauteuil (Françoise) and with different measures: 116 x 89 cm, Z.XV: 141. Page 268: Femme dans une chaise, 27-3-1949 (oil on canvas 130 x 97 cm); cataloged later as Femme assise Z.XV: 143. Page 269: Figure Féminine, 19-3-1949 (oil on canvas 116 x 89 cm); cataloged later as Femme assise Z.XV: 130. Page 270: Femme assise, 29-3-1949 199 (oil on canvas 61 x 50 cm); cataloged later with somewhat different dimensions: 65 x 50 cm; Z.XV: 135 Page 271: Femme assise, 29-3-1949 (oil on canvas 130 x 97 cm); cataloged later as Z.XV: 146. And finally: Page 272: L'enfant au cheval de bois, 9-6-1949 (130 x 97 cm); cataloged later as Claude à deux ans avec are cheval à roulettes Z.XV: 145. The critic observes in the pictures reproduced in the magazine Cahiers d'Art new combinations of perspectives, attempts to translate the game and the relationship of the parts of the body through different graduations of signs, some indispensable and others not. Some introduced waiting for new developments. And he affirms that it would not be an exaggeration to say that his new findings are worth as much as those he had conceived since he began painting. Zervos admits that Picasso's recent paintings, his new aesthetics, do not allow immediate access, you can not immediately perceive that in these works there are so many initiatives tried by him years ago (reference to the 1925 notebook) and perfected here. For the cataloger of the work of the Andalusian, these elements of invention that have enriched painting and our aesthetic knowledge, Picasso applies them not only to his own works, but also to the paintings of other artists, especially Matisse, which inspires several of the works reproduced 275. Picasso continues to use the designs of the Chant des Morts in nonlithographic works for the rest of his career as a painter, as shown by the works described below in a list in which we indicate the date of completion and its reference in Zervos. The list is not exhaustive and, although it includes works in which Picasso has evolved the designs of the book, its resemblance to them seems patent. And among them are some outstanding works of the painter. The list does not include those in which this development is so advanced that it departs from the initial model. It could be argued that the strokes he uses in some paintings after the book do not necessarily come from this, but are pictorial elements available to any painter. However, the fact is that never until 1948 has the painter used those strokes in his pictorial work. His thick lines have served until then to delimit the outline of objects, but not to replace the objects, defined by those same strokes. And in any case, the great similarity of numerous works, and the exact chronological coincidence both with the publication of the book and with the realization of other lithographs inspired without any doubt by Le Chant des Morts, clear any doubt about the link with the aesthetics of the book. December 24, 1948: Femme au fauteuil (Françoise), collage and ink on gray paper (Not in Zervos, OPP.48: 079) 275 Zervos, Cahiers d’Art, Nº 2 1949, p. 239 200 March 13, 1949: Femme assise à la rose bleue, oil on canvas (Not in Zervos, old collection of Marina Picasso 13182, OPP.49: 001); Femme en bleu, oil on canvas, (Z.XV.127) March 15: Jeune fille dans un fauteuil, oil on canvas (Z.XV.149) March 18: Femme assise, oil on canvas (Z.XV.132); Femme assise, oil on canvas (Z.XV.133) Undated (spring 1949): Tête de femme, oil on canvas (Z.XV.148) March 21: Buste de femme II (Françoise), oil on canvas (Z.XV. 138); Buste de femme, oil on canvas (Z.XV. 136) March 23: Femme assise (Françoise), oil on canvas (Z.XV.140 March 24: Buste de femme, oil on canvas (Z.XV.137) March 25: Femme assise, oil on canvas (Z.XV.142) March 26: Femme assise, oil on canvas (Z.XV.147) March 28: Buste de femme, oil and gouache on lithography (Not in Zervos, OPP.49: 218) March 29: Femme assise, oil on canvas (Z.XV.134); June 9: Claude à deux ans avec are cheval à roulettes, oil on canvas (Z.XV.144); 1949 Claude en brun et blanc, oil on cardboard (Not in Zervos, Museo Picasso, Málaga, OPP.50: 085, MPM: 1.8.A) January 20, 1950: Deux enfants assis (Claude et Paloma), oil and Ripolin on cardboard (Z.XV.157); February 1950: Les demoiselles au bord de la Seine (d'après Courbet), oil on wooden board (Z.XV.164). February 22, 1950: Portrait d'un peintre (d'après El Greco); oil on wood (Z.XV.165) March 20, 1950: Composition, pencil drawing (OPP.50: 057) December 25, 1950: Les jeux [Claude et Paloma jouant], oil and enamel on a wooden board (Z.XV.163) 1950 Femme entourée de ses enfants, enamel on board (OPP.50: 179); Paloma dans sa petite chaise, oil on panel (Z.XV.155); Poule, oil on panel (Z.XV.152); February 16, 1951: La villa au crépuscule (La Galloise), oil on wooden board (Z.XV.186) March 13: Femme dessinant (Françoise), oil on panel (Z.XV.178) 201 13-14 June: Jeux d'enfants [Françoise Gilot avec Paloma et Claude], oil on plate (in its three versions: Z.XV.190, Z.XV.191 and OPP.51: 120) Winter 1951: Maison à Vallauris, wash (Z.XV.194) May 24, 1952: Tête de femme, oil on canvas (in its two versions: Z.XV: 211 and Z.XV: 212) December 1954: Portrait of femme à la robe vert jaune, oil on canvas (Not in Zervos, OPP.54: 179) December 28, 1954: Les femmes d'Alger (d'après Delacroix ) (Toile C), oil on canvas (Z.XVI: 345) 1955 L'atelier series of La Californie November 22, 1955: Femme assise au costume turc I, oil on canvas (Z.XVI: 528) April-August 1956: Nu devant le jardin (Femme nue devant un balcon), oil on canvas (Z.XVII: 158) May 10, 1956: Femme dans l'atelier II, oil on canvas (Z.XVII: 106), See also Z.XVII: 107 August 20: series of three oil paintings on canvas La danse IV, La maison dans les palmiers I and La famille V (Z.XVII.156, 151 and 152) December 12, 1957: L'atelier (Les pigeons), oil on canvas (Z.XVII: 401) March 18-19, 1959: Le chien dalmate in its three versions, oils on canvas (1st No in Zervos OPP.59: 031, 2nd and 3rd Z.XVII .384 and 389) 11-14 April 1959: series Composition avec mandoline, oils on canvas (Z.XVII: 436, 439 and 440) April 16-17: Broc et verre I, oil on canvas (Z.XVIII: 442) April 17: Portrait series Jacqueline de profil, oils on canvas (Z.XVIII: 446-448) April 16-May 5: Mandoline, cruche et verre III, oil on canvas (Z.XVIII: 444) February 10 to June 12, 1963: Series of oil on canvas L'atelier: le peintre et son modèle. Several dozens of paintings and pencil sketches in many of which the central element is a thick line that reminds a lot of the book. We point out the references of those in which the bond seems closest: (Z.XXIII: 141. 147, 149, 150, 151, 154, 156, 157, 159, OPP.63: 152, 161, 163, 172, 196 , 203 and 211). April 23, 1963: Nu assis dans fauteuil II and III (Jacqueline), oils on canvas (Z.XXIII: 216 and 217). May 22, 1964: Le fumeur assis I (Les huit noms de Picasso), pencil drawing, (Z.XXIV: 171) 202 October 10 to 24, 1964: series Le peintre, gouaches and ink on prints (Z.XXIV 216 a 242) December 4 to 31, 1964: series of oil paintings on canvas under the titles: Tête d'homme, Femme nue, jeune and petit garçon, nu assis, etc. (cataloged between Z.XXIV: 297 and 359). Of these, in some such as those cataloged with numbers 316, 345, 346, the use of the pictorial elements of the book is surprisingly clear. March 28, 1965: Nu allongé et tête d'homme de profil IV, oil on canvas (Z.XXV: 77) April 6, 1965: Paysage de mer, tapestry (OPP.65: 190) May 25, 1965: series of portraits in oil (Z.XXV: 131, 132, 136) June 6, 1965: Buste de femme II, oil on canvas (Z.XXV: 157) March 31, 1966: Tête d'homme I [Le peintre], pastel and wax pencils on cardboard (Not in Zervos, OPP.66: 011) February 6, 1968: Buste de mousquetaire, oil on panel (Z.XXVII: 219) October 13 to 17, 1968: series Mousquetaire à la pipe, oils on canvas (Z.XXVII: 311, 340, 341, 343) January 16 and 17, 1969: Piero à la presse, oils on canvas (Z.XXXI: 9 and 16) January 21 to 28, 1969: Buste d'homme series, oil on cardboard (Z.XXXI: 24, 29, 30 and 39) February 21, 1969: Homme à la pipe assis et Amour III [Homme et enfant], oil on canvas (Z.XXXI: 78) March 12, 1969: Buste d'homme assis III, oil on corrugated cardboard (Z.XXXI: 94) March 20: Buste d'homme I, oil on corrugated cardboard (Z.XXXI: 106) April 6, 1969: Homme dans un fauteuil, oil on canvas (Z.XXXI: 141) May 4, 1969: Homme dans un fauteuil, oil on canvas (Z.XXXI: 186) June 11, 1969: Homme assis au casque et à l'épée, oil on canvas (Z.XXXI: 244) July 16, 1969: Tête d'homme, oil and chalk on paper (Z.XXXI: 318) October 16, 1970: Buste de matador IV, oil on corrugated cardboard (Z.XXXII: 278) November 17, 1970: Tête de matador [Torero], oil on canvas (Z.XXXII: 306) December 23, 1970: Personnage, oil on plate (Z.XXXII: 338) 203 February 3, 1972: Compositions, marker on paper (Not in Zervos, OPP.72: 063) May 22, 1972: Homme, femme et enfant, oil on canvas (Not in Zervos, OPP.72: 125). In this oil we see how the designs of the book are deformed until almost diluted by the lack of firmness of stroke. As for lithographs, since Picasso drew the plates of the Chant des Morts in March 1948, he did not do that year, except for a few exceptions, more than those derived from the book. In the first place he makes the six lithographs made with the plates that were left over from the book and in which he drew a series of fauns on the same March 10th in which he made Le grand Hibou. The Pan/Faune series (Reuße 369-374, Mourlot 111-116) is executed with a wash drawing on the zinc plate and all lithographs are commercially edited at the rate of 50 numbered and signed copies, printed on Arches vellum paper of 76 , 7 by 56.5 cm. These lithographs reach high prices in the markets: for example, Ketterer Kunst sold in its auction No. 380 of 4.06.2011 (Lot 116) the 5/50 copy of Faune musicien (R. 373). The same house sold signed copy 30/50 of Faune souriant for € 15,600 (Auction 315 Lot 245). 204 On June 5 he made several essays for posters announcing the exhibition of ceramics held between July 24 and August 29 in Vallauris, to which we saw he gave so much importance. He makes three tests with lithographic paper transferred to stone, all with rounded faces of fauns, and all three will give rise to posters slightly different in two colors, black and orange or brown. And nothing is wasted, since from the lithograph 25 numbered and signed copies are commercialized printed on Arches vellum paper of 50 by 65 cm, of the three states of black (R. 375, 378 and 381) and the three two color states (R. 376, 379 and 382). Of each of the three posters, that is with text (R.377, M. 118, R. 380, M. 119 and R. 383, M. 120) are printed 300 copies on vellum paper Crèvecoeur du Marais of 40 by 60 cm, this is smaller than the editions of the drawings without text. In October of 1948 he also makes another lithograph that we can not link directly to the Chant des Morts. This is Centaure dansant, fond noir (R. 384, M. 121), made with washed drawing and scraper on lithographic paper transferred to stone. 50 numbered and signed copies are printed, on Arches paper of 50 by 65 cm. Christie's sold a copy, numbered 39/50 of the first black state (R. 375) for 3,000 British Pounds (Auction 5451 Old Master, Decorative, Modern & Contemporary Prints, London, April 19, 2011). This sale is striking and should remind us how you have to act with caution, even buying in a prestigious auction house. What happens is that there was only one edition of 25 copies of this lithograph, not 50, which escaped the experts of Christie's, who did not even examine the lithograph out of its frame. In addition, the calligraphy of the number 39/50 is clearly modern, new. As for the signature it is standard and made with ease, it does not seem false or it is made with a minimum dexterity. In the rest of cases, it could be an extra proof that Picasso had at home and signed, but it was not a usual practice for him. It could have been one of those proofs that remained in the press, not included among the five artist copies, and that eventually reached the market, where a numeration and apocryphal signature were added. 205 Picasso will continue using the Chant des Morts aesthetics in lithography until 1950, making with it some of his most spectacular works in this technique, such as the already mentioned and impressive series Femme au fauteuil that runs between the months of November 1948 and April of 1949 (Mourlot 133 to 138, Reuße 397 to 431). The series consists of 35 lithographs of a young woman sitting in an armchair that begins when Picasso points out to Mourlot that he wishes to make his first large-scale color lithograph (65.6 x 49.67 cm). It is a complex work, using five colors: yellow, green, violet, red and black. And unfortunately there are not many proofs of it, because it was not published commercially in color. Let's see how the painter proceeded: first he makes with brush and lithographic pencil on report papers each of the 5 colors of his first state (R. 397, M.133). The technicians of Mourlot transfer the colors to zinc plates and three days later they realize a first proof that they deliver to Picasso. The painter is not satisfied and wants to redo the lithograph completely. The printers are therefore forced to return the five zinc plates again so that they can be reworked by Picasso. One of the reasons for Picasso's discontent is that the printer has made a mistake and has printed the red plate upside down in the proof that he gives him. But the painter does not realize the error until the next day, when Picasso has already reworked the plates, so he can not go back to the previous state. The lithograph drawn by Picasso in five zinc plates never came to be printed as the painter conceived it, not even in artist proofs. When in 1950 Mourlot publishes volume II of his Picasso lithographe he tries to amend the mess and give readers and specialists the opportunity to see the lithograph as conceived by the painter but it was not printed. The reconstruction is carried out from the separate proofs of each color that came to be printed before printing the five colors that Picasso rejected. With these proofs, Picasso's chromist Henri Deschamps makes five new small stones (32 x 24 cm), and the lithograph is printed in the 1950 book. It is not an 'original lithograph' by Picasso, but it did have to obtain the 'bon a tirer' of the painter before printing, retains a great beauty, a quality in no inferior to the 'original' and is of great interest to experts, who are even forced to catalog it in their studios as the original work of the painter (Mourlot 133, Reuße 398, Rau 374 A). 206 As we already said, the first edition of Mourlot's reasoned catalogs of the lithographs of Picasso and Braque was made through a reconstitution of each and every one of the lithographs, reproduced by the same lithographer who made the originals together with the two artists, that is, Henri Deschamps. The job was huge, because as we know to execute a lithograph in colors you have to make as many stones or plates as colors it has. In the case of Picasso, the work was alleviated by the fact that only a small part of his lithographs are in color (the only ones re-nade by Deschamps). In the case of Braque, however, the vast majority are in color. But Deschamps (and also Mourlot) felt absolute veneration for Braque and worked for years on his Braque Lithographe, taking each proof to the painter for approval. The book, which unlike the four volumes of the Picasso Lithographe, was published in 1963 in both 'current' sewn edition and in deluxe edition in loose sheets (125 copies, with original lithographs signed by the painter) is in fact one of the summits of lithography of the second half of the 20th century. And its 'author' is none other than the modest Henri Deschamps. But some copies of the 'nonexistent' proofs of the Femme au fauteuil lithograph in color (the catalogs insist that there is no impression) have made their way into the market. For example, at Sotheby's auction No. L10161 (Modern and Contemporary Prints) held in London on September 16, 2010 three copies were auctioned, each one evaluated between 30,000 and 50,000 British Pounds. The first one (Lot 43) was in fact a copy of the erroneous proof that Mourlot showed to Picasso. It appears with the autographed initials of the printer and is marked 6/6. It was awarded for the starting price, this is 30,000 Pounds. 207 The second one (Lot 44) is more curious (and doubtful), because it is an impression of only the green, red, violet and yellow plates and in which instead of the black plate were printed the spirals and the spot of the violet plate of the following lithograph (R. 399), but there was no bid and it was withdrawn from the sale. The third and last (Lot 45) was one of the six magnificent impressions of the second state of the lithograph (Mourlot 133-bis), which for a strange reason Reuße calls 'second state with black'. It also had the number 6/6 and the initials of Mourlot. This lithograph did attract bids, and it got to touch the maximum estimate, because it was sold by 49,250 Sterling Pounds. In any case, Picasso had already undone the precious lithograph that was never commercialized, and it does so by introducing the aesthetics of the Chant des Morts onto the plates even more clearly than in the first states. He also deforms the woman's face, introducing a bust between the nose and forehead. Again proofs for Picasso are printed in the original colors and substituting black for blue. But despite the great beauty of the result, Picasso does not give the go-ahead for its commercialization, and in fact only a dozen copies are apparently printed (R. 399400 M. 133 bis). Françoise pointed out that the reason for the abandonment of the project in colors is because the registration marks had not been made with care, resulting in imperfect proofs that Picasso rejected 276. It seems to us however that what happened is that the painter, contemplating in front of him the five plates, has had an idea: instead of a single lithograph combining the plates of each color, he will make five different lithographs, all in black but based each one on the plate of each color. As we know, the zinc –or stone– plates of have no color, this one is given only by the printing ink. 276 Gilot & Lake 1998, p. 362 208 In total, in fact, Picasso will make thirty black lithographs in this new project, derived from the previous one and that will take several months, from December 10, 1948 to April 12, 1949277. But of all this huge work there will be few testimonies, since of the 33 states in color or black only two will be published commercially, as always in editions of 50 copies. Of the others, some will not even print at 5 artist copies, and have only been saved from oblivion thanks to collector Castor Seibel, who always hovering around the workshop of Mourlot and making friends with his chromists and stampers, achieved little by little get a splendid collection, completed later with gifts or loans from Fernand Mourlot himself. We must not forget that for printers, a proof that is not commercially edited loses almost all its value and is considered, often erroneously, as a failure. For the dealers, and also counterfeiters, these proofs lost equally value, since they can not add a false signature and enter them in the trade since they do not appear in the catalogs and there is no way to obtain a minimum reference on their authenticity. The first series of this new project of Femme au fauteuil is the one made from the zinc plates designed for red color. The first state of the first lithograph of this series (Reuße 401, M. 134, Rau 376) is made by Picasso the second week of December with brush, pencil and scraper on the zinc plate of the second state of red and adding the painter masses of ink. It is printed on Friday, December 10, 1948. We have to assume that the painter works in his studio, and that the proofs and the plate are delivered to him that Friday, because during the weekend the painter completely reworks the plate with scraping with sandpaper and tip, with pencil and lithographic ink, in the same way that he will work the following states. The plate is transformed, with the face of Françoise and drawings of the Chant des Morts in the sleeves of the dress. 277 Note that the date 10.12.1949 that Reuße cites for the first state from yellow (R.416) is errorenous. It should say 10.12.1948. 209 That second state (R. 402) will be printed on Monday, December 13. Again spaces of two working days for the following three states (R. 403-405), whose impressions are dated on Wednesday 15, Friday 17 and Monday 20 December 1948. Mourlot indicates in his reasoned catalog that at the request of the painter, his workers realize from what he calls the 5th state (R. 406) a report on another zinc plate and a false copy on another new zinc, despite which Picasso still reworks the original plate to produce a 6th state (R.405). Actually the printer confuses these two states, error corrected by Reuße 278 . This sixth estate, reworked with sandpaper, needle, pen and pencil, is printed on Thursday, December 23. That same day, Christmas eve, Mourlot prints a first state of the report of the 5th state, both in black (R.407) and silver gray (R. 408). 278 Reuße 2000, p. 128. 210 During the following week, Picasso examines the proofs in front of him, takes the false report on new zinc and makes a completely new lithograph with wash drawing that constitutes the final version. This is printed by Mourlot, probably in the presence of the artist, in three versions, one in black (R. 409), another in black and gray (R.410) and another in black and light blue (R.411). All three are printed, five copies as all state proofs, on Thursday December 30, 1948. Picasso chooses the first and gives the 'bon to tirer' for an edition of 50 numbered and signed copies, thus discarding the plate of the gray/light blue. Despite having spent a month and a half working practically every day on the project and having approved a definitive print of the red plate (but printed in black), Picasso is still working on it. He reworked the red plate and still pulls two lithographs (R. 412-413) on January 13 and 16, 1949 that are not published commercially. As for the other plates used for the magnificent lithograph in color, that is, the plates of green, yellow, violet, and black, the painter has been working them during the month of December 1948. The green one gives rise to two states (R.414 and 415) printed at five artist copies of on December 10 and April 5, 1949, without commercial edition. Three states are printed on the yellow plate (R.416-418), the first on December 10 and the last two on April 12, 1949, without being published commercially. 211 From the violet plate seven states are printed (R. 419-425) between December 10, 1948 and the end of January 1949. Of these, only 50 copies are commercially published in the 5th state (R. 423) that has been transformed with sandpaper, scraper, brush and pencil in such a way that it does not look anything like the original plate. Picasso also worked during November and December of 1948 the black plate, executing six states (R. 426-431) of which only five artist copies will be printed. In short: Picasso has spent several months working intensely on this project to produce only two commercial editions of 50 signed copies each. Once again the painter's technical interest and artistic experimentation is evident, as well as the pleasure that this work gives him, so he does not need to exploit it commercially. Because of course, Kahnweiler only pays him for the works edited and sold by the gallery. The same could be said of Mourlot, who only receives payment when there is a commercial edition. In this series, its workers have done an enormous job for the painter, and the only income that the printing press has is that of the the two commercial editions, because Picasso never paid anything to Mourlot. To illustrate the market value of the lithographs in this series, note that dealer Arik Verezhensky had on sale in June 2013 at his Hinsdale, Chicago, facility one of the five proofs of the third state of the red plate (R.413 ), marked 'epreuve d'artiste' and exceptionally signed by Picasso. The price was 200,000 dollars. The dealer pointed out that the print comes from the personal collection of Georges Bloch, having later passed through the collection of the expert Claudia von Shilling and an auction of the Villa Grisebach house in Berlin, where the expert worked until his death in 2003. Closer , gallery Alan Cristea of London exhibited and sold at an exhibition and sale held between March 24 and April 21, 2011 eight intermediate stages of the lithograph, selling them at prices of between 60,000 and 150,000 pounds sterling each. 212 Many copies of these lithographs have been sold by auction houses, but always in black, for example Sotheby's of New York, which sold on April 26, 2012, for $ 28,125 copy 26/50 of the second state of the final red plate (R. 409) in Sale No. 8849, Lot 192. Note that in this case the auctioneer had to lower the starting price, since there were no bids at the minimum price of the estimated 30-50,000 dollars. Christie's auctioned in its sale No. 1292 held in New York on November 4, 2003 (Lot 159) a copy of the 5th state (R. 405). It identified it, however, erroneously as the "6th state", since it contained the annotations 'M 134 5e etat' and '5e état 6/6 FM' on the back. This time it was Mourlot who was wrong, since it is not the 6th state, quite different from the 5th. It is interesting to note that the copy was marked "6/6" by Mourlot himself. Thus there were not only 5 artist copies, but at least six. The final bid reached $ 15,535, that is, well below the estimate of $ 20-30,000. Also Christie's, in its sale nº 6683 of October 9, 2002 celebrated in London, auctioned signed copy nº 2/50 of the final state of the red plate (R. 409). It was awarded for 23,900 Pounds ($ 37,045), above the minimum estimate but far from the maximum (£ 2030,000). But the specimen had some defects, including stains, oxidation and a tear in the edge of the leaf. Copy number 37/50 of the precious final state of the red plate was sold by Christie's in Auction 7712 of 8.04.2009, Lot 120, for the not inconsiderable sum of 57,650 £ (84,515 $ then). Sotheby's, in its sale N08312 of New York (May 3-4, 2007, Lot 298) auctioned the 17/50 copy of the final state of the violet plate (R. 423). And it was awarded for a whopping 108,000 dollars, having gone on sale at $ 60,000. Still in 1948, but apart from the Femme au fauteuil series, the Andalusian made a series of beautiful still lifes in black based on wash drawing on the zinc plate that unfortunately were not edited commercially. This is the series La table aux poissons, and Mourlot explains that not having been published is because the painter, while struggling with the previous series, wanted to change the subject. 213 Of this beautiful lithograph in which the painter uses the aesthetics of the Chant des Morts, a total of eight states (Reuße 433-440) are printed between December 17 and January 7, 1949, corresponding to five states of the drawing and three states of the black background. More luck we have with the two large format lithographs of a similar theme: Homards et poissons (R. 441) and Le Homard (R.442). The first measures 110 by 80 cm and the second 56 by 76 cm, and both are edited to 50 numbered and signed copies. Both also use elements of the aesthetics of the Chant des Morts. The painter also made a curious lithograph on paper in December with sketches of human profiles and eyes, Étude de profils (R. 432), which according to the reasoned catalogs is not published commercially and whose zinc plate is erased after printing the 5 artist copies. However, we found an unnumbered copy signed with graphite pencil, auctioned by Ketteren Kunst for € 10,120 (Auction 278 Art of the 19th and 20th Centuries, March 28, 2003, Lot 571). We have also found another copy, also signed with graphite pencil, for sale in the Ledor Fine Art gallery of Berkeley, California, but this time the copy is numbered 40/50. The house Hauswedell & Nolte of Hamburg auctioned another copy numbered 35/50 and signed for € 5,600, that is, less than the starting price of € 7,500 (Sale 398, Moderne Kunst, December 9, 2006, Lot 1029). Sotheby's had sold another copy in London in 2000 for 2,880 214 British Pounds (Auction L00119, 21.06.2000, Lot 266). It does not seem that we are here before four of the five artist copies, but rather an error of the reasoned catalogs, motivated by the firmness of Mourlot when affirming that the plate has been erased without commercial edition. Everything therefore indicates that there was indeed a commercial edition and that Mourlot's archives had an artistic rather than an accounting purpose, since he is unable to say in many cases whether there was a commercial edition or not, although in fact he only charged when there was such. Picasso continues to devote himself intensely to lithography during the first half of 1949, when he executed nearly a hundred works, to concentrate on sculpture in the second half of the year. On January 13 he does what Mourlot calls a lithographic ‘feat’. This is Le crapaud (The Toad, R. 448, M. 144, Bloch 585), a large (49.5 by 65 cm without margins) and beautiful lithograph made with wash, pencil and gouache. Mourlot affirms in his catalog that the lithograph has been made directly on zinc plate, but according to Reuße it would have been made on paper transferred later to the plate, which is not very convincing given the insistence of Mourlot in marking the singularity of this work. 50 numbered and signed copies are printed. 215 Christie's sold one of the five unsigned artist copies at sale # 6740 (Old Master, Modern and Contemporary Prints) on July 2, 2003 in London for £ 2,868 ($ 4,769). As for the signed copies, Christie's sold in London at its auction No. 7986 (Lot 75) of September 21, 2011 (Old Master, Modern & Contemporary Prints, Including Property from the Estate of Ernst Beyeler) copy No. 21/50 of this beautiful lithograph. It was signed with red pencil on the bottom right and numbered on the lower left, the two inscriptions in the drawing. It sold for £ 13,750 (($ 21,588), that is, almost double the starting price of £ 7,000. Another copy, No. 45/50, was sold by Koller Auktionen of Zurich in its Z30 Estampes modernes auction on 24 / 06/2011 (Lot 3535) It went on sale with an estimate of between € 20,712 and € 28,997. Copy No. 26/50 was on sale in October 2013 at the Peacefield Fine Art LLC in Bellingham, WA, USA. The gallerist points out (and proves by means of a photograph of a label with number 50.2077 of the Museum) that this copy comes from the MoMA and that it would have been shown in an exhibition: Museum Menagerie 1975. In fact, the exhibition was one of those held in the Penthouse restaurant of the museum (A Museum Menagerie # 1115b, 9.12.19757.03.1976) and it was part of the Service of Rent (and sale) of Art of its collections that MoMA maintained between 1951 and 1982 at the initiative of Blanchette Ferry, the wife of John D. Rockefeller III, but do not worry, that was not the only copy that was available to MoMA, since it still has copy 32/50, bought with a Rockefeller fund (MoMA No. 565.1951) In the second week of the year 1949 and continuing the use of elements of the aesthetics of the Chant des Morts, Picasso starts a series of lithographs that, while serving the painter to improve his drawing technique of wash on zinc, will lead three months later to one of his most famous and accomplished achievements, Figure au corsage rayé (Figure with Striped Bodice, Reuße 503, Mourlot 179). The first group of this series is the one of the large lithograph (65 by 50 cm) Tête de jeune fille, of which he realizes two states on January 11 and 14, the first (R. 444, M. 145) with wash drawing on zinc, adding a lithographic pencil in the second one (R. 445). Picasso interrupts the work there, and does not resume it until Wednesday, March 9, when he reworks the plate with sandpaper (R. 446). 216 The fourth state arrives on Wednesday, March 16, 1949 (R. 447) in which he defaces the drawing of the two previous states with sandpaper and redoes it with pencil and a lithographic brush. But none of these states are published commercially, printing only 5 artist copies of each. Before returning to the theme of the head of a young girl, Picasso made a still life on January 13, again with elements of the aesthetics of the book. This is Nature morte au vase de fleurs (R. 449-450, M. 146) also wash drawing on zinc plate. This project fails according to Mourlot because the excessive production volume of the painter makes that Gaston Tutin could not cope, the second state thus being entrusted to another worker that spoils the plate, which is not evident to us in view of the excellent reproduction that Mourlot includes in his reasoned catalog. In any case, neither of the two states is commercially edited. On January 16, Picasso retakes the Tête de jeune fille, also using graphic elements of the book, but this time in a smaller format (44 by 32.5 cm). He makes two plates (R.451-452, M. 147-148) of which only the five artist copies are printed. One month later, on February 16, he returns to the aesthetics, the technique of washing and the same theme, although it is renamed Portrait de jeune fille. Only the five artist copies of these two plates (R.453-454) are printed in a slightly smaller size (40 by 30 cm). 217 The next day, on Thursday, February 17, the painter returns to the Tête de jeune fille, replacing the designs of the Chant des Morts that appeared on the chest of the two previous plates by vertical stripes. On the same day (which proves that he was in the Mourlot workshop), two states are printed, the first (R. 455, M.149) on a paper of 40 by 32.9 cm and the second, published commercially at 50 copies, in a larger paper of 56.8 by 38.6 cm (R. 456). The Bukowskis house in Stockholm sold at its auction of October 26, 2011, the 18/50 copy of this second state for 153,000 SEK –about € 17,710 at the exchange rate of the time– (Sale Höstens Moderna Auktion, Stockholm 563, Lot 283). Two years earlier, Sotheby's had sold copy 47/50 of the same lithograph, at the auction L09702 Old Master, Modern and Contemporary Prints of 7.04.2009 and was awarded for 11,875 Pounds. That same February 17, 1949 Picasso made another similar lithograph and of the same size (Jeune femme R.457, M.153) that will be used in the album Le centennaire de l'imprimerie Mourlot in 1952. Sotheby's sold at its auction N09031 of November 1, 2013 for $ 11,250 a proof dedicated by Picasso to Mourlot 'for his fiftieth anniversary'. This lithograph would also be used to make a curious proof, also the same Thursday 17: printing on a single paper of 50.2 by 65.9 cm the still life listed by Reuße with the number 450 quoted above but leaving a gap for this girl in the left part (R.458). The same innovation he tries with one of the plates of the series Femme au fauteuil (R.425, M.137), inserting instead of the original bust, that of the young girl. It results in a 218 lithograph of 76.5 by 56.6 cm format, of which only the artist's copies are printed (R. 459, M. 154). Unsigned artist's copy number 6/6 of this composite lithograph was sold by Sotheby's in its auction N09031 of November 1, 2013 for $ 31,250. Picasso also painted between March 13 and 25 several oils on canvas using the aesthetics of the Chant des Morts and the same idea of inserting a head or a bust of a young girl in another painting. These are the canvases referenced by Zervos with numbers Z.XV: 128, 129, 131, 132, 133, 142, etc., as well as another one not referenced by Zervos but belonging to the collection of Marina Picasso (Femme assise à La Rose Bleue, Sotheby's # 41, No. 7838, 11/05/02, Mallén OPP.49: 001, Marina Picasso 13182). Françoise remembers the origin of this experiment in her memoirs in which she points out that at a certain moment, the painter was working on an oil portrait of her (probably the one titled Femme assise, Z.XV.129, painted on March 13 of 1949) in which the proportion of the head caused a great tribulation to the painter. He had tried to make it big, small and even move it across the canvas thanks to a cut-out paper copy. “If the head was small, Pablo complained that it kept too much proportion with the hands. If it was bigger, it corresponded very closely to the size of the legs” 279. Picasso had given up when one morning Fernand Mourlot arrives at the studio with a handful of black and white lithograph proofs of Françoise portraits made shortly before (probably the series Tête de jeune fille / Jeune Femme (R.455-457). When he saw them, Picasso took one and fastened it to the canvas with pins. Satisfied with the result, he separated the lithograph but painted its contents directly on the canvas, maintaining the colors of the painting and lithograph. The painter would still do on the 17th of February another wash drawing on zinc with the same theme (Tête de jeune fille R. 460, M. 155) of the same size as the previous ones and of which no more than five artist proofs are printed. 279 Gilot & Lake 1998, p. 164 219 11. Figure with Striped Bodice Picasso retakes the theme of the portrait of a young woman the last week of February 1949, making a first sketch of what would be in April the famous Figure au corsage rayé. This is Buste de jeune femme, of which he makes four versions between February 26 and March 4, 1949 (R. 464467, M. 157-158) with pencil, wash drawing, scratching needle, sandpaper, and scraper on zinc. They are compositions of large size (66 by 50 cm) in which he works both the structure and the face of the young woman, who is none other than Françoise. In the last of the four he adds to the wash curves and points of the aesthetics of the Chant des Morts in the hair of the girl. None is printed beyond the 5 artist copies. And the same Friday, March 4 he takes up the issue with three new attempts, but starting from scratch. In the same size as the four previous lithographs (approximately 66 by 50 cm), he makes three essays. The first, Buste blanc sur noir (R.470, M. 161) is a simple drawing made with zinc white on previously inked transfer paper that is transferred to stone, thus giving the impression of a drawing with chalk on a blackboard. Surprisingly, this children's drawing is commercially edited. Sotheby's sold in auction N09031 of 220 November 1, 2013 copy No. 42/50 for $ 13,750. The second attempt is Figure (R.471, M. 162), also done on lithographic paper but with drawing, gouache and pencil. Here he incorporates the curved lines, points and circles of the Chant des Morts as elements of the drawing and reintroduces the vertical stripes into the bust of the young woman. Transferred to stone, the result is edited to 50 copies. Sotheby's sold in the same November 1, 2013 sale copy number 16/50 for 25,000 dollars. The third attempt starts from the drawing of the second, but on separate paper, since the stone has been polished. The face is deformed with scraper and the result (R.472) is not edited. After the weekend parenthesis, Picasso returns to the workshop on Monday, March 7, 1949 to work again on the same topic. Same size (66 by 50 cm) and same technique (lithographic paper) as in the previous ones, but the drawing is very different. The Buste au fond étoilé is a portrait of a young woman made with washing and gouache drawings on lithographic paper transferred to stone. With the same stone, proofs are printed in three colors: black (R476, M.163), dark blue (R. 477) and pink (R. 478) and commercially edited in its black version. But the stone is not grated, and will be used weeks later, as we will see. On Tuesday, March 8, he returned to the previous aesthetics and made the Buste modern 'style (R.479, M. 164) of the same size and with the same technique, and which reproduces the beautiful face of the bust of February 26 and the 221 Chant des Morts style hair decorations of the lithographs of March 4th. This magnificent lithograph is also commercially published, Mourlot pointing out in his memoirs that these last two works constitute authentic feats from the technical point of view. That same Tuesday, March 8, the painter made two works, Figure Composée I and II (R. 480-481, M. 165-166), based on wash drawing, gouache and pencil on lithographic paper transferred to stone, with the same size as the previous ones and in which the face is deformed in a cubist mode. Both lithographs, made using the aesthetics of the book, are edited at 50 numbered and signed copies. The painter takes a pause in the subject and does not return to it until Saturday, March 26, 1949, in which he produces in the customary size of 66 by 50 cm, Le Corsage à carreaux, a wash drawing, pencil and pen on lithographic paper reported to stone. It is a drawing of a young girl in the classic style and without more references to the book than those shown in the armpits, between the arms and the bust. From this stone are printed on Monday, March 28, the usual five proofs in black (R. 486, M. 175 bis) and five others (R. 487, M. 175) in which on top of the black proof is printed another lithograph reworked from Buste au fond étoilé in pink of which we spoke earlier (R. 478). It is a beautiful combination, but the painter decides to commercialize only the black version. On the 26th and the following day, he also made another lithograph on paper, with the same motif: the Jeune Fille inspirée par Cranach , made with the same technique and size as the previous ones (R. 488, M. 176 ), which is also printed on Monday 28 and published at 25 numbered and signed copies. But the artist does not stop there, but repeats 222 the experiment: he takes the stone from the Buste au fond étoilé and grates it following the contours of the face and hair of the Jeune Fille inspirée par Cranach, in order to obtain a lithograph that he prints on pink color (R. 489, M. 163 bis) that is not commercialized but that serves to print the next day another lithograph based on two passes by the stones in black (R.488) and in pink (R.489). This beautiful lithograph in two colors, the same size as the previous ones, is printed at 25 copies (R. 490, M. 176 bis). Perhaps here the painter tries to correct the possible error of not commercially editing the beautiful bicolour lithograph Le Corsage à carreaux. And he still makes a new attempt (R. 491, M. 176 bis), printing five proofs of a lithograph in black and ocher, using for this color the stone of the pink. After this last attempt, overused stone of the pink is definitively polished. The same Monday, March 28, Picasso starts again from scratch, again departing from a simple drawing that Mourlot does not talk about and of which we have news thanks to critic Sebastian Goeppert (R. 492). It is the structure of the lithograph Femme aux cheveux verts that includes a face and some compositions of straight lines and curves and dots made in the manner of Le Chant des morts and that outline a decoration for the hair and the line of the bust and the separation of the arms from it. Goeppert, responsible for the Patrick Cramer catalog of illustrated books, dedicates to this discovery a work published under the title The Face of the Muse: an image and its pre-portraits 280. On the same day, he made the other part of the lithograph, that is, the shape and the green color of the hair, by means of wash on lithographic paper transferred to zinc plates; the violet background and a grid of drawings printed in brown that will cover the lower part of the stamp (R. 493). Of this six copies are printed. 280 Goeppert, Sebastian & Goeppert-Frank, Herma C. Das Antlitz der Muse : ein Bild und seine Vor-Bilder, Insel Verlag, Frankfurt, 2001 223 And then he combined the two previous lithographs, this is the four plates, to print a third state in four colors: black, green, violet and brown (R. 494). To make the fourth state, dated the same day, he completes the zinc plate of the first sketch in black with a brush, leaving very marked the face (that he draws again), the decoration of the hairstyle and the shape of the bust, all with Chant des Morts strokes (R. 495, M. 178). Not happy, Picasso returns to work the green plate, leaving a uniform stain, and completely remakes the brown plate, eliminating the previous grid drawing, making a new one circumscribed to the body of the young woman (R. 496). There, Picasso pauses and works instead on the Figure au corsage rayé that we will describe next and also because, according to Mourlot, he leaves for the South of France. In any case, apparently satisfied with the colored plates, on Monday, April 18, he resumed the zinc base plate of the black and remade the drawing with a brush, specifying the face of the young woman and drawing her closer to Françoise, tracing the lines of the hairnet that wraps the hair and rounding the contour of the bust (R. 497). By joining the black plate thus treated and using those of green, violet and brown of the previous state, that same day he prints five proofs of a new state (R. 498, M. 178 bis). Not happy yet, and after a new parenthesis, Picasso returns to work on Monday, May 30 the black zinc with brush, scraper and sandpaper to soften it and give more light to the face features, which is getting closer to Françoise. Again five proofs are printed in black (R. 499, M. 178 ter) and also some proofs with a gray background (R. 500). That same Monday, the painter ends the process, printing the final state with the black zinc that he had just tuned and the green, violet and brown plates as he had left them on April 18. This magnificent lithograph of 66.8 by 50.5 cm is published in 50 numbered copies and signed with the 224 title La femme à la résille (Femme aux cheveux verts) (R. 501, M. 178 ter). This series of lithographs has always obtained high prices in the auctions in which it has been sold. For example, Christie's produced in Sale No. 1513 (Prints and Multiples) held in New York on May 3, 2005 (Lot 261) a copy of the final state (R. 501) numbered 29/50 and signed. Its value was estimated at between 40,000 and 60,000 dollars, and it was awarded for 66,000 dollars. A year before and in the same city, in its sale No. 1428 (Prints And Multiples), held on November 2, 2004, Christie's pulled out another theoretically more valuable one (Lot 162) since it was the first state with grid drawing corrected (R. 496) of which there are only six proofs. The estimate was between $ 25,000 and $ 35,000 and was sold for $ 31,070. In London, however, in auction No. 7858 by the same house, Modern & Contemporary Prints, on Tuesday, March 29, 2011, an exhibition proof in colors (R. 496) marked “Femme à la résille pour Castor FM”, that is, from the Castor Seibel collection, was sold for a total of £ 22,500 or 36,045 dollars. In the same auction another proof of the third black state (R. 499) was sold for exactly the same amount (Lot 84). Lot 85 was one of the six printed proofs of the first state of colors violet, green and brown (R. 493), whose price was estimated between 12 and 18,000 Sterling Pounds, but which did not find a buyer. Copy number 13/50 of Le Corsage à carreaux with the pink stone (R. 487) was sold by Christie's in its auction nº 2697 of April-May 2013 (lot 124) for the solid figure of 40,000 dollars. Christie's also released for sale in auction No. 1144 (Lot 92) of September 18, 2013 one of the five proofs of the 2nd state of Jeune Fille au corsage rayé (R.467, M.157), although it named it by mistake Figure au corsage raye. The print had some flaws, but it was still put on sale with a starting price of 20,000 pounds (€ 24,000). And finally, the house Ketterer Kunst brought to auction on December 6, 2013 (sale No. 409 Modern Art and Sidelines of the German Avantgarde, Lot 388) copy No. 47/50 of the first state (R. 486) with a price estimated at € 28,000. 225 Some confusion reigns over Figure au corsage rayé, probably Picasso's best-known color lithograph, and the most reproduced on the covers of books and posters. On one hand, Mourlot affirms that this typical work of the aesthetics of the Chant des Morts has been made with wash drawing on lithographic paper in stone. Necessarily six of them, one for each color: yellow, green, red, bistre, violet and black. But then adds that “the zinc plates have been preserved”. This statement adds a new confusion. According to the printer, Picasso has not had time to make a second state of the lithograph, leaving it, as Femme aux cheveux verts, in the state in which it was because of a trip to the South of France. In fact, Mourlot closes the second volume of his catalog on October 10, 1950, noting that many of the plates for the works reproduced lithographically in the book have not been thrown away definitively and that he hopes that the painter will one day give final orders and resume, retouch, print or erase those stones or zinc plates. Printing of the book is completed on November 25, 1950, and still no news of this lithograph. However, the official date of this work is still April 3, 1949. The reason is that the painter inscribed that date in the drawing on lithographic paper of the black plate. In addition, Mourlot notes that Picasso has made this project based on one of his paintings. We seem to have found the paintings to which the printer may refer. They are Buste de femme (Zervos XV.136), Femme assise (Françoise) (Zervos XV.140), Femme en bleu assise dans fauteuil (Françoise) (Zervos XV.141) and Buste de femme (Zervos XV. ), dated between 21 and 24 March 1949. The dates match, and especially the first, Buste de femme, coincides almost exactly with the lithograph as we know it, and even has a very similar size (61 x 50 cm). In view of Mourlot's statements, it is likely that the painter did not take the decision to commercially edit this lithograph, the same size as the previous ones, that is 65.6 by 50.3 cm, (R. 503, M. 179, Bloch 604) until one of his next long periods of stay in the printing shop, either in 1950, or in December 1952/January 1953. In any case, Reuße has found a proof of it (R. 502) containing all colors except black, handwritten by Mourlot and 226 destined, like so many other proofs, to collector and expert Castor Seibel. But this is probably prior to the final proof that Mourlot includes on page 203 of the first volume of his catalog. It may happen, however, simply that Mourlot forgot in 1949/1950 that the lithograph had been published commercially in April 1949. In any case, of this precious lithograph only 50 copies were printed with a small number and signature in the lower right corner. Naturally, the market price with such popularity and such a small circulation has skyrocketed. Sotheby's sold copy number 6/50 of this fantastic lithograph at its Auction No. L08161, Old Master, Modern and Contemporary Prints, in London on October 2, 2008 (Lot 103) for 51,650 British Pounds. But three years later, in its sale nº N08786 Prints, New York on October 27, 2011, the same house sold copy number 30/50 for $ 80,500. In October 2009, copy No. 41/50 was auctioned at Christie's 2215 in New York and sold for $ 74,500. Christie's again, at auction No. 7986 of September 21, 2011 in London (Old Master, Modern & Contemporary Prints, Including Property from the Estate of Ernst Beyeler) sold (Lot # 117) copy No. 38/50 for £ 46,850 ($ 73,555). Galerie Michael of 224 N. Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, sold years ago one of the artist copies, unnumbered but signed, within the framework of his exhibition Spanish Masters: Picasso, Dalí, Miró, Goya , Tamayo (Sic). The auction house Calmels Cohen of Paris sold in the auction of June 1, 2005 (Collection Jacqueline and Bernard Gheerbrant, Estampes et Gravures du XXe Siècle, lot nº 473) copy nº 17/50. Its estimated price was 20,000 to 25,000 euros. To compensate for this rarity and bring this beautiful and popular lithograph to a larger number of collectors, always taking advantage of the fact that chromist Henri Deschamps was still working for him, Mourlot decided, with the agreement of Picasso’s heirs, to make a reprint. It was the year 1978 and France wanted to give a farewell to the printing press in the prestigious Festival d'Avignon with a magnificent exhibition held between June and September at the Palace of 227 the Popes, with the title Cinquante Annees de Lithographie aux Ateliers Mourlot. Well, Mourlot used for the poster the same lithograph, made in new stones by Deschamps, the same size as the original. The lithograph is magnificent, but the 75.5 by 51 cm paper is rather thin. And Mourlot also made at the same time another limited edition of 300 copies on stronger paper, numbered and 'authenticated' by Mourlot himself with his signature. But this time in reduced size of only 52 by 40 cm (Sheet 65 x 50 cm). Given the formality with which the latter performs, one should think that the new stones are those used in this reduced print run, and that the poster print has been made in offset lithography, enlarging the image by photomechanical procedures. In any case, copies of the short run are sold today in the market and in auctions for several thousand euros, while the magnificent poster costs several hundred. Although not long ago they could be acquired at reasonable prices. We have found for example a copy of the 300 print run, sold by Ketterer Kunst in 2004 for only € 585 (Auction 286, Lot 1093). Apart from the series Tête de jeune fille / Figure / Femme / Buste, Picasso also produces other lithographs in February and March 1949, such as the one of abstract facture La artista: On February 17 a first state is printed (R. 461, M.150) of La jeune artiste, pen and wash drawing on zinc. The painter abandons the plate, but retakes it on April 15, completing the drawing with pen and giving the approval for its edition at 50 copies of 44 by 33 cm (R.462). Between the two dates he had made another version of the same theme (R. 463, M. 156) but in a larger size (66 by 50 cm), also edited commercially. The latter incorporates the signs of the book very clearly. On March 5, 1949, he made the double lithograph Deux Têtes (R.473474, M. 160) that serves as cover of the first volume of Mourlot's reasoned catalog and is printed at 2,500 copies. The next day he makes another version of that cover, but as simple entertainment and it is not commercially edited (R.475, M. 159). 228 In this lithographic frenzy of the month of March 1949, Picasso also briefly addresses bullfighting, doing on Thursday 10, using pencil, wash drawing on lithographic paper transferred to stone, La grande Corrida. It results in a large lithograph (55.6 by 76.5 cm) and is edited in 50 numbered and signed copies (R.482, M. 168). According to Reuße and Mourlot it is a single stone, which will be later reworked for the next two lithographs. For Mourlot (who does not speak of commercial edition), the stone of this print, made initially in paper with pencil and lithographic wash (Reuße adds gouache and pen) is printed in gray / green in the second lithograph of the series, while Picasso produces on March 21 a new, more detailed drawing on a new zinc plate (probably with pen, we think) which is printed in black in its two-color state (La grande Corrida II, R. 483, M. 169). Reuße finds the explanation confusing and, lacking a clear interpretation, attributes the rejection by Picasso of this second state to an error of impression because of a mismatch between the two plates. But the mismatch of the proof reproduced by Reuße does not exist in the one reproduced by Mourlot. It would be possible that in fact there was a printing error in the five proofs made and shown to Picasso and then Henri Deschamps corrected the mismatch by preparing the two stones for the reasoned catalog. Again it is an auction house that clarifies the confusion of the reasoned catalogs: Sotheby's brought for sale in London on September 17, 2013 (Sale No. L13161, Lot No. 75, estimated price 3-4,000 Pounds) a proof of this second lithograph that does not contain the mismatch and carries the following handwritten note by Picasso: “attention!! Je voudrais le noir seul éliminez le gris clair svp si possible sinon photo faible” (Warning!! I would like black only clear light gray if possible if not weak photo). The painter does not approve, therefore, the impression of the stones together, but not because of the nonexistent maladjustment, but rather because they obscure the whole print. Regarding the third lithograph of the series, (La grande Corrida III, 229 R. 484, M. 170), Mourlot explains that on March 31, Picasso discards the plate of March 10, takes the one of the 21st and reworks it with pen and wash. Reuße reproduces the succinct explanation of Mourlot. To our knowledge, what Picasso does on the 31st is to incorporate the darkening elements of the March 10 plate into the new zinc plate, and orders the printing in black, also in five proof specimens. And having in front of him the three sets of test proofs, instead of ordering a new impression of the second state, but with a background plate in a stronger color, he opts for the easiest solution: to give the bon à tirer of the least elaborated first state. Picasso also produces another large lithograph between March 11 and 15. This is Corrida: Le Picador (R. 485, M. 170), made with lithographic pencil, with an abstract drawing of a Picador with wash, gouache and pen on report paper transferred to stone, which is published commercially. In the month of April 1949, and just after finishing his series Tête de jeune fille / Figure / Femme / Buste, the painter launches a 'book' that would not be published until five years later by the Louise Leiris Gallery, that is Kahnweiler. More than a book, Poèmes et lithographies is a folder cataloged as 14 large lithographs (65.5 by 49.7 cm) printed on Arches paper in a print run of 50 copies plus three artist proofs (R. 504-518, M. 180 ). Each number in the Reuße catalog corresponds to a plate that includes four lithographs, whether they are calligraphic text or black drawings. On the one hand it contains 26 pages of text written by the painter of his own poems in French made when he was not in a good mood, especially the first, written in 1941 during the German occupation. They reflect the frustrations of daily life and speak of the 'sadness' and 'anger' of the author. On the other hand, the folder contains 30 lithographs in black and made with different techniques: wash drawing, gouache, pen, brush and lithographic pencil, frottage, collage and scraper. Picasso makes these lithographs on 25 by 32 cm report paper that later Mourlot transfers to 14 stones of 66 by 50 cm. In the folder, texts and dates are legible from left to 230 right. This is because they have been returned twice, the first when reporting paper to stone, and another when printing the stone. Only one date appears inverted, at the foot of the lithograph Deux femmes, since the painter has directly reworked the stone by adding a second date. The lithographs are of an excellent quality and represent an eagle, an owl and a faun head (R.504); a woman sitting, faces (R.505), surrealist style figures; a profile and sketches and an abstract still life (R. 506); two faces of a young woman with a bow (R.507); a faun playing two flutes and a faun face (R.508); a face of a man made with strokes in the style of the Chant des Morts, an orchid and a profile of a young man (R.509); a profile of a young woman (R.510); two faun heads, one in light and one in dark (R.511); two naked women and a woman's bust (R. 513); a landscape with a faun and an owl (R.514); a drawing of his Vallauris house La Galloise and some bullfight scenes (R.515); a woman's head and a portrait of his son Claude (R.516); a vase and a rare calligraphy that will also be used in the book Poèsie des mots inconnus (R.517); and, in the last plate, a hair and profile of a woman in the manner of one of the aquatints he made for the book Góngora (R. 518). The dates of the lithographs, (authentic to the extent that he inscribed them on the report paper) go from April 6 to May 29, 1949. From the drawing of the orchid, the painter does the same day, that is, on May 15, another much larger paper version (65.5 by 50.1 cm) that also incorporates strokes with the aesthetics of the Chant des Morts, but of this lithograph, drawn on report paper transferred to stone, only 5 artist copies are printed (Plantes Tropicales R. 523, M. 185.) Picasso also made in the month of April 1949, exactly on Monday 11, another book, this one of traditional format. This is Élégie d'Ihpetonga suivi des masques de cendre (Cramer 53), by Franco-German poet Yvan 231 Goll, an allegory of the spiritual death of Western civilization in the atomic age. In this case, the four illustrations of 32.5 by 25 cm of the painter (R.519-522, M. 177) follow to the letter the text, as they represent masks that perfectly illustrate the triumph of the occult inspired by the mythology of the American Indians who inhabited the area of the United States where the poet had been exiled in 1939 because of his Jewish origin. They are lithographs drawn with wash and gouache and one of them also with lithographic pencil and frottage on report paper transferred to stone. From the book, as early as 1954, were printed 120 copies on Rives vellum paper by and 20 on Arches vellum, which carry a suite on Japanese paper. There was also an American edition of this book, under the title Elegy of Ihpetonga and Masks of Ashes (Cramer 70), published in 1954 by Noonday Press, New York. There were 65 copies plus 9 hors commerce, and it contained the 4 lithographed plates by Picasso, printed by Mourlot Freres. On Wednesday, May 25, 1949, the painter draws a bullfight scene, Les banderilles (R.524, M. 171) with wash drawing, gouache, lithographic pencil and pen as well as collage on report paper. This lithograph of 47.4 by 49.9 cm, printed on a somewhat larger paper (50.4 by 65 cm) is commercially edited at 50 copies. And that same day he 232 made his four variations of Vénus et l'amour (d'après Cranach ). It is a variation on the painting by Lucas Cranachthe Elder, also known as Venus and Cupid, preserved in the Royal Museum, Brussels. The first variation (R.525, M.182) is done with lithographic pencil on report paper turned to stone and is an abstract drawing in which he also uses some of the strokes used in Reverdy's book. As in the previous lithograph, the painter uses a smaller stone (64.7 by 32.4 cm) than the paper on which he prints it (65.2 by 50 cm). It is printed to 50 numbered and signed copies, Picasso not bothering that a female face appears in the lower part of it. The painter had used a sheet of lithographic paper in which he had already drawn and simply turned it over. In the second variation (R.526, M.183), which abandons the abstract design and changes to a figurative one, the artist changes technique to wash drawing, lithographic pen and scraper on paper transferred to a zinc plate of 64.4 by 35.3 cm. 5 artist copies are printed, also on a larger paper (65.5 by 50.3 cm) but it is not published commercially, perhaps because in this lithograph the painter is not satisfied with the difference in size between the plate and the paper. Picasso then takes up the zinc plate, partially erases it with sandpaper, completing and enlarging it with lithographic brush and pen until it occupies the entire paper on which it will be printed, measuring 66 by 50.4 cm. The result (R.527, M. 183) is edited to 50 numbered and signed copies, in addition to the usual 5 artist copies. And the painter still makes a new attempt, returning this time to the stone: he makes a new drawing with pen and wash on lithographic paper passed to a stone of 76 by 38 cm. As the drawing does not have a dark background like the three previous ones, when printed on a larger paper, of 79.3 by 57.5 cm, there are no white spots on the sides. Picasso then approved its commercial edition at 50 copies (R.528, M. 184). The only lithographic production of the month of June 1949 is his contribution of two texts recorded in lithography for the book Poésie des 233 mots inconnus (Cramer 54), a collective work of poets and painters edited by Le Degré 41, the publishing outfit of his futurist friend and collaborator of Coco Chanel Iliazd (Ilia Zdanevitch). In addition to making a burin engraving (Bloch 629), Picasso writes some texts that he transcribes in two lithographs, one with four texts (R.530, M. 181), the first of which is probably reduced photomechanically, although Mourlot indicates that the painter has written them with his own hand on the lithographic paper. The reason for the doubt is that in the first text appear thirty lines in a height of ten centimeters. The four texts of the first lithograph are also dated during the war as those of Poèmes et lithographies. The other lithograph (R.529, M. 181) includes an illegible text written with the mysterious calligraphy also used in the lithographs made for that book. 173 copies of Poésie des mots inconnus are published. And this book closes the intense first stage of work of the Andalusian in the Mourlot workshop, which is not renewed until almost a year later. In the second half of the year, Picasso seems to have enjoyed the 'dolce far niente', although we know that in that period he renews his interest in ceramics, sculpture and painting. 234 12. Mourlot insists Picasso does not make any lithograph until Mourlot shows up at his house on the French Riviera almost a year later, that is, in the spring of 1950. He was undoubtedly uneasy about the long absence of the painter, and the pretext of the visit is to present the proofs of the interpretation color lithographs made by Henri Deschamps for the second volume of the catalog, to ask him to make three original works for him, and also to remind him that he had not yet made the illustrations that he had promised for a book by Tristan Tzara. As we will see, Picasso gives his approval to the lithographs’ proofs, accedes to the two demands and renews with lithography. The return to Mourlot is marked by the portentous portraits of his sons Paloma and Claude, made on Sunday, 235 April 16, 1950, by impregnating his index finger with lithographic ink and drawing on a 50 by 54.4 cm report paper (R. 531- 532, M 186). These two magnificent portraits were made to serve as cover and back cover of Volume II of the Mourlot catalog of Picasso lithographs, printed at 2,000 copies, which makes them accessible to most collectors. This is, at the time of publication of the work, because today they cost several thousand Euros. Catalogs say that only five artist copies with large margins were printed aside, that is, containing the date and place of realization of the drawing inscribed by Picasso on the report paper. One of these five was sold by Sotheby's in November 2001 (Lot 374 of sale # 7835, estimated price between $ 8 and $ 12,000). Another was sold by the specialist in graphic work Christie's in November 2006, being awarded to its lucky acquirer for only $ 7,200, about € 7,600 at the time (Sale No. 1719, Lot 225). It is the gratification of the perseverance of the collector or dealer: from time to time in an auction where you least expect it, you see a lithograph or engraving by Picasso that should arouse a lot of interest, but at the moment it does not attract bids, probably because other collectors or dealers were distracted. At that time it can be purchased at a reduced price. Another copy was sold by Swann Galleries in New York on September 20, 2007 (Lot 607) for only $ 7,500. Finally, another copy of this lithograph with large margins was auctioned on March 8, 2012 in a sale by Swann Galleries in New York, then estimated between 20 and 30,000 dollars (between 15,000 and 22,500 € at the time), but did not find buyer. This proof did not belong to the five that we have cited and which bear the date inscribed by Picasso, but it has date "Le 16.4.50" inscribed with a graphite pencil and on top of this a signature in blue pencil. It could therefore raise doubts as to its authenticity. Christie's sold a copy of the same lithograph with margins, but without the date (that is, of the edition of 2,000 but without folding the page to wrap the book) in its auction of October 25, 2007 in London (Lot 26). It did not have a pencil or signature date and it reached a price higher than 6,600 dollars. But, apart from acquiring one of the few copies of the book that are still on the market with lithographs, they can be purchased cheaper at auctions. Ketterer Kunst sold in 2004 one of the 2,000 prints for € 1,404 (Auction nº 286, Lot 1091). But even the Museum of Modern Art in New York is happy enought to have in its permanent collection a copy of the current edition (Reference MOMA 208.1951.1). However, the Kunstmuseum Picasso in Münster has one of the five artist copies with the date inscribed in (Inv 531,186). The Yale University Art Gallery also has one (Inv 1983.1.25). Thus our questioning of the number of five. Picasso takes advantage of this technique that he has just discovered to illustrate that same April 16, 1950, with some reluctance, Tristan Tzara's book, De mèmoire d'homme (Cramer 59). He makes nine lithographs with 236 drawings of flowers, plants, insects and a pair of frogs that deliberately have nothing to do with the text of the book. Like the portraits of his children, these 32.9 by 25.5 cm lithographs (R. 533-541, M. 187) are executed with the finger, and completed with lithographic pencil on paper transferred later to stone. They are printed at a rate of 380 copies by publisher Bordas, who would later marry his son to Mourlot’s daugther. The lithographs of plants and flowers are reminiscent of the aquatints he drew in the spring of 1936 to illustrate another book published in 1942: Histoire Naturelle Textes de Buffon (Cramer 37). Three weeks later, on Friday, May 5, he made a 25 by 16.8 cm lithograph, Fleurs dans un vase (R. 542, M. 189), which will be published in 350 copies in the form of a poster (48 by 65 cm) ) for the Poteries-Art et technique pottery exhibition held in Vallauris between July and September 1950. This same lithograph, folded in two, will serve as frontispiece of the exhibition catalog, edited by the City Museum with the title Une visit à Vallauris: guide illustré. Mourlot indicates in his reasoned catalog that only luxury copies contained the lithograph, but it would be more appropriate to speak of the first edition of 500 copies with lithograph, as Reuße indicates. There is in fact a current edition of this small guide of 21 by 13 cm. And this same lithograph is 237 still used to print a hundred copies of the poster 'avant la lettre', that is, without text, which Reuße indicates that they were all signed by the painter, while Mourlot points out that Picasso only signed some copies to help finance the Vallauris museum, which had only been inaugurated a year earlier. New lithographic parenthesis of four months, save the militant jobs, until Sunday November 5, 1950, in which he realizes the first state of a beautiful portrait of his companion: Françoise sur fond gris (R. 550-552, M. 195). It is a wash and lithographic pencil drawing made directly on a zinc plate of 48 by 63 cm. A first state is printed at 5 copies on paper of 76 by 56.2 cm (R.550). But the painter returns to the zinc on Sunday 19 with lithographic pencil and obscures the drawing. Already satisfied, 5 e.a. plus 50 copies numbered and signed are printed on Bluish gray Arches Vellum paper of 76 by 56 cm with the date of execution (R.551). A further 50 copies are printed on grayish and slightly trimmed –so that the date will appear– Ingres Canson paper (62.6 x 47.2 cm). Once printed, the Canson paper is glued on another Arches vellum paper of 75.9 by 56.3 cm (R.552). These lithographs have reaped high prices in public sales. In its sale nº 2475 (Prints & Multiples Including Pablo Picasso, Important Graphic Works), held in New York on October 25 and 26, 2011, Christie's auctioned copy number 6/50 of the second signed state cut and pasted on Arches (R .552). It went to auction with an estimation of between 40 and 60,000 dollars, but the final bid more than doubled the starting price: nothing less than $ 85,300. The Galerie Gerda Bassenge of Berlin put on sale in its auction nº 99 (Modern Art - Part I), on June 2, 2012 another copy of this same print (Lot 8356) and reached the figure of 50,000 Euros. In May 2013, the 34/50 copy of the same second state was sold at the Ketterer Kunst house in Munich (sale nº 406 Modern Art, June 8, 2013, lot # 99). The sample was in an impeccable state for a print of 238 more than sixty years, but the estimate of value prior to the auction was between 55,000 and 70,950 Euros. The two lithographs that are made next are dated both Sunday November 26 and are made on paper. But the first Têtes et pierre (R. 553, M. 194) is a drawing with faces sketches of 48 by 63 cm, with lithographic pencil and gouache but done not on report paper, but on Arches vellum. In a new attempt to break molds, Picasso asks that it be transferred to stone, what the artisans of Mourlot manage to do. The lithograph is then edited at 5 + 50 copies on a paper of 50.5 by 66 cm. The second (R.554, M. 196) is a curious and original lithograph of bullfighting theme, La Pique, made this time on report paper with pencil, pen and frottage transferred to stone. It has picadors, bullfighters, the ring and faces of spectators, with a shading achieved with rubbing of the lithographic pencil. According to Mourlot, the result is published in (5 +) 50 numbered and signed copies, but Reuße states that only five artist copies have been printed, plus the Mourlot copy. In total, six copies. It could be that Mourlot was wrong and Reuße was right that there was no commercial edition, but what can not be true is that only 5 or 6 copies were printed. The proof is the number of copies in museums or for sale that we have found of this original lithograph. From the outset, the Museum of Modern Art in New York has a copy, unnumbered but signed in red pencil (inventory no. 630.1959). The Antonina auction house in Rome sold a copy, also signed in red pencil, in its auction on March 29, 2008, but indicated that it was copy number 36 of 50. We have also found 239 a similar copy for sale in Gallery Bordas of Venice, owned by Mourlot’s grandson Hervé Bordas. It is a similar proof with the manuscript painter's bon à tirer and his signature, all with the same red pencil. Also has a copy, this time unsigned, the Spencer Museum of the University of Kansas in Lawrence, KA (Inventory No. 1992,0007). For the rest, Sotheby's auctioned another unsigned copy in its sale nº 8344 of September 26, 2007 (Lot 126). Actually, this copy comes from another previous auction of the same company, the one of 1994 in New York that sold the Mourlot proofs collection (Sale nº 6624 of November 14). The '196' mark (the catalog number of Mourlot) in pencil on the lower margin proves that it is the same copy. In short, it seems possible that there was no commercial edition, but in any case what seems likely is that more than the six proofs that Reuße states were printed. That same Sunday, November 26, 1949, Picasso launches a 'failed' project entitled La Femme au miroir (R. 555-562, M. 197) that represents two naked women, one of them holding a small mirror which the other is looking at, and that will result in a total of 8 states, of which none will be edited for trade. The first two states are a red print on a plate that will then be used for ocher (R. 555) made with wash drawing and lithographic pen on report paper passed to zinc. On the same day, he draws on a transparent lithographic paper placed on top of the previous print a black plate, which is printed directly on an ocher impression of the first plate (R. 556). Although it does not appear cataloged neither by Reuße nor by Mourlot, we have found a direct impression of the black plate without ocher. It was for sale (Lot 042) for $ 29,800 in a sale organized by Galerie Michael of Beverly Hills on March 16, 2013. 240 Picasso took up the project two weeks later, on Sunday, December 10, 1950, in which he reworked the ocher plate with a wash drawing, sandpaper and possibly scraper, blurring the original drawing. From this plate at least one proof is printed, in red like the first one (R. 557). The same day he completely transforms the zinc plate of the black with sandpaper, pencil and lithographic pen. If the first state of the black simply served as support for the first plate of the ocher, when the drawing disappears it is essential to delineate a complete drawing on the black plate, which he does with an abstract facture. Five artist's proofs are printed of this plate (R. 558). Next, a second red and black state of the two modified plates is printed, as in all cases on a vellum paper of 38.8 by 56.9 cm. From this state (R. 559) 5 e.a. are printed although curiously the proofs illustrated by Mourlot and Reuße differ in that the ocher plate, which Mourlot calls from yellow, appears with less drawing and seems to have been scraped even more with sandpaper. Reuße concludes that the red plate used in the Mourlot proof must constitute an intermediate state prior to the second state of the plate, but in our opinion what may have happened is that the Mourlot proof has been printed with little red ink, and not scraped additionally. This would explain that in the later states the red plate will recover all its previous force. In any case, the result does not satisfy the painter, who on Friday, December 15, retakes the two plates. In the red one, he adds a new classic style drawing with pen, wash and scraper, completely ignoring that of the black plate. In this third state of the red / ocher plate (R.560), which in our opinion is the most beautiful one of the series, only five artist copies are printed in black ink. But Picasso must not share our opinion, since he discards the plate of red forever and that same day reworks the black plate, correcting the drawing with pen and sandpaper. From this third black state (R. 561) only one proof is printed according to Reuße. Picasso abandons the project and only retakes it between November 5 and 11, 1953, when he returns to work the black plate, completing the drawing he had left unfinished in the previous state. To print a third general state (R.562), the painter can not use the red plate without erasing the drawing, so he chooses to make a new zinc plate with transparent lithographic paper placed on top of the black print. And he prints again that plate in which he has reproduced the backgound of the second state of red but without the drawing, over the black. From this state, only 5 e.a. are printed, and the project is abandoned, although Mourlot keeps the zinc plates. Although Reuße indicates that of the lithographs in this series only 1 to 5 copies were printed and Mourlot, which only registers six states, also speaks of five copies, it is very likely that some more were printed. We have found in November 2013 for sale in a gallery in Washington (Georgetown Frame Shoppe) a complete series of the eight states, and in another gallery in Münster, Germany (Hachmeister Galerie) a copy of four different states. 241 Christie's has also sold lithographs of this series, for example in its London auction n ° 5300 of October 25, 2007 (Picasso - Ceramics & Prints) a copy of the second state in black and ocher (R 556) was sold for 4,375 £ (8,956 $). Picasso resumes lithographic work in January of 1951 carrying out a series of works of medieval motif. On Friday the 12th, and in another of his attempts to alter printing standards, he takes a stone of 26.4 by 21.4 cm and draws on it with a needle as if it were a copper plate. From that failed attempt, Petit Chevalier au trait (R. 563, M. 198), 5 artist copies are printed. Picasso leaves suddenly for Vallauris, where on January 18 he paints his famous painting Massacre in Korea, which is reminiscent of these lithographs because of the armor, this time science fiction, carried by the soldiers of the execution squad. Picasso left Paris with the idea of continuing to work on the medieval theme and takes from the printing press two lithographic stones, which he will return to Mourlot afterwards. In the first stone, Picasso repeated on Saturday February 17 a drawing very similar to the January 12 on a stone of 37.5 by 27 cm, but this time with lithographic pen and pencil, washing and scraper. This time and despite some imperfection, such as the fact that the edges of the stone are marked on the paper, the painter is satisfied and orders the printing of 50 numbered and signed copies on 52.2 by 38.1 cm paper (Le Chevalier et le Page, R. 564, M. 200). This lithograph gives us a new opportunity to show the relative certainty of reasoned catalogs of graphic work, either for Picasso or other artists. Mourlot indicates in his Picasso Lithographe III that only 5 artist copies and 50 numbered and signed copies have been printed. It is normal that he can not provide more information regarding the signature, since he has not seen the proofs signed and marketed by the Galerie Louise, but as we will see, it is in no way true in terms of the number of proofs without numbering or signature, which is something he could control. As for Bloch, Rau and Reuße, they have had access to the signed edition and to the proofs already circulating in the market, but they do nothing but repeat what Mourlot pointed out, this is 5 e.a. and 50 numbered and signed proofs. Well, if we take a look at what has happened in the markets, and only in recent years, we see some data that does not agree with the catalogs. What we want to show is that, in the first place, not only five unsigned proofs were printed. Christie's house sold an unsigned copy at auction number 1322, Lot 206, held on April 28, 2003 in New York. It was awarded, no doubt for its apparent rarity, at $ 9,560, almost five times its starting price of $ 2,000. But Lempertz of Cologne sold another unsigned copy from the artist's workshop (with the oval seal on the reverse side of the Marina Picasso Collection and No. 49251) in its Sale nº 962 of June 242 2, 2010, Lot 562. It was awarded for € 4,000. In addition, Chicago's Leslie Hindman Auctioneers sold another unsigned artist's copy in its September 12, 2011 auction. It was awarded for $ 3,416. They were already too many copies in auctions for the cataloged 5 e.a. But there is still more: Gilden's Arts UK Gallery also sold an unsigned copy for $ 10,000. They also have a copy at the New River Fine Art gallery in Florida and Aspìre Auctions of Cleveland, always with the small stamp on the back of the Marina Picasso collection, that is also from the part of the private collection of the artist inherited by his granddaughter. Secondly, we understand that there was an edition with a Picasso signature made on a report paper transferred to the stone. We have found a copy in the auction of Gilden's Arts UK Ltd Modern Fine Art: Paintings & Original Prints, held on July 20, 2011. The unnumbered copy, of the same dimensions as in the official catalogs, had a legible Picasso signature printed on it of, and had on its back the oval seal of the Marina Picasso Collection. In the third place, this lithograph entails a curiosity insofar as the signature in a number of proofs of the signed edition is made with a multicolor pencil, that is, of those who carried a mine with several colors that appear in the paper as it is being used. Swann Galleries of New York, released for sale at auction No. 2070, 19th & 20th Century Prints & Drawings, in New York, on March 7, 2006 copy No. 9/50 signed with multicolor pencil. It was estimated between 6,000 and 9,000 dollars, but found no buyer. The same 9/50 proof passed three months later to the Hauswedell-Nolte auction house in Hamburg, which on June 10, 2006 had it for sale at its Moderne Kunst auction, but we do not have its award price. Ketterer Kunst in Munich took another copy of the signed edition for sale, this time No. 49/50, of which we have seen a photograph, which clearly shows the signature in multicolor pencil. This was Sale No. 324 Moderne Kunst of 26.10.2007, Lot 390, with a starting price of € 243 4,800 and a hammer price, including expenses, of € 10,200. A few months later, Christie's auctioned in London, in its Sale nº 7388 Old Master, 19th Century, Modern And Contemporary Prints of March 28, 2007 (Lot 355), copy 21/50 also with multicolor signature, but this time only a little red is seen in the underlining of the pencil. It was awarded at £ 3,600, that is, more than double its starting price of £ 1,500. We have still found another signed copy, No. 15/50, sold by Van Ham Kunstauktionen of Cologne, which sold it in its auction No. 255 Lot 513, on June 6, 2007. The signature appears again with several colors (brown, green, red and blue) and its starting price was € 4,500. Picasso returns to the previous drawing on Monday, February 19, when he takes the second stone, this one of 32.2 by 42.8 cm, and draws directly on it a variation of the same drawing of the warrior on horseback and the page (attendant) with the same technique as the previous one. The larger size of the stone allows him to add two characters that observe the knight and a battlement from which soldiers observe the scene. From this work, Jeux de pages (R. 565, M. 199), the well-known 5 artist copies and 50 numbered and signed proofs are printed. But the painter does not abandon the theme, and on Monday, March 12, he starts working again, with the aim of producing a lithograph in colors. He departs here from a zinc plate of 34.7 by 43.7 cm, in which he draws directly with pen, wash and scraper a gentleman similar to the previous lithographs and a page. The characters that observed leave their place to a lady’s bust, which observes from a window. From this first state are printed 5 e.a. in red and at least one in black and olive green (R. 567, 565 and 568, M. 201). Five artist copies are also printed in black on a pink background and at least one 244 with a gray background (R. 569 and 570). Picasso takes up the medieval theme again on Wednesday, April 25 (Mourlot cites April 2, but the drawing is dated on the plate). According to the printer’s reasoned catalog, what the workshop does, at the request of the painter, is to make a false transfer of the plate of March 12 so that the painter can rework the drawing. Reuße concludes, however, that he can not have started from there, but that Picasso draws on a new lithographic paper, but a transparent one and having underneath an impression of that plate. In any case, the painter makes a drawing with pen, wash and scraper that is reported to a zinc plate of 35.5 by 44.6 cm. The result, Le Départ (R. 571, M. 201), is printed at 5 e.a. on 45.3 by 56.9 cm paper. The next stage, carried out on the same day, is to print the new zinc plate in black and, as a background, the plate of March 12 in red, all on a gray stone background. The set is printed, on a paper of 45.1 by 55.9 cm (R. 572) at 5 artist copies. But Picasso is still not satisfied. On Monday, April 30, he took an impression of the March 12 plate, placed a transparent lithographic paper on top of it, and made a new drawing with wash and pen that was transferred to a zinc plate. A single black print is made (R. 573) and another in which this plate is printed in black and the one of March 12 in red (R.574). At that time they proceed to print, on an impression of the gray plate of the 25th, the new plate of April 30 in black and the plate of March 12 in red (R. 575). Then the black plate is erased and the Mourlot workers perform a false transfer from the March 12 plate on a 35 by 44 cm stone covered in black lithographic ink, on which Picasso works with a scraper and sandpaper to make a new drawing on May 1, 1951, which is printed at 5 e.a. (R.576). The next stage, carried out the same day, consists of printing a three-color proof: in black the new stone of that day, in ocher the plate of March 12, and a yellow background (R.577). Two different proofs are printed that same day: one like the previous one but without the ocher print (R.578) and also another without the ocher plate but with the background in red instead of yellow 245 (R. 579). None of these lithographs is commercially printed, printing only between 1 and 5 artist copies. Picasso goes back to working with scraper on the May 1st stone almost a month later, on the 27th, making a much more elaborate drawing that is printed at 5 e.a. in black (R.580) and another five copies with the stone of the 27th in black, the stone of March 12 in ocher and a yellow background (R.581). This last proof is in our opinion the best result of the series, of a perfection and beauty that rivals the best achievements of the painter, but he does not seem to be of the same opinion, because the stone is abandoned in his study of Grands-Augustins. Perhaps what has happened is that on May 20 he had already made a new zinc plate with a transparent lithographic paper placed on an impression of the March 12 plate. In the new drawing with the wash and lithographic pen new characters appear and 5 copies of the artist are printed (R. 582). Picasso seems to get tired of the theme of Le Départ, and that same day gives the go-ahead to a commercial edition (R. 583) of 50 copies numbered and signed in four printed colors as follows: in black the new zinc plate of 20 of May; in red the plate of March 12; in gray the small background plate used on April 25; and in ocher the frame that covers the difference in size between the plate of that day (45.1 by 56.4 cm) and the paper (55.9 by 66 cm). A shame. But that sells well in the market. For example, Ketterer Kunst sold for € 22,800 the 5/50 proof in June 2008 (Sale 345, Lot 218). To complete this medieval series, we shall remember that Picasso had also made, on March 28, 1951 in Marseille, another completely different version of Le Chevalier et le Page, this time drawing 246 with a lithographic pencil on a zinc plate provided by a local printer (R. 584, M. 209). Only four artist proofs are printed, although Reuße also records an inverted version, that is, with the legible date, possibly obtained by a photomechanical procedure, since only one proof of this lithograph is known (R. 585). Picasso does not return to the medieval theme, which has given him mitigated results and has undoubtedly tired him. 247 Fourth part: The militant and profane lithographic work 13. Lithographs for progressive causes As we have already pointed out, an important part of Picasso's lithographic work is done in the environment of the Communist Party. But he never lends himself in his work to being a mere propagandist. We can not forget that although the painter joins the party, knowing that this produces a return to the organization, he never disowns it –as one does not disown his family– and always receives with cordiality its leaders, especially Maurice Thorez (Secretary General of the PCF from 1930 to 1964), his public role is more that of a 'fellow traveler' than that of a card holder. Despite the abundant militant production of the painter, we have found only a single depiction of the hammer and sickle, a sign that did not come off the PCF (in its members cards) until 2013, that is, 40 years after the death of Picasso. It is the Portrait de Françoise avec la Faucille et le Marteau, painted on October 22, 1946, and the hammer and sickle are tiny and inverted – hammer on the right and sickle on the left– which tells a lot about Picasso’s despise for party signs. Paradoxically, this portrait is now owned by billionaire François Pinault, owner among others of Printemps, Puma, Gucci, Yves St. Laurent and Balenciaga, and is often exhibited in his Palazzo Grassi museum in Venice. 248 The presence of Picasso in acts of the PCF is concentrated mainly in those linked to the so-called 'peace movement', that is, within the framework of the party's frontist policy, and in which intellectuals who were not affiliated to it participated. What happened is that the painter is realizing that his friends of the PCF are not exempt from the dogmatism that he had always fought and begins to distance himself from them. His role in the party is changing from prominent militant to fellow traveler. He does not pronounce himself on internal issues of the organization or French politics. But he lends his collaboration in everything that refers to the rest of the world. In the different issues that affect humanity, he finds that communists are close to his vision of the world and that its enemies support those he considers oppressors. As for specific causes to which he lends his support, and apart from everything related to Spain, the Andalusian is selective, choosing carefully cases such as the Rosenberg spouses, executed in 1953 in the United States for espionage; that of Henri Martin, imprisoned in 1950 for opposing the war in Indochina, the prelude to that of Vietnam; the one of Djamila Boupacha, militant of the Algerian FNL condemned to death in France in 1961; or that of Nikos Beloyannis, a Greek communist leader executed in 1952. When the politics of the party is more controversial, or openly criticizable as in the case of the 1956 Budapest rebellion, Picasso refrains from supporting the PCF, privately makes known his position to the leaders and even protests in writing to the central committee, but he does not attack his 'family' in public. And when, even much later, his friends Aragon and Daix openly attack the Soviet Union and the most orthodox party leaders on the occasion of the invasion of Czechoslovakia, 249 the painter refrains from making a public statement. One's family’s dirty laundry is not washed in public. That same discretion applies to everything that implies aid in time, work or money to the causes that he supported. Picasso helped but did not boast of it, not even in private conversations with friends. It was a personal matter that should be kept secret. One of the examples of this solidarity is the help given to German painter Hans Hartung when the Nazis confiscated his passport, and decided in 1943 to escape to Morocco through Spain. He could not have done it without the money that Picasso gave him. The Andalusian added another amount to help the widow of sculptor Julio González, who had died the previous year and was Hartung's father-in-law. As we have seen, Picasso had already shown solidarity and support to Jewish intellectuals, artists and dealers during the occupation. One of the lesser-known episodes is that of his intervention for gallery owner Pierre Loeb to recover the Galerie Pierre, at number 2 on the rue des BeauxArts, very close to Grands Augustins. Because of the racial laws Loeb had been forced to cede it in 1941 to his colleague Georges Aubry. Upon Loeb's return from his exile in Cuba, Aubry refused to comply with the pact that provided for the return of the gallery when the circumstances that forced the cession passed. Loeb informed Picasso of his tribulations and the Andalusian called Aubry and announced laconically: “Pierre has returned and retakes the gallery”. And so it was done. In 1945, no gallerist could afford to contradict Picasso 281. Picasso's generosity would have remained secret if it were not for his mania to keep all his correspondence, in addition to papers of all kinds. The dedication and size of the aid given to the Spanish exiles, the French Communist Party, other causes, friends and strangers has only been partially revealed by the determination of writer Gertje R. Utley, who took the trouble to dig in the thousands of documents that contain the Picasso archives conserved in the Museum of Paris. Among them, he finds two letters from November 5 and 30, 1956, from Kahnweiler to the painter confirming that he had made payments on his behalf of 3 million francs for Christmas gifts for the Children of the Fighters of the Resistance, 500,000 francs for the Committee for Peace, 300,000 francs for the newspaper Le Patriote de Toulouse, another 750,000 francs for children of the fallen in the war and three million francs for the annual party of the PCF. Utley recalls that to give us an idea of the importance of donations, it is enough to mention that the painter sold one of his most emblematic paintings, The Charnel House, to collector Walter P. Chrysler 281 Information provided by Albert Loeb, son of Pierre and Silvia, in an interview dated 27 February 2009. Cited by Polack, Emmanuelle La Galerie Pierre au prisme des lois de Vichy, in exhibition catalog L’Art en Guerre France 1938-1947, Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 2012. 250 Jr. (son of the founder of the car manufacturer) for the amount of 5 million francs. In our opinion, the researcher could have taken her conclusions a little further, since it is not unreasonable to suppose that the two facts, donations and sale of the painting, are related. According to the archives of the MoMA, owner of the canvas since 1971, Picasso sold the painting in 1954, and it is possible that the party, once informed of the sale, claimed the amount of the transaction from the painter on the basis of the assumption that Picasso would have donated the painting for the Exhibition Art et Résistance of 1946. Another example of Picasso's generosity is found in 1962, due to the flooding of the Vallés region in Catalonia, Spain, in September, in which a thousand people died. The floods take place on Tuesday, September 25, and the next day, Picasso tries to get in touch with his friends in Barcelona to do something for the victims. On Thursday 27 he gets to talk to Ana Maria Torra, the wife of his publisher Gustavo Gili and suggests the idea of sending a painting so that with its sale funds can be raised for the victims. Ms Torra agrees with the idea and Picasso asks her to take the first plane to the Riviera and be accompanied by Elvira Farreras, the wife of her Barcelona gallery owner Joan Gaspar. On Friday the 28th the two women are in Cannes, the painter has gone to pick them up at the Nice airport. The next day they are back in Barcelona with the painting duly rolled. The Andalusian also asked other painters to do the same, and Miró, Dalí, Tàpies, Braque, Chagall, Léger, Clavé, Grau Sala, among many others also donated a total of 204 works of art for the victims of the floods. The Picasso initiative had acquired such breadth that the Provincial Council of Barcelona is obliged to organize in December an exhibition and sale of the works in the hospital of Santa Creu between December 1 and 16. Unfortunately, the Catalan society of the time did not seem prepared for this sudden invasion of modern art and the auction was a resounding failure. An irritated –but committed– Picasso, upon learning that his painting had not been sold, called Joan Gaspar to ask him to send it back with critic Alexandre Cirici and that he would pay the huge amount of three and a half million pesetas for it. It is the same as he had obtained for The Charnel House. In total, a total of 10 million pesetas were collected thanks to Picasso's initiative, but only one and a half million from the Barcelona auction. The rest came from Picasso and a subsequent sale held at the Maeght gallery in Paris, under the sponsorship of French public radio, to sell the works of Braque, Chagall, Léger and Miró, which had not found a buyer in Barcelona. What a contrast to the episode in Basel five years later, when the Staechelin Foundation wanted to remove from the Kunstmuseum of the city two pictures of the painter (Les deux frères of 1906 and Arlequin 251 assis of 1923) that he had deposited there. He wanted to sell them after the bankruptcy of Globe Air owned by millionaire Peter Staechelin, ruined in the wake of the April 20, 1967 accident that killed 126 people in Nicosia, Cyprus. The inhabitants of the city rebelled against the initiative and in mass demonstrations under the slogan "All you need is Picasso" they demanded a referendum so that the Basel canton acquired the paintings and so they stayed in the museum, which actually happened. When Picasso learned of the initiative, he wanted to thank the gesture of its inhabitants and gave the city three splendid oil paintings and a sketch, which, unless we are wrong are the canvases Homme, femme et enfant of 1906 (115.7 x 88.9 cm), Vénus et l'Amour of 1967 (195 x 130 cm) and Le couple of 1967 (195 x 130 cm) and the magnificent sketch of 47.7 x 63.5 cm Esquisse pour Les Demoiselles d'Avignon from 1907. The painting that Picasso offered for the Catalan floods was the oil on canvas of 195 by 130 cm Jacqueline et le chien afghan (Zervos XVIII: 481), first of a long series of paintings of his wife with the dog Kaboul that he would make between 1959 and 1962. It was painted on May 13, 1959 in the castle of Vauvenargues that he had just acquired and finished on January 23, 1960. We do not know what Picasso did with the painting when he recovered it at the end of 1962. It is very possible that he kept it in his private collection and sold other versions of the same theme, such as the Femme et chien painted on November 21. If he did, on the death of the painter the painting went to Jacqueline, and after her suicide it became the property of her daughter Catherine Hutin-Blay, who was 252 selling little by little her collection to keep the castle that she also inherited. What is strange is that it was not included by Jacqueline in the selection of works that she lent for the historic Picasso exhibition in Madrid, held at the Spanish Museum of Contemporary Art between October 25, 1986 and 10 January 1987, which did include the Monument to the Spaniards that we talked about earlier. In any case, the oil that Picasso destined to be sold in Spain would eventually reach the country. And the buyer of the canvas was none other than businessman Juan Abelló, famous for two large financial operations: the sale in 1983 of his father's company to American multinational Merck Sharp & Dohme for 2,700 million pesetas, with which he bought Antibioticos SA, and that of this company to the Italian Montedison for 58,000 million, made in 1987, just when the adoption by Spain of the product patent in principle emptied Antibioticos of its main asset: the copying of products. Abelló then devoted himself to other businesses, and one of them was art. For example, he bought a work of art, raised its value with loans to exhibitions organized by his companies or those of his friends, and then sold it to the Spanish State for a good amount. For example, a part of the tax debt corresponding to the surplus value obtained with the sale of Antibióticos S.A. was paid with the sale of The Virgin with the child, Saint John and angels by Lucas Cranach, which became part of the collection of the Prado Museum. He has also carried out other operations, assigning to the State in payment of fiscal obligations a large charcoal drawing by Picasso from 1934 and a canvas by Tàpies from 1966. It would not be strange that the painting Jacqueline et le chien afghan, that Picasso gave to the victims of the Vallés floods, ended up in a Spanish museum, the State footing the bill. Curiously, when Abelló bought the painting, he also obtained a signed document dated September 29, 1962 that Picasso gave to Ana María Torra, and in which it can be read: “I, Pablo Picasso, offer this picture to the victims of the province of Barcelona”. At the moment, the financier has already loaned the painting for several exhibitions, and when he would have to pay another fiscal debt he could claim for it and the Picasso gift certificate a good amount. For example, Christie's auctioned in 2012 one of the last paintings in the series Jacqueline and Kaboul, Femme et chien, very similar to the previous one but smaller in size (162 by 130 cm) for the coquettish sum of 6,985,250 British Pounds (Sale nº 5465 Impressionist / Modern Art Evening Sale, London, Lot No. 8, June 20, 2012). Despite being Catalan and residing in Spain since 1940, Joan Miró donated a more modest painting to the victims of the floods than Picasso. This was Femme dans la nuit (Dupin 652), painted on April 6, 1945, which had been either hidden from his dealer Pierre Matisse or despised 253 by him when in 1946 he signed an important contract with Miró. As the painting did not find a buyer in Barcelona, it went to the auction in Paris, where the New York gallerist bought it. Once in the United States, Matisse sold it to journalist and collector Joseph Pulitzer Jr., whose widow donated it in 2008 to the Harvard Art Museum. One of the first militant collaborations of the painter is the first lithograph he made in 1949, the magnificent first version of Picasso's mythical pigeon, perhaps his most well-known and reproduced work. La Colombe (Reuße 443, Mourlot 141), is a wash on zinc in a size of 70 by 54.5 cm. What Picasso does is to darken the background with lithographic ink applied with a brush and let the white empty spaces define the pigeon, finished with a very light wash that produces different shades of gray. The objective is to obtain sophisticated nuances that reproduce what the white plumage of a pigeon looks like depending on the light it receives. According to Mourlot, it is one of the most beautiful lithographs ever made. It is printed on January 9, 1949, at the usual five artist proofs and an edition of 50 copies numbered and signed by Picasso. The artist had learned to paint pigeons from his father, a specialized in precisely this subject and who he says he stopped painting precisely when he saw a perfect drawing of a pigeon made by his son. The story of how Louis Aragon chose the dove is well known, but it is less known that the first option to illustrate the poster announcing the World Congress of Supporters of Peace held in the Pleyel Hall in Paris from April 10 to 23, 1949, was not a work by Picasso, but a drawing of a wounded pigeon (La Colombe Poignardée) by André Fougeron, the official party artist. It was reproduced on the cover of Les Lettres Françaises nº 236 of December 2, 1948. But Aragon changed of opinion when he saw the magnificent lithograph of the dove in Picasso's studio, telling the painter: “Here is our poster; the dove of peace”. This lithograph was reproduced in thousands of copies in small size. Aragon 254 chose this lithograph for two reasons: on the one hand, the dove has been a symbol from the Bible and since the time of the catacombs the Christian logo of peace and because the use of a dove already had the agreement of the party, so hard to please sometimes. On the other hand, the poet was lucky, because among the painter's production in those months, the only figurative work there was was that pigeon. The others belonged to a style that Aragon inveighed and attacked from his privileged position in the cultural apparatus of the Communist Party. Picasso's dove will soon become a new universal symbol of peace. The painter retakes the subject in March, making Le Petit Pigeon (R. 468, M. 173) by drawing and gouache on newspaper paper transferred to stone, but is not published commercially. And also in that month he made La petite colombe (R.469, M. 174), which serves as frontispiece to the first volume of the Mourlot catalog of lithographs and is therefore printed at 2,000 copies. 255 The dates are not a coincidence. Despite his artistic disagreements with Aragon, his clashes with the Soviets, such as that of the Polish Congress, and his bitterness at the growing harassment that the Spanish party begins to suffer in France, Picasso continues to defend his “family” of the PCF. And the Peace Congress of April 1949 is a poor reaction to an event that will damage the Party in a considerable way. It must be remembered that the communist party, which enjoys like no other the aureole of 'resistant', had achieved in the legislative elections of 1945 the position of first party of France, with 26% of the votes and 159 deputies. In October 1946, new elections and a resounding triumph: 28.2% of the vote and 182 deputies, again the country's first party. But the heavy environment of the cold war, which begins to settle in Europe, takes its toll and the Socialists of Paul Ramadier, who had only achieved 102 deputies, in May 1947 expel the PCF from the government for refusing to approve the military budget for the Indochina war. The Socialists form a new one with republicans, radicals and Christian Democrats. It is a true Cordon sanitaire around the communist party that condemns it to an ostracism similar to the one that will live decades later the National Front of Jean-Marie Le Pen and that will not be broken until 1981 with the coming to power of François Mitterrand and the Union of the Left. Precisely at the moment when the PCF is expelled from the government, the Kravchenko case occupies the front pages of newspapers, and undermines the confidence of the French in communist intellectuals and, by extension, in the party itself. Victor Kravchenko was a Ukrainian engineer, member of the Bolshevik party, who was a privileged witness of the famines brought by Stalin’s forced collectivization that caused the death of several million Ukrainians between 1931 and 1933. During World War II Kravchenko is Captain and Political Commissar in the Red Army, being sent later to Washington in a diplomatic position. In 1944, he requested political asylum from the North American authorities, publishing his memoirs two years later. When these are published in France in 1947, under the title I chose freedom: The public and private life of a senior Soviet official 282, the party believes that it is strong 282 Kravchenko, Victor A. J'ai choisi la liberté : La vie publique et privée d'un haut fonctionnaire soviétique, Éditions Self, Paris 1947 256 enough to prevent its publication. On November 13, the weekly Les Lettres françaises, which curiously had been founded in 1941 by none other than Jean Paulhan (now on the other side of the trench), publishes an article in which it accuses Kravchenko of lying and being a United States agent. The article is signed by Sim Thomas, a presumed American journalist, although later it will be known that it was a pseudonym of magazine journalist André Ulmann, an Alsatian Jew who had tried in 1939 together with Charles Tillon to organize the evacuation of the Spanish republicans from the port of Alicante283 and of whom Picasso had illustrated a book in 1946 (L'humanisme du XXe Siècle). The French right and the Washington government unite in a propagandistic and legal battle in a key place in Europe. Kravchenko files a defamation complaint against the publication and the American administration provides him with all the means he needs to win the process, including sending, all expenses paid, dozens of witnesses from around the world. The trial begins in Paris on January 24, 1949. The USSR sends former colleagues of Kravchenko and his unconvincing ex-wife in an unsuccessful effort to discredit him. The anti-communists do it much better, and among the many dozens of witnesses they send by plane there is one whose credibility no one can doubt. It is Margarete Buber-Neumann, the widow of the German communist and Komintern leader Heinz Neumann, executed by the Russians in the Great Purge of 1937. Her partner Margarete was sent to the Gulag and, what is even more shocking, handed over in 1940 to the Nazis, who sent her to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. On April 4, 1949, that is, six days before the World Congress of Supporters of Peace, the court passed sentence favorable to Kravchenko and condemning Communist journalists for defamation. The party then needs all the support it can get from intellectuals and popular figures such as Picasso and hence his collaboration and attendance at the event. Kravchenko not only manages to win the process in the first instance and in appeal, but the publicity that he attracts breaks the confidence that a good part of French public opinion had in the communists. The party remains undaunted, keeps Claude Morgan as head of the publication, although placing Pierre Daix as editor-in-chief, and André Ulmann is dedicated a square in Paris. Paradoxically, Les Lettres françaises will end up dying in the seventies of last century when in retaliation for the condemnation by the publication of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, which it had not done in Hungary in 56, the Soviets canceled the subscriptions of schools , 283 Santacreu Soler, José Miguel La huida imposible: El fracaso de las gestiones del Consejo Nacional de Defensa en marzo de 1939 EBRE 38: Revista Internacional de la Guerra Civil 1936-1939, Universidad de Barcelona, 2011, pp. 81-99. 257 universities and Russian libraries, leaving the publication directed by Louis Aragon without funds. On Tuesday, May 23, 1950, Picasso again made a lithograph to be reproduced on a poster, this time for a Franco-Italian friendship meeting inspired by the Communist Party (Rencontre internationale de Nice du 13 au 20 Août 1950 pour l'interdiction absolue de l'arme atomique). The work of 50 by 65 cm represents the faces of two young people and a dove of peace in the center. This is Jeunesse (R. 543-545, M.188), made with lithographic pencil, brush and gouache on report paper, transferred on zinc plate. From this plate, Mourlot prints in June 5 artist proofs and 50 copies that are numbered and signed by Picasso, as always for the benefit of the PCF. Then, the drawing of the zinc is passed to stone, and with it, a thousand copies are printed on a format of 80 by 120 cm. And there is still an edition at a reduced size of 40 by 60 cm, also printed by Mourlot but where the reduction has been done by photomechanical procedures. Picasso continues to make militant jobs, such as lithographs depicting the flight of the dove. The World Congress of Partisans for Peace had formally written on July 17 to ask him to illustrate the poster announcing its second congress to be held in October 1950. But we suppose that Aragon and his comrades from the PCF had already prepared, so that the letter would be sent only if Picasso was going to accept. And in fact, on July 9, 1950, the painter made four models with pencil, wash drawing and gouache on lithographic paper. Of these, four lithographs result. The first, La Colombe en vol, fond noir (R. 546, M. 190) is done with a view to the poster. But the painter must have lost the lithographic paper. More than two years later, Picasso finds it rolled up in a corner of his studio in Vallauris and sends it to Mourlot, who prints it with 5 artist proofs and 50 numbered and signed copies. On 258 the same Sunday, July 9, the Andalusian draws directly on a zinc plate La colombe volant (R. 547, M. 191). He uses here pencil and lithographic ink bar. This lithograph is printed by Mourlot in 1955, as always at 5 + 50 copies on paper of 50.4 by 66.1 cm. And still on the same day two other doves are drawn directly on a zinc plate (R. 548549, M. 192-193). The first one is published commercially in 1955 and the second one is finally chosen for the congress poster, which is involved in some confusion. There is an attempt to celebrate it in London, but it faces opposition from the British government. However, the poster is printed with French text indicating London as the venue of the celebration, and also with English text, although in this case the place of celebration indicated is Sheffield, which is where the conference finally took place, attended by the painter between November 11 and 13. The British authorities do not dare to prohibit the entry into the country of Picasso, but if they prevent the entry of the other sixty delegates arriving from France, and the congress has to be reconvened in Warsaw a few days later. In any case, Mourlot reports the paper to a zinc plate and prints 5 + 50 copies of the lithograph. After the zinc is transferred to stone this is used to pull 5,000 copies of the poster of 80 by 120 cm. Here, too, the poster is reduced to 40 by 60 cm to be reissued 'commercially', that is, for the benefit of the Movement for Peace promoted by the PCF. 259 The painter returns to militant lithography in September 1951. Picasso's first work in support of the PCF this time is a frontispiece for the book Le Visage de la paix (Cramer 62), with poems by Paul Éluard and in which are reproduced the 29 studies of dove of peace that the painter had realized the 5th of December of 1950 on the occasion of the 30 anniversary of the Communist Party of France, that was commemorated the 30th of December of that year. Laurent Casanova had asked the painter Boris Taslitzky to come to Picasso's house to ask him to make a drawing that would serve as decoration for the curtain of the theater where the celebration took place. Picasso replied that he should return the following day in the morning. When the French painter returns, the Andalusian presents the 29 drawings he had just made. After choosing one for the theater curtain, the others will be included in the book. The communist publisher Éditions Cercle d'Art asks the painter to provide them with an original work for the luxury copies of the book. Thus, on Monday, September 10, 1951, Picasso made a first version with pencil, brush with gouache and scraper on lithographic paper, transferred to a stone of 25.3 by 18.8 cm. But the stone report does not work, and Picasso orders that the stone be polished after printing five artist copies (Le Visage de la paix R. 586, M. 202). On Saturday, September 29, he makes the second version of the same drawing with a lithographic pencil of Françoise's face, which replaces the torso of a dove of peace, with wings on the sides, the head of the dove on top and the legs and the tail under the chin. This time the transfer to a stone of 27 by 19.8 cm is carried out without problems. The 150 proofs needed for the luxury copies of the book are printed on a Johannot yarn paper of 28 by 22.5 cm. The specimens are numbered by hand in Roman numerals from I to CL, but are not signed (R. 587, M. 203). Some proofs are also printed on paper with a large margin of 45 by 32.6 cm, possibly with a view to issuing, always for the benefit of the party, a short signed edition. 260 Éditions Cercle d’Art had been founded in 1950 by the resistant Jew Charles Feld at Picasso’s suggestion, and with his help and that of Fernand Chenot, former lithographer of Mourlot who had founded the Imprimerie Moderne du Lion, which would print reproductions and some interpretation lithographs. Typography, which until the appearance of personal computers in the 90s of last century was one of the highest costs of any publisher’s work, will be done by L'imprimerie Union. The following militant commission is a small work but with a high militant anti-Francoist significance: a poster for the modest HispanicAmerican Exposition that takes place in November and December 1951. It is a replica of the First Hispanic-American Biennial of Art organized by the Institute of Hispanic Culture in Madrid and inaugurated in October 1951 by General Franco, the first opening act (in the artistic sense) of Christian-democrat Minister Joaquín Ruiz Giménez284. One of the initiators was Manuel Fraga Iribarne, then General Secretary of the ICH. Ruiz Gimenez, well informed of Picasso's difficulties in Paris, states in the opening speech of the exhibition that “the education of the aesthetic sense is one of the most important tasks of the great educational powers” and that art has “a legitimate sphere of autonomy as free expression of the individual soul in which the State can not, in its own interest, interfere. The authentic is always impolitic; the inauthentic of art –that is, what is not rooted in creative autonomy– reverts in the long run, whatever the adopted protectionist measures and the apparent successes, in impoverishment and impairment of political work itself” 285. Dalí expressed the same provocation more directly, both in his lecture “Picasso and I” at the María Guerrero theater in Madrid, on November 11, 1951 (in which he pronounced his famous “Picasso is communist, me neither”) as in the telegram sent to the Andalusian that same day: “The spirituality of Spain today is the most antagonistic to Russian materialism. You know that Russia purges for political reasons even the very music. We believe in the absolute and catholic freedom of the human soul. Know then, that despite your current communism, we consider your anarchic genius as an inseparable heritage of our spiritual empire and your work as a glory of Spanish painting. God bless you” 286. 284 See Álvaro Oña, Francisco Javier La “I Bienal Hispanoamericana” de 1951. Paradigma y contradicción de la política artística franquista, presented to the VII Congreso da Asociación de Historia Contemporánea Santiago de CompostelaOurense, 21-24 September 2004. 285 The speech was later published in the form of an article: Ruiz Jiménez, Joaquín, Arte y política, in Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, nº 26 Instituto de Cultura Hispánica, Madrid 1952 286 Reproduced in Cabañas Bravo, Miguel La política artística del franquismo: el hito de la Bienal Hispano-Americana de Arte, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid, 1996 p. 506. 261 From the moment the idea of the biennial in Madrid was launched, to which he was invited, Picasso, who at no time thought about participating, mobilized Spanish and Latin American artists denouncing the maneuver and urging them to say that they will not participate in it 287. The Picasso initiative, which was supported by all the artists of the 'Spanish School of París' (Bores, Joaquín Peinado, Oscar Domínguez, Hernando Viñes, Luis Fernández, José Palmeiro, Pedro Fores, Antonio Clavé, Manuel Angeles Ortiz, Emilio Grau Sala, Ginés Parra, Orlando Pelayo, Ismael Gónzalez de la Serna, Apelles Fenosa, Baltasar Lobo and García Condoy) took the form of a manifesto in which the artists point out their opposition to the project of the Institute of Hispanic Culture while warning the artists and countries invited that a participation in it would constitute a direct collaboration with the Franco regime, urging instead the holding of alternative exhibitions. The manifesto was surprisingly published in Spain in No 34-35 November 1951 of Madrid’s journal Correo Literario. Art and Latin American Letters, directed by the poet Leopoldo Panero, who was also General Secretary of the Biennial. Despite the call for boycott by Picasso and the exiled painters in France, most of the invited painters agreed to participate. Joan Miró told the organizers that he would attend and his name appeared everywhere, but at the time of the inauguration, he did not show up or contributed works 288. But exposed in the Biennale, apart from Dalí and many others, the members of the Catalan group Dau al set (Joan Ponç, Antoni Tàpies, Modest Cuixart and Joan-Josep Tharrats), as well as Zabaleta, Josep Guinovart, Benjamín Palencia, Ortega Muñoz, Manolo Millares, the sculptors Jorge Oteiza, Josep Clará, Joan Rebull and Josep Maria 287 See Fernández Martínez, Dolores Complejidad del exilio artístico en Francia, Revista Migraciones & Exilios, UNED, Madrid 2005, pp. 23-42 288 Cabañas Bravo 1996, p. 305 262 Subirachs. According to Antoni Tàpies, while General Franco watched carefully a painting of his, together with ceramist and Joan Miró’s intimate Josep Llorens Artigas, who also exhibited, professor of History of Art and president of the Catalan Section of the Spanish Association of Art Critics, Alberto del Castillo, explained to the dictator: “Excellency, this is the room of the revolutionaries”. The tyrant's response was: “As long as they make revolutions this way...” 289 Of the thirty-eight prizes awarded in the Biennial, eleven were awarded to Catalan revolutionary artists. The Spanish exile circles in Paris mobilized immediately, and in a few days they managed to mount an alternative exhibition in the Galerie Henri Tronche, with paintings by Condoy, Colmeiro, Clavé, Domínguez, Fin, Flores, Apeles Fenosa, Lobo, Ismael de la Serna, Ortiz, Ginés Parra, José Palmeiro, J. Peinado, Picasso and Viñes. Picasso made a lithographic pencil drawing of Don Quixote and Sancho for the exhibition on November 4th. The painter also wrote the text and signed on the plate. The poster is printed at 300 copies, with an ocher background and a format of 48 by 65 cm. (R.588, M. 204). Another hundred proofs are also printed on vellum paper with an additional signature by the painter with graphite pencil, to be sold by the Henri Tronche Gallery for the benefit of the Spanish exiles. In November 2013 we found a copy of that poster with additional signature for sale at Galerie Bordas in Venice. Two other poster projects (R. 589-590, M. 205-206) are only printed in April 1956 at 5 e.a. and from them, but without text, according to Mourlot are edited with an 289 Tapies, Antoni Memoria personal. Fragmento para una autobiografía, Seix Barral, Barcelona 1983 pp. 376-377 263 ocher background two lithographs of Don Quixote and Sancho in a commercial edition of 5.e.a. and 50 numbered and signed proofs (R.591592, M. 207-208). According to Reuße, who in principle has had access to more information, there is no commercial edition of any of these two lithographs. But we have found, sold for $ 6,250 by Sotheby's in auction N09031 of November 1, 2013 (lot 130) a copy numbered 19/50 and signed Don Quichotte et Sancho Pança, II (R. 592, M. 208). It seems that Mourlot was right, and Reuße is wrong. Picasso had previously devoted a considerable personal effort to helping the exiled Spanish Republicans. An example is the book Picasso libre. Vingt et une peintures 1940-1945, published in Paris by Galerie Louis Carré in 1945 at 700 copies, with texts by Apollinaire, Aragon, Cocteau, Stravinsky and the poem by Éluard À Pablo Picasso. The book, which initially was an exhibition catalog and contains 20 reproductions of Picasso paintings, was in fact marketed for the benefit of the Relief Works of the Comité France-Espagne, a PCF organization. As he would often do in the future, Picasso dedicated many copies, and colored by hand at least one, which he dedicated to DoraMaar. This magnificent specimen that we were able to examine, was auctioned by the Alde house in its sale Quelques souvenirs de Dora Maar on June 8, 2009. Picasso's determination to help the Spanish exiles could only be accentuated when, after the Communists had been expelled from the French government, the Paris authorities initiated a policy of thawing with the Franco dictatorship. When the very Catholic Robert Schuman – celebrated 'father of Europe' today in the process of beatification– becomes president of the French government and foreign minister in November 1947, one of his main objectives is to reopen the border with Spain. He entrusts asks Pierre de Chevigné, who had been De Gaulle's military representative in Washington and is therefore impregnated with the anti-communist philosophy of the Truman administration, to initiate some discreet negotiations with the Spanish foreign minister Alberto Martin Artajo, which take place on January 22, 1948. A month later the circulation of passengers and goods between the two countries was restored 290. Schuman continues to dominate French foreign policy after leaving the presidency of the government in September 1948, as he remained foreign minister until 1953 and Justice minister until 1956, when he began his European career. The Spanish Republicans need more and more help, particularly because on September 7, 1950 the Socialist radical Minister Henri Queuille and the also socialist Minister of Defense 290 Dulphy, Anne. La politique espagnole de la france (1945-1955), published in the review Vingtième Siècle. Revue d'histoire. N° 68, Presses de Sciences Po, Paris, October-December 2000, p. 35. 264 Jules Moch decreed the banning of the Communist Party of Spain in France and the arrest of its main leaders. The pretext is that the organization, which has thousands of ex-members of the French resistance, would have become a threat to the country because it would try to “facilitate the invasion of France by the Red Army”. The operation had been prepared by Jules Moch, who had preceded Queuille in the Interior Ministry from 1947 to February 1950. The same Moch who had granted Picasso in 1948, as a 'foreigner' a modest Silver Medal of recognition for the marked services provided to the country. Moch was an Alsatian Jew, the son of a companion of Alfred Dreyfus in the elitist École polytechnique. In 1936, as Secretary General of the Presidency of the also Jew Prime Minister Leon Blum, Moch had helped German Jews by facilitating their entry into France. He had also aided Spanish Republicans in a sale operation of 14 French Dewoitine 37 fighter planes destined to Lithuania and that ended up in the air squadrons España of André Malraux and Lafayette of Captain Antonio Martin-Luna Lersundi. Moch also helped Spanish representatives (including Corpus Barga) to act on French territory to set up smuggling networks of light weapons out of France. But after the war, things had changed, and Moch, very active in arming of the Haganah organization –which fought Arabs and British in Palestine– and then the Israeli army, needed the help of the Truman administration, which provided the weapons and the means of transport. A police report drawn up under Moch's authority had 'alerted' the government that “La Amicale des anciens FFI et résistants espagnols, and the PCE are so closely linked that they can be confused with each other. Their bosses... include the most significant names of communist militants who are feudal to the Kominform in France” 291. The government that takes the decision to ban the PCE is made up of the cream of the French political class: René Pléven, Guy Mollet, Jules Moch, Gaston Deferre, Robert Schuman, Pierre Pfimlin, Edgar Faure, François Mitterrand, etc. We should not forget either that in 1950 France was trapped in a colonial war far from the hexagon that not only it could not win, but it could not pay either: the Indochina war. In fact, the United States was paying for the French war, through the Military Assistance Advisory Group. French troops were fighting on behalf of U.S. strategic interests in the framework of the Cold War. Four years later, and after the French defeat in Dien Bien Phu, the Mendès France government ordered the total withdrawal 291 See Denoyer, Aurélie L’opération Boléro-Paprika : origines et conséquences. Les réfugiés politiques espagnols : de l’expulsion à leur installation en RDA, in Résonances françaises de la guerre d'Espagne, Éditions d'Albret, Nérac, France 2012, pp. 295-312 265 and informally gave Indochina to the American ally, which after another 20 years of war suffered the same fate as France: defeat. The banning of the PCE and the operation “Bolero-Paprika”, as the razzia is known, that was intended to trap some 400 Spanish communist leaders and militants in Paris, Toulouse and Morocco, considerably weakened the party, whose leaders were forced to move to Moscow. Only in mainland France 268 Spanish communists are arrested, and in total 300 are expelled from the territory, 142 of them to Algeria and Corsica, 43 to the Soviet Union and the rest to Eastern Europe 292. Those who are not detained are deprived of the help provided by the organizations that have been banned at the same time as the PCE. The Hospital Varsovia created by the Spanish resistance in Toulouse is transformed into Hôpital Varsovie, and the Spanish doctors are dismissed. The Spaniards do not have the option of joining the PCF, because this party does not want them in their midst. It integrates them into associations that the French party controls, and uses them when it suits it in demonstrations and other political activities. At the same time, the PCF knows that Spaniards, forced into hiding, now depend, sometimes for simple survival, not on organizations that they themselves have created and controlled, but on those managed by the PCF, such as the Comité France-Spain. Hence, the political activity of the remaining cells is mainly focused, from that moment, on the independent collection of funds 293. This considerably raises the importance that donors like Picasso acquire from that date, and especially the help that Picasso can provide directly, without going through the PCF organizations. According to his hairdresser in Vallauris Eugenio Arias, the painter, apart from contributing considerable help to the PCF organizations, which passed it to the PCE as “help from the French comrades”, contributed directly to the financing of the Hospital Varsovia and was constantly doing donations to the now clandestine organizations of the PCE. Jacqueline was often responsible for counting money and putting it in envelopes that passed to communist refugees or associations. He also remembers that Picasso had established a business parallel to that of Kahnweiler to market artist copies of his lithographs, which as we have seen was often 18 copies ahead of the 50 that the Galerie Louise sold. The income from these sales of lithographs went directly to the coffers of the Spanish party 294. The leaders of the PCE who wanted to see the painter, such as Santiago Carrillo, Jorge Semprún or Manuel 292 Marcos Álvarez, Violeta Los comunistas españoles exiliados en la región de Toulouse, 1945-1975, in Alted, Alicia y Domergue, Lucienne editors: El exilio republicano español en Toulouse: 1939 – 1999, UNED/Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 2003 p. 158 293 Marcos Álvarez 2003, p. 161 294 Czernin & Müller, 2002, p. 147 266 Azcárate, also had to pass through Arias, a member of the organization in the south of France (he also acted as messenger for funds destined for the organization in Paris), as both Azcárate in his memoirs 295 and Arias himself remember. Azcárate says that he had already had contact with Picasso since 1946, to ask him to preside over a committee to help Spanish refugees organized by the Unitarian Church of the United States. The help he was carrying was largely channeled to the Hospital Varsovia. Azcárate also intervened in the episode of the Wroclaw Congress, for which he had to go back several times to the painter's home, which he mistakenly places repeatedly in his memoirs on the Rue des Saints-Pères 296 . Picasso knew that he could not choose between helping the Spanish exile through the PCF or directly through his contacts with the clandestine PCE or the organizations it managed to reconstitute years after the ban. Nor could he reject providing aid to exiles organizations dominated by other parties. That is why he had to extend his assistance to practically all the requests that came to him. Gertje Utley has found in her work of combing Picasso's personal files evidence that the painter donated paintings for exhibitions for the benefit of exilees, such as Artistes Espagnols in JuneJuly 1945 at the Louis Carré Gallery; Quelques peintres et sculpteurs espagnols in June 1945; another similar one the following month at the Roux-Heutschel Gallery for the benefit of the Spanish deportees and the Comité France-Espagne; Exposition franco-espagnole of March 1946, etc. Picasso participated equally in any charitable initiative in favor of the Spanish refugees, housed in his home the meetings of the Comité des Amis de l’Espagne, presided over the meetings of the Comité d'Aide aux Réublicains Espagnols, both organizations of the PCF orbit. He was also part of the Board of Solidaridad Española, and contributed help to the Unión Nacional de Intelectuales (Spanish) of Paris and the Association des Artistes et Intellectuels Espagnols en France. He also donated several paintings to be sold in the United States for the benefit of the Spanish Refugee Relief association and financially assisted the Confederación Nacional de Trabajo de Solidaridad Confederal in Toulouse, as well as the Socialist Committee of Secours à l'Espagne. But the main recipient of 295 Azcárate, 1994, pp. 315-317. The confusion is probably derived from some trip of an old Azcárate to Paris. Strolling in the Latin Quarter in search of the studio of Picasso he had often visited forty years before but without remembering the name of the street, he went through numbers 7 and 7 bis of Rue des Saints-Pères, a few blocks away from Grands Augustins and that also empties into the Seine. There he ran into a building that at first glance can be confused with that of Picasso's studio, which also had the number 7: the same entrance and garage yard, an L-shaped building layout, the same number of floors and similar roofs. Azcárate did not hesitate a moment: that was Picasso's studio, and probably preparing his memories, he wrote down 7 Rue des Saints-Pères. 267 296 funds of the painter was the Comité France-Espagne headed by Paul Éluard and Jean Cassou and that also met in his study of rue des Grands Augustins 297. Almost a year passes from the poster for the Exposition HispanoAmericaine without Picasso returning to do any lithographic work, and when he does it is again to complete another militant commission, one which reveals his submission to a capricious party bureaucracy, which forces the painter to submit seven different designs before giving his approval. In December 1952, the Third World Peace Congress, another communist initiative, will be held in Vienna. Picasso is asked to make the the poster announcing the Congress in the fall of that year. He made several projects in lithography, submitting them to the party and obtaining negatives, and in the end the poster will be reproduced by photomechanical procedures. To compensate for the effort made and perhaps disgusted by the snubbing of the PCF, Picasso will pass the rejected projects to Kahnweiler for commercial editions. His first and original idea is a drawing of a dove in flight surrounded by a kind of crown formed by intertwined forearms. He makes four variants of this theme (Les Mains liées IIV, R. 593-596, M. 210-213) drawn on Thursday 25 September 1952 in Vallauris with lithographic pencil directly on zinc plate. After being rejected because the party considers them too abstruse, they are all printed at 5 e.a. and 50 copies numbered and signed on a paper of 50 by 65 cm. And they sold and they continue to sell well. Ketterer Kunst auctioned a copy (46/50) of Les Mains liées IV for € 10,710 in his Sale 300 of 2.06.2006 (Lot 458). The next attempt, like the first four in black, is more realistic, simple and detailed: a dove in almost frontal view, with open wings, prominent crop 297 Utley 2000, pp. 82-83 268 and a certain air of heraldic eagle, made on Friday October 10, also in Vallauris, with lithographic pencil and gouache on report paper in which the painter inscribes his signature and the date. This is also rejected by the party, and only five artist proofs are printed (Colombe volant, R. 597, M. 214). According to Mourlot, the stone is polished immediately, but it is not difficult to guess that it wasn’t, since it is used to print another lithograph adorned with a rainbow background in colors. The new lithograph Colombe volant (à l'arc-en-ciel) is published in 200 numbered copies and with an additional signature on an ordinary paper of 54.6 by 71 cm, to raise funds (R. 598). Today it sells well, and for example Keutterer Kunst sold a copy (44/200) for € 10,710 in auction No. 298 of 5.12.2005. Bonhams sold in auction No. 17832 of July 13, 2010 (Lot 135) copy No. 162/200 of the signed edition for £ 4,440 (€ 5,213). The lithograph appears as dated October 10, but that is the date Picasso had inscribed on the paper that gave rise to the black stone. Although the party rejects it as an illustration of the poster of the Vienna Congress of 1952, exactly the same drawing will be used years later by the PCF to illustrate a poster “Paix Désarmement: pour le Succès de la Conférence au Sommet”. It was on this occasion to promote a Summit between the leaders of the United States (Dwight Eisenhower), the Soviet Union (Nikita Khrushchev), Great Britain (Harold Macmillan) and France (Charles De Gaulle) to be held in Paris in May 1960 with a view to to obtain commitments that would lead to both conventional and nuclear disarmament. But a disarmament preparatory conference fails in April, and on top of that, on May 1, the Soviet air defense shoots down a US spy plane Lockheed U-2C and captures its pilot, commander Francis Gary Powers. The United States claims that it is a normal plane that had lost its way, and the four leaders move to Paris for the conference. But 269 Khrushchev brings pictures of Soviet military bases taken by the plane, and on arriving in France on May 15 he demands excuses from the Americans, as well as the promise that they would not send more spy planes. Eisenhower refuses and that is the end of the conference. This failure puts an end to the idea that peaceful coexistence between the two great powers was possible and held back the cause of disarmament for twenty years. And in short, despite some apparent successes, such as the launch of the first manned flight into space with cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in 1961, the first spacewalk in 1965 and the exploration of the moon by Lunokhod 1 and 2 in 1970 and 1973, the continuation of the arms race destroyed the Russian economy leading to the collapse and dissolution of the USSR in 1991. The poster supporting the failed summit was printed in lithography by Mourlot in 2,500 copies, of which 1,500 in ordinary paper and 1,000 in Arches vellum, of which 200 were numbered and signed by Picasso. Typical example of altruistic help of Picasso to the PCF. None of the reasoned catalogs by Mourlot, Reuße, Rau or Bloch include this lithograph, but it is listed in the catalogs of Picasso posters (Czwiklitzer 150, Rodrigo 101). We have not found in the markets copies signed by Picasso, but even the edition of 2,500 copies sells very well. Christie's sold in auction No. 5245 of November 22, 2007 a copy for the coquettish sum of £ 2,000 ($ 4,130), which is a lot for a poster. But today cheaper specimens can be found on the market. But let's go back to the month of October 1952, where we still have a painter worried because the party has not yet given its approval to any of his proposals for the poster of the Vienna Conference in December. The disciplined Picasso does not give up despite the rejection of the party, and on Tuesday 23 October he makes a new and different attempt: it is a drawing with the contours of five separate parts of a pigeon: the two wings, the head, the crop and the tail. This new essay, signed and dated by the painter on the report paper, is printed on some white blanks formed with paper cut out with the outline drawn in black pencil and printed with a rainbow background in colors. Rau estimates, against what Mourlot affirms, that the lithograph 270 has not been made by Picasso. In any case, the party considers that the attempt is too bold, of dubious quality and that it may lead one to think that the pigeon has been discarded in pieces and this beautiful attempt is only printed at 5 e.a. (R.600, M. 215). There is also a version without the painter's drawing but with white blanks without contour, without signature and without the date of the first lithograph (R. 599, Not in Mourlot). Mourlot took advantage of the second attempt (R. 600), which had only been printed at 5 copies, to illustrate a poster announcing an exhibition of lithographs in 1988. 500 copies were printed of this poster. Fortunately, the cautious Picasso had made after the first rejection of the PCF, at the same time as the lithograph Colombe volant (R. 597), and with pencil on non-lithographic paper, two other dove drawings, this time simpler, in which a certain disproportion is observed: wings too small for the body. This is the last alternative that remains for the party, which agrees to use the drawing for the poster of the conference. The result of reproducing the drawing by photomechanical procedures is printed in lithography by Mourlot at a large size (120 x 80 cm) but it is evidently not cataloged as an original lithograph. However, it appears in the poster catalogs (Czwiklitzer 78). 271 Picasso will make many lithographs cataloged by Mourlot for the communist newspaper Le Patriote in Nice, edited by his friend Georges Tabaraud, whom he had met in 1946. For example, on March 24, 1957 he makes a beautiful lithograph (La Danse des faunes R. 699), to be edited for the benefit of the newspaper. But these cataloged works do not give an idea of the painter's strong commitment to the daily newspaper and the communists of the Cote d'Azur, nor of the important participation of Fernand Mourlot in all this business that escapes Kahnweiler. By way of example, and apart from the numerous posters cataloged by Czwiklitzer and Rodrigo, we will cite here some of the editions of Picasso's works produced for the benefit of the PCF and especially the newspaper Le Patriote and not catalogued by Mourlot, some of which derived from the numerous covers of the newspaper that Picasso illustrated full-page: December 1953: lithograph made from the drawing that makes up the entire cover of L'Humanité of December 20, 1953, printed at 2,000 copies by Mourlot, some of which were signed by Picasso. 1954: linocut Femme enceinte, printed at 600 copies for a compilation of drawings and texts 'for peace' edited by the Committee of Vallauris of the Union of Plastic Arts; August 1955: Don Quixote, printed at 400 copies on Arches paper and 1,000 copies on Ingres paper, sold by Les Lettres Françaises; 272 January 1958: Fou du Roi (Carnival), lithograph in colors made from the cover of Le Patriote of February 18, printed at 300 numbered copies and signed by Picasso, plus another thousand unsigned copies, all printed by Mourlot; February 1959: Portrait of Joliot-Curie, lithograph printed at 200 numbered copies and signed by Picasso for the benefit of the Mouvement de la Paix. November 1959: Danseur et musicien. Lithograph printed at 200 numbered copies signed by Picasso and 2,000 current copies, all of them sold for the benefit of the newspaper Libération. July 1961: Ronde de l'amitié: Poster for the Helsinki Youth Festival in several print runs, the first of 50 artist copies and 200 numbered copies, all signed by Picasso. March 1962 Bouquet avec mains and Colombe bleue: Poster and lithograph for the Mouvement de la Paix. The lithograph was printed at 30 copies on Japanese paper and 200 copies on Arches paper, all numbered and signed by Picasso. 1962 Nature Morte à la Pastèque: Linocut in colors shot to 160 numbered copies and signed for the benefit of Le Patriote. March 1963: Maternité. Drawing for the Congress of the Union of French Women. A print run of 200 copies by Mourlot was signed by Picasso. In principle, the militant editions of the painter's lithographs should serve to popularize his art, making it accessible to the popular classes. But no one was deceived here, and Tabaraud himself would recognize decades later in conversation with Gertje R. Utley that in reality the lithographs were sold to 273 art dealers, and not to ordinary citizens 298. The party knew who to sell to get more out of the generosity of the painter. And Picasso challenged his dealer Kahnweiler. In fact, the intervention of other dealers resulted in Le Patriote being forced to put an end as from 1960 to the 'popular' edition to 1,000 or 2,000 copies, since the dealers pushed down the price they paid to the party for the signed copies because of the existence of an unsigned print run 299. The following lithographic work of the Andalusian is the series of portraits of the writer Honoré de Balzac. It is again a favor, but this time asked by Mourlot himself. Picasso had to travel to Paris to attend on Saturday, November 22, 1952, the burial of communist poet Paul Éluard, who died of a heart attack four days earlier. Mourlot assumes that Picasso is going to make the trip to Paris to bid farewell to his friend and goes to see him, probably on Monday the 24th, at the apartment where he had moved the previous year with Françoise, Paloma and Claude in GayLussac Street 9. Mourlot transmits to the painter a request from the publisher André Sauret, who was undoubtedly his main client, to make a portrait of Balzac as a frontispiece for the fifth installment of his series Grand prize of the best novels of the nineteenth century, which will be Le Père Goriot (Cramer 65). Mourlot brings a package of lithographic papers in various sizes so he can do it. Picasso, who had a special affinity with Balzac, and had illustrated in 1931 with 13 etchings his work Le Chef-d'œuvre inconnu (which the writer places precisely in the studio that Picasso has occupied since 1937), accepts the proposal immediately and on Tuesday 25 makes a total of eleven drawings, simple portraits with a lithographic pen of the writer's face, on the paper that the printer had given him. Eight of them he draws, dates and signs on a paper of 22.6 by 16.8 cm (R. 601-608, M. 216-223) and three others without signing or dating on a much larger paper of 76 by 56.6 cm (R. 609-611, M. 225-227). Of all these, and without being passed to stone, the painter chooses one (R. 602, M. 216) to be used as a frontispiece for Le Père Goriot. From this lithograph, signed in the lithographic paper and passed to stone, a total of 3700 copies are printed in a format of 16 by 22 cm. Of these, 3,400 are in Arches vellum 298 Utley 2000, p. 100 Tabaraud, Georges. Picasso et le Patriote, publicado en Gosselin, Gérard (Editor) Picasso & la Presse, Éditions Cercle d’Art y L’Humanité, Paris 2000, p. 126. 274 299 paper and 300 in China paper. The lithographs not used in Sauret's book are not, however, discarded. The seven small ones the printer does not get to pass to stone and keeps the lithographic paper sheets in a drawer. The other three had a too large format to resist well on report paper, and Mourlot passes them immediately to stone, and then shows proofs to the painter, who approves the commercial edition of each of them and adds the date of 25.11.52 in the stone. We know that he added the date later because it appears inverted in the final lithographs, while in the other eight they appear legible. These three lithographs are printed on a 75.9 by 56.6 cm paper at 25 numbered and signed copies plus five artist proofs (R. 609611). There was still to be found a destination for the other seven small lithographs. But his dealer Louise Leiris, stepdaughter of Kahnweiler – not sister-in-law as has always been said– who now runs the gallery, asks her husband Michel Leiris to write a text to be published by the gallery itself. The poet writes a short text and the book appears in February 1957 with the title Balzacs en bas de casse et picassos sans majuscule (Cramer 86). A total of 112 copies of the book are published (all hand-signed by the artist) containing eight lithographs (the seven not used before, plus an additional lithograph made by the painter on December 7, 1952 not with pen, but with lithographic pencil and frottage (R. 612, M. 224). 275 Picasso returns to Vallauris for a few days, but there he continues doing some lithographs. The first series are portraits of his daughter Paloma. The first, Paloma et sa poupée, fond blanc (R. 613, M. 228), is made with a lithographic pencil on a large zinc plate on Sunday, December 14, 1952 and is commercially published at 50 numbered and signed copies on a paper of 72.5 by 55.7 cm. The second, very different from the previous one despite having a very similar title (Paloma et sa poupée, fond noir), is made the same day with pencil and scraper on zinc and is edited in the same way (R. 614, M 229). The third, also commercially edited, is a simpler and smaller drawing but full of tenderness (R. 615, M. 230). After the portraits of Paloma, Picasso tries again to force the standards of the lithographic technique trying a new procedure: taking a zinc plate and making a blank 'reservation' using seconite, a glue based on fish tail. Afterwards, the painter takes the lithographic pencil and rubs the plate to make his drawing. The result is three portraits of a woman and a still life made all Sunday, January 4, 1953: Le chandail brodé, Tête de femme de troisquarts, Tête de femme au chignon and Nature morte au livre (R.616-619, M 231-234) with a somewhat ghostly 276 appearance. All three are edited to 50 numbered and signed copies. In fact, almost all the lithographs he produces in those days are published commercially, it is not known if at the initiative of Picasso or at the insistence of Kahnweiler or his stepdaughter. In any case, today they sell well. Ketterer Kunst sold in auction 306 of December 5, 2006 (Lot 229) the 6/50 copy of Tête de Femme au Chignon for € 11,900. His next lithographic job is done on Wednesday, January 14, 1953 and consists of a lithographic pencil drawing on zinc plate, Paysage à Vallauris (R.621, M. 237) that, like another similar one made with the same technique, next day Jardins à Vallauris (R.620, M. 236) are published at 50 numbered and signed copies, printed on an Arches paper of 57 by 76.5 cm. Ketteren Kunst sold the 24/50 copy of Paysage à Vallauris in 2002 for € 4,715 (Auction 276 Art of the 19th and 20th Centuries, 7.12.2002, Lot 322). Two days later, on Saturday, January 17, he makes another portrait of his children, this time accompanied by Françoise, with lithographic pencil and scraper on a zinc plate. This lithograph, La Famille (R. 622, M. 235), is also published commercially. We already referred to his next lithographic work when we described his way of working in the Mourlot workshop. Picasso found on Friday January 16, 1953 in a corner of the printing press a group of zinc plates that were going to be polished to erase the drawing. One of them captures his attention, although it is a simple photolith with a reproduction of a painting by Víctor Orsel that was used to print a poster announcing an exhibition in the museum of L'Orangerie des Tuileries in 277 November 1948. The painter takes it home, where on Sunday 18 he works with brush and scraper, drawing three figures in the upper and lower left angles (right on the plate, left on the proof). The painter takes the 44.7 by 35.3 cm plate to the press on Monday 19 or Tuesday 20. Mourlot prints five artist proofs (R. 623, M. 238) but Picasso is not satisfied, so he takes up the plate on Wednesday the 21st. The drawings of the faun and the observer are completed with a scraper while that of the naked woman remains as it was. Picasso also gives some touches with a brush. In 1955 this lithograph was commercially published, L'Italienne (d'après le tableau by Victor Orsel), printed on a paper of 65.8 by 50.2 cm (R.624, M. 238). Sotheby's brought to auction on October 29, 2010, in Sale No. 8674, signed copy No. 17/50 of this second final state with a starting price of $ 25,000. It was awarded at $ 40,000. Galerie Bassenge in Berlin had a copy of this lithograph for sale in its auction No. 99 of June 2, 2012 (Lot 8357), with a starting price of 22,000 Euros. And in 2013, Sotheby's sold in its auction N09031 of November one copy nº 46/50 of the final state for 40,625 dollars (lot 132). On Tuesday, January 20, 1953, Picasso had retaken the theme of his children in lithography, making a plate of 48.2 by 75.2 cm with wash drawing on zinc. Immediately he gives approval for its commercial edition, with the title La Mère et les enfants (R.625, M. 239). Between Friday 278 23 and Saturday 24 January, the painter makes another more elaborate and delicate version of the same theme, with wash and lithographic pen on a somewhat smaller plate measuring 48.7 by 63.5 cm. The lithograph is printed on an Arches paper 50.2 by 66.2 cm edited at 50 numbered and signed copies, with the title Les Jeux et la lecture (R.626, M.240). Bonhams sold in its auction nº 15403 of 06.11.2007 copy nº 19/50 of La Mère et les enfants (Lot 159) for 22,800 $ (€ 17,200). Christie's, on the other hand, sold one of the artist copies – numbered 3/6 on the reverse– of this same lithograph in its auction nº 7958 of March 29, 2011 (lot 89) for 5,250 £ (8,411 $). The artist also made the previous Friday several etchings with the same theme (Bloch 735-737). The painter does not make another lithograph until Saturday May 9, and in fact involuntarily, because what he wants is to try to print an etching with a zinc plate, which he engraves with a buril. As the method does not work, Picasso asks that it be printed in lithography as a negative, which Mourlot does. On Monday, May 11, he will make a more abstract version in etching (Torse de femme-L'Egyptienne Bloch I: 746, Baer: 906.II). The lithograph is published in 50 copies with the title Tête sur fond noir (627, M. 241), printed on an Arches paper of 50.2 by 66.2 cm. In 1953, apart from the book to which we refer below, he only makes another lithograph: Portrait de Madame X (R.631, M. 242), made on Monday, November 2 with lithographic pencil on report paper 279 passed to zinc. But it is only printed at 5 artist copies on a Van Gelder Zonen vellum paper of 91.4 by 65 cm. This little-known portrait could be the first one of Jacqueline Roque's, although the first portraits of his future wife are not cataloged before 1954. But in fact there is a picture of André Villers from December 1953 in which the painter appears offering her a cigarette. The face of the woman and the title, makes us think of the famous painting by John Singer Sargent that provoked a scandal for its sensuality in the Paris Salon of 1884 and which is preserved today in the Metropolitan Museum of Art of NY. The book that he illustrates that year is a tribute on the 80th anniversary of the birth of his first friend in the Paris of 1900, Max Jacob, whom he had met at an exhibition of his in the gallery of Ambroise Vollard. The poet had written between 1935 and 1936 a text of memories at the request of the widow of Paul Guillaume, dealer of primitive art. She wanted to see the memories reflected in the introduction of a book of homage to her husband that did not come to see the light. We will remember that Apollinaire, Picasso and Braque had discovered primitive art and had collected statuettes. In fact, Apollinaire was arrested in 1911 accused of complicity in the robbery four years before of some statuettes of Iberian art in the Louvre Museum, two of which were acquired by Picasso and played an important role in the realization of his painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. In this text, Max Jacob remembers the first three decades of the century and talks about his friends Apollinaire and Picasso and about the artistic movements of the time. For this book of homage to Max Jacob, edited by Louis Broder in 1956 with the title Cronique des Temps Héroïques (Cramer 78), Picasso made in Vallauris on Wednesday September 23, 1953 a beautiful portrait of the poet with lithographic pencil dated and signed on report paper and transferred to stone (R. 628, M. 271). The portrait is used as frontispiece of the book, printed on a Vergé Montval paper of 18 by 24 cm. This lithograph is also published separately with large margins at 93 copies signed in red by the painter. Of these 93 copies, 8 are printed on 50.3 by 32.8 cm old Japanese paper and 85 on Chinese paper of 24.3 by 18.1 cm attached to a sheet of Rives vellum paper. Picasso also produces two double lithographs in two colors (black and red): the first to serve as the front and back cover of the book, with 280 the author's name, title and simple strokes (R. 629, M. 271), and the second with some simple red and black dots (R. 630, M. 271) to be used as a cover for the cardboard box of the book and to be also included in the suite of prints that accompanies the luxury edition of 30 copies. Picasso also makes 3 drypoints with two portraits of Jacob and a torso of man seen from behind. And the book also contains 24 drawings by Picasso engraved in woodcut from molds scratched by the irreplaceable Georges Aubert. The drawings are reminiscent of the non-linear drawings of the Juan-les-Pins Carnet. Although given the proximity of the publication of the book Hélène Chez Archimède, one would think that the wood cuts also come from the stock that Aubert engraved at Vollard’s request in 1930. In addition to the cited luxury edition, numbered from 1 to 30, the book is printed at 120 copies numbered 31 to 150 and 20 copies (for contributors) numbered I to XX. All are signed by Picasso. The year 1956 brings a new conflict within the French Communist Party. On October 23, the insurrection in Budapest broke out, provoking the invasion of Hungary by Soviet tanks on November 4. And this intervention shakes the party fellow travellers and intellectual friends. The first to react are a handful of leftist intellectuals, of whom the best known are Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Jacques Prévert and the friends of Picasso Claude Roy and Michel Leiris, who published a manifesto on November 8 in France Observateur, the predecessor of the current Nouvel Observateur. The authors, who declare their sympathy for the Soviet Union and socialism, nonetheless express their most vivid protest against the invasion300. The day after the publication of the manifesto, Sartre announced in an interview with the weekly L'Express his rupture with communism, stating: “What the Hungarian people teach us with their blood is the complete failure of socialism as a merchandise imported from the USSR” 301. Other intellectuals hesitate, and although Picasso could have hidden behind his statute as a foreigner and “painter 300 Sartre, Jean-Paul & others, Contre l'intervention soviétique, France Observateur, 8 November 1956. http://www.liberation.fr/cahier-special/0101554146-contre-lintervention-sovietique 301 Après Budapest Sartre parle, L’Express, 9 November 1956. http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/monde/apres-budapest-sartre-parle-article-du-9novembre-1956_460810.html 281 of all”, he agrees to sign, at the initiative of the French Jewess Hélène Parmelin (director of culture of L'Humanité and sentimental companion of the painter Edouard Pignon) an open letter to the Central Committee of the party, with a copy to all regional organizations, in which they demand the holding of an extraordinary congress to debate the invasion of Hungary. The letter, published in newspaper Le Monde on November 22, deplores that although “the weeks just passed have presented serious problems of conscience to the communists, neither the central committee nor L'Humanité have helped solve them”. The response of the party is inmediate: the protesters “can remain obstinate despite the facts, but they do not have the right to try to impose their point of view on the Party by illicit means" 302. The party takes advantage then of an exhibition in Nice (Picasso: Un demi-siècle de Livres Illustrés 21.12.1956-31.1.57) for which Picasso makes some lithographs, to which we will refer later following the chronological order, to disembark in the Riviera. Photographers Edward Quinn and André Villers left testimony of the visit with a series of photographs taken on December 24, 1956 at the opening of the exhibition. Among those photographed, the smiling faces of Laurent Casanova, General Secretary of the French Communist Party Maurice Thorez, Pablo Picasso, Louis Aragon, editor of Les Lettres françaises 302 Archives du Parti communiste français 1921-1988. Archives départementales de la Seine-Saint-Denis pp. 60-61 282 (with Pierre Daix as second-in-command), Jean Cocteau and Georges Tabaraud. The trip of the sick general secretary to the French Riviera is an attempt to prevent Picasso's departure from the party. The visit of Thorez will be successful: Picasso will not leave the party, not because he is convinced by the arguments of its leader, but because the party is his family, and you can never leave your family. Pignon and Parmelin will, but seven years after Picasso's death. The photographs leave, however, testimony of what would be the penultimate meeting between Picasso and Aragon. Despite continuing to help the publication Aragon directed until its disappearance, and even illustrate a book of his in 1965 (Shakespeare), Picasso broke with the poet in 1956 and did not see him again from that exhibition opening until 1972, in a visit that left historians stupefied. The reasons for the break were various, and of a personal, artistic and political nature. As for politics, Aragon had yielded to the pressures of the PCF to denounce the portrait that Picasso made of Stalin in 1953 and had supported the Soviet intervention in Hungary that Picasso denounced. But when Aragon denounces the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviets in 1968, the relationship with Picasso is not fixed. As for art, the visions of both were completely opposed and were reflected in the texts that we have already mentioned. And as for the personal side, Aragon had dared to criticize his separation from Françoise, taking sides with her. Basically what happened is that Picasso never forgave Aragon for not behaving like a friend, expected to always put friendship ahead of all other considerations. The Andalusian always did a lot for his friends and he expected that they corresponded with respect and complicity. But Aragon always saw himself as a prince. Françoise recalls in her memoirs that she had always seen the poet as a seventeenth-century courtier, and Picasso saw him even more conceited, commenting to his companion: “all popular parties, like the communists, need princes” 303. Aragon was evidently a prince who had mistaken the kingdom. Aragon’s rudeness in the Hungary crisis was the final straw that colmated the glass of Picasso's patience, and despite this, in the summer of 1957 the poet had the audacity to show up without warning in La Californie, accompanied by his wife Elsa Triolet –who irritated the Andalusian– as well as her sister and husband. But Picasso was already prepared for this visit. His friends Yves Montand and Simone Signoret, whom he often saw in Saint Plaul de Vence, had returned from a tour in Eastern Europe. The painter called them to his house and kept them for hours asking them endlessly about the life behind the iron curtain and about the implications of the intervention in Hungary, which Montand had discussed for hours with Nikita Khrushchev himself in Moscow. And Picasso was convinced 303 Gilot & Lake, 1998, p. 367 283 that he had been right to criticize the action. So when Aragon shows up at his house, Picasso refuses to open the door, making the distancing with the poet become definitive. Aragon would make a last and desperate attempt at rapprochement in the summer of 1972, and only to ask for a new extraordinary economic aid for Les Lettres Françaises, which was doomed to close after the tap of the Russian subscriptions. Historians never knew how the meeting between the two had developed, and Daix points out that either Aragon expressed his request too elliptically, or declined to express it, resulting in that Picasso never understood the reason for this unannounced visit. More than thirty years had to lapse to decipher the enigma, and once again thanks to the publication in 2004 of the diary of the last secretary of the painter, Mariano Miguel Montañés, who attended this last meeting with the poet. Miguel says that one day in August 1972 someone rang Notre Dame de Vie by phone. The interlocutor said to be Louis Aragon, what the secretary communicated to a skeptical Picasso, who asked him to make sure that it was effectively the poet. Picasso agreed to receive him on the following Saturday, August 26 at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. Aragon arrived accompanied by a young writer and there was a long and banal conversation between the two visitors, Picasso, Jacqueline and Miguel. The painter acted courteously and flattered Aragon over his recent book on Matisse, but at one point, Picasso got up from his chair and approaching the poet looked him straight in the eyes and snapped: “Aragon, I know I have something to tell you, but I can not find the right words. And you, do not you have anything to tell me ? Tell me, even if it's just one word”. But prince Aragon remained frozen and did not answer, creating a deep silence that Jacqueline and Miguel broke with an inconsequential conversation that lasted until the visitors left 304. Picasso expected a glimpse of the poet's apology and, at 91, was probably ready to forgive him, but it had not occurred to the prince that an act of contrition could be expected of him. 304 Miguel Montañés, 2004, pp. 123-126 284 14. Return to classicism Picasso left lithography in September 1953 and except for the Portrait of Madame X in November, he did not practice it until February 1954, when he returned with a certain verve, making a series of works of classic facture. On Sunday, February 7, he makes in Vallauris La femme au singe (R. 632-633, M. 243), with pencil, brush, gouache and scraper on lithographic paper transferred to a stone of 32 by 25 cm. It is a beautiful and elaborate drawing of a naked woman reclining on a chaise longue with a monkey and two spectators who watch her with a lascivious look. From this lithograph, in which Picasso returns to the theme of the painter and the model, are printed 5 e.a., 25 numbered and signed copies on paper – ocher/yellow according to Mourlot and Pink according to Reuße– of 39.7 by 49.8 cm (R. 632). According to Mourlot, another 25 copies are printed without the background, but Bloch (747) does not distinguish between the two versions and Reuße 285 speaks only of the 25 with background, classifying the backgroundless lithograph as a proof in black (R. 633). In view of what happened in the markets, we will say that Reuße is wrong. What happened is that 50 copies numbered from 1/50 to 50/50 were printed in total. Of these, half were on paper with an ocher/ pink background that only covers the size of the stone, but not the margins. We found copy number 13/50, sold by Sotheby's in auction L 02988 of December 16, 2002 (lot 87, estimated between 2,500 and 3,500 pounds). The Telefónica Foundation exhibited a copy of this lithograph, but it does not help us to corroborate the issue of the print run, since it was a copy without numbering or signature. It was exhibited at the Picasso: La Belleza Múltiple exhibition held in Santiago, Chile, between November 18, 2011 and April 1, 2012. It does not appear in the Picasso works inventory of the Telefónica Collection. As for the lithograph printed without pink background, it is not a simple proof in black, but the second part of the edition, that is, the first 25 copies were printed with pink background and the following without background. From this second part of the circulation we found proof 29/50, which was sold by William Weston Gallery of London and then to the Galerie Lareuse of Washington DC, to finally appear in auction number N08674 of Sotheby's in New York (29.10.2010, lot 150, sold for $ 10,625). The proof No. 47/50 was sold by Christie's in its London auction No. 7868 on 15.09.2010 for £ 5,000. We have also found an e.a., or artist copy, auctioned by Kornfeld Gallery in Bern on June 14, 2012 (Lot 562). We also found a copy, without a background but numbered according to Christie's 1/50 and signed, auctioned in New York in November 2005 (Sale 1569 Lot 262). It is obviously an error, the number is not such, but one of those in the second part of the edition, and Christie's should have noticed it. In the photograph that we have, the number can not be clearly appreciated. Ultimately, Reuße is wrong when he says that there was no commercial edition of the lithograph without a background, and also with regard to 286 the print run, which is 50 copies and not 25. In his defense we will say that he had no access other than to the copies of the Huizinga collection, which only include copies drawn aside of the commercial edition. As for Mourlot, he is wrong in the print run, which is not 25 + 25, but 50, which is not the same. On Wednesday, February 10, 1954, Picasso made a lithograph of two classic warriors as a frontispiece for the 100 luxury copies of the book La Guerre et la Paix (Cramer 67) with the text of his friend –and son of a Spanish mother– communist writer Claude Roy. In this case, the lithograph (R. 634, M. 245) made with pencil on lithographic paper –in which the painter has inscribed the date– passed to stone, is printed at 100 copies signed with red pencil but not numbered, in a double sheet inserted in the book. The luxury copies bearing the original lithograph are printed on 80 loose sheets of 39 by 29.5 cm of Arches vellum paper, with a rigid cloth cover and a case. This magnificent book published by communist publisher Cercle d'Art in 1954, contains all the documentation and preparatory drawings of the murals La Guerre et la Paix, which are preserved in a Chapel of Vallauris. Picasso had made the drawings between April and September 1952, in preparation for decorating the desacralized chapel where his sculpture L'homme au mouton had been installed in 1949. Despite his initial reluctance, he had finally lent himself to decorating a chapel, as Matisse had done in Vence, Chagall in Assy and Braque also in Vence. But he will make it a secular chapel dedicated to Peace, with two magnificent mural paintings (actually painted in 18 panels of agglomerate screwed to a curved wooden frame) that will be installed in 1954. The reproductions of the drawings are printed with impeccable quality in the 287 book by the Imprimerie du Lion. But the book still offers more surprises, since it includes seven splendid lithographs of interpretation made with great skill by the Mourlot chromists. The best two are undoubtedly the reproductions of the two murals, of an exceptional quality and double page, but also of excellent quality are the interpretation lithograph that reproduces the painting of March 29, 1952 Le hibou de la mort (Zervos XV: 225), which is used as frontispiece, and the two portraits of Dora Maar made on June 11, 1940 Tête de femme (Dora) (Zervos X: 526) and Buste de figure feminine (Zervos X: 552). The book also includes two lithographs of interpretation of two portraits of Françoise, the first dated April 22, 1946 and preserved in the Picasso Museum in Paris (Portrait de Françoise MPP: 1346). 288 The second is from one of Picasso's first portraits of his new lover, made on April 15, 1944. The original painting of a somewhat larger size (65.7 x 50.5 cm), Portrait de femme: Françoise Gilot (Zervos XIII.270) Picasso always kept and it passed on his death to the collection of his granddaughter Marina. It was first sold at Hôtel Drouot in Paris in 1995, finally moving to Christie's, which sold it in London on June 20, 2006 for £ 1,688,000 or $ 3,110,984 305. We must remember in relation to the lithographs of interpretation that although Picasso was not the one who drew on the stones, the proofs had to pass the same sieve as the original lithographs, that is, Picasso's bon à tirer. Often also, as is undoubtedly the case of the lithographs contained in this book, Mourlot chromists Deschamps and Sorlier put special attention and care into them, precisely because they were the only 'authors' of the work. In short, why not say it, these lithographs are of as good or better quality than many of the originals that the painter made and signed. The good news also for collectors is that along with the deluxe edition containing the discreet original signed lithograph, a 'current edition' of 6,000 copies was printed, which in the only thing that differs from luxury one is that instead of loose sheets it is bound, but includes the same splendid lithographs of interpretation printed on an excellent vellum paper. You can still find some copies of the 1954 edition that contain these jewels for a few hundred Euros. Be careful though, 305 Christie’s King Street, Londres, Sale 7243 Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale 20 June 2006, Lot 135 289 because the same book has been the subject of several subsequent reprints by the publisher, but this time with an infinitely inferior quality and without the lithographs. This book also serves to remind us to what extent Picasso and the communist party environment were a business for Mourlot, since the only thing that the printing press does is the printing of the lithographs, but this represents, at 6,000 copies, a total of more of 42,000 high-quality lithographs that meant for the printer a good amount of money in that year of 1954. Hence, the printer always maintained a good relationship with the communist publisher, with which he did not sympathize ideologically. Only André Sauret could compete with Cercle d'Art as a client of Mourlot. For example, Sauret published between 1962 and 1965 the complete works of Albert Camus, who had received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1956. Each of the seven volumes was illustrated with original lithographs of excellent quality printed by Mourlot. Volume III had 12 original lithographs by André Masson, two of them on a double page, and volume VI had 18 original lithographs by Francisco Bores. Well, in total, the seven volumes contain 110 original lithographs, and since 5,000 copies of the normal edition were printed, this meant an order of 550,000 color lithographs for the printing press (not counting the 200 copies of the luxury edition of each volume, which had an additional original lithograph signed by each of the painters). In short, by attracting Picasso, Braque, Chagall, Miró and other great masters to make original lithographs in the artisan part of the press, Mourlot assured himself a constant flow of commissions for the 'editorial' part of the printing press, which had replaced the purely industrial commissions of advertising posters as his main source of income. Picasso continues to make classic works that month of February 1954. Three days before making the original lithograph for Roy's book, he makes another of the endless series of the painter and the model, based on the series of drawings he makes between November 1953 and February 1954 that will be largely reproduced, 16 of them in lithography, in number 29-30 of Verve magazine with the title Suite de 180 dessins de Picasso. The first is La Femme au singe of which we spoke before, done on Sunday, 290 February 7. Four days later, on Thursday 11 and Friday, February 12, 1954, Picasso made another lithograph of the same subject. It is a much simpler drawing than the previous one, of a painter and his naked model reclining on a bed against some cushions. It is made with lithographic pencil on paper reported to a stone of 30.5 by 21 cm. According to Mourlot, of this lithograph, Le Modèle étendu (R. 635-636, M. 244), 25 numbered and signed copies are also printed with an ocher background the size of the stone and another 25 also numbered and signed without an ocher background. Reuße again contradicts Mourlot and claims to have found only the edition of 25 copies with ocher background printed on Arches paper of 39.6 by 49.9 cm. Once again we can say here that the two authors are wrong. The edition is 50 copies numbered and signed, of which the first 25 are printed with background (which is not ocher, but rather pink). The last 25 copies, that is, from 26/50 to 50/50, are printed without a background. Christie's sold for $ 6,250 in auction No. 2351 (New York, October 26-27, 2010), with lot number 155, a copy without background, numbered 45/50. Bonhams of London sold on December 15, 2009 another copy without background, numbered 30/50 and signed (lot 111). We have also found a signed copy with no background, numbered 45/50, for sale in 2013 at the Michael Galerie in Beverly Hills (reference # 911243). Christie's, on the other hand, sold the 35/50 proof in auction no. 6755 of 20.09.2012 in London, of course also without background, in the amount of 4,750 £ (7,681 $) As for the copies with background, Bukowski's sold in Stockholm on April 25, 2007 a copy with ocher background, signed and numbered 14/50 and Swann Galleries of New York sold at auction No. 2153 of September 18, 2008 (lot 38) the copy number 2/50, and this New York house again auctioned the same lithograph in its sale nº 2172, on March 5, 2009 (lot 576). 291 On Saturday, February 13, Picasso begins another classic series, this time of dances, made with lithographic pencil on report paper passed to stone. The three lithographs Danses (R.637, M. 246), Le Jeu du taureau (R. 638, M. 247) and La Danse des banderilles (R. 639, M. 248) are published at 5 e.a. plus 50 copies numbered and signed, printed on Arches paper of 50.3 by 65.2 cm, practically the same size as the plate. Continuing in the classical vein, on Tuesday, February 16, he made La famille du saltimbanque (R. 640, M. 249), a beautiful drawing with many characters made with lithographic pencil on paper and transferred to stone. On Wednesday the 17th he makes another beautiful lithograph Troupe d'acteurs (R. 641, M. 250), with the same technique. 292 Repeat that same day with Les trois Femmes et le torero (R. 642, M. 252). And insists on Thursday 18 with Personnages et colombe (R. 643, M. 254). These four beautiful lithographs are all edited in the usual way, with 5 artist proofs and 50 numbered and signed copies, printed on Arches paper of 50 by 65 cm, practically the same size as the stones. He closes the lithographic work of February with another beautiful print, La Répétition (R. 644, M. 252) in which to the lithographic pencil he adds frottage and gouache with a brush. The same 50 copies are printed, on a paper of the same size as the previous ones. In March 1954, the painter introduces some color in his lithographic work, making on Sunday 14 a drawing with pencils in four lithographic papers, one for each color: green, blue, red and brown. Mourlot explains that to carry them out, Picasso uses very transparent or opaque reporting papers. By looking at the lithographs, you can guess which ones used transparent paper. The first of the series is one of them. It is a relatively complex drawing: Le Modèle et deux personnages (R. 645, M. 258). No matter how wellcentered the printing of each color plate, the painter could not have made the drawing coherent without using transparent paper. This lithograph, again with the motif of the painter and his model, is edited at 5 + 50 copies, printed on Arches paper of 57 by 76.4 cm. 293 That same day he makes another one in green, violet, red, blue and black, with a similar drawing, although it is entitled L'Atelier du vieux peintre (R. 646, M. 260) and the same print run. It is also a smaller size (38.1 by 56.7 cm). On Thursday, March 18, he returns to the theme, but in black and white, executing Les deux Modèles (R. 648, M. 253) with pencil on paper passed to stone and printed on an Arches paper larger than the previous ones (50 by 65 cm ). That same day he returns to color, making Nu à la chaise (R. 647, M. 261), a children's drawing in four colors: blue, green, violet and black, using frottage in blue and green. It is also commercially edited to 50 copies. 294 Finally, that same Thursday, March 18, he returns to the theme of the painter and his model, executing in black and white, with pencil on stone lithographic paper La Pose nue (R.649, M. 255) with a model reminiscent of Sylvette David, the teenager he portrayed dozens of times in 1954. Sylvette's hairstyle became fashionable and inspired Roger Vadim to choose Brigitte Bardot for the 1956 film Et Dieu ... créa la femme. When she went to present the film to the Cannes festival, the first thing Bardot did was to visit La Californie, where as you can imagine, she was very well received by Picasso. That same March 18 he made Les deux Modèles nus (R.650, M. 256). The last two lithographs are printed on 65 by 50 cm paper and edited to 50 signed and numbered copies, as is the next lithograph, La Pose habillée (R. 651, M. 257), made on Friday, March 26 with wash and lithographic pen but directly on zinc plate, and printed in the same way and size as the previous two. On Tuesday, March 30, Picasso returns to color, drawing Le peintre et son modèle (R. 654, M. 262) in five colors (yellow, olive green, green, red and black) with pencil on sheets of report papers passed to zinc. 295 But the painter hesitates here, and according to Mourlot, after he has laid out the papers, he asks them to print proofs with the four color plates printed in gray, in addition to the black plate (R.652, M. 262 bis). Reuße finds even a proof in which gray is replaced by ocher (R. 653), which shows that the painter has tried alternatives to color printing. But as the alternatives have not satisfied him, he opts to give the approval to the edition to 50 copies in five colors as he had initially planned. This is done on a paper of 57.1 by 76.8 cm. Christie's sold the 13/50 proof of this beautiful color lithograph in its auction No. 2697 Prints and Multiples from April 30 to May 1 2013 in New York (Lot 126). It was sold for $ 20,000. Two days before the previous lithograph, on Sunday, March 28, Picasso had done a curious job: the lithograph Deux Clowns (R. 655, M. 264) with a very different facture than what he had been doing, and with an air of oriental screen. Made in six colors (red, blue, ocher, violet, gray and black) but with an original procedure. First he drew the two characters in separate lithographic papers, passed to stones. Then he cut some papers for the portions that appear in color and tells the chromists what colors they should use. This lithograph is edited at 50 copies, printed on Arches paper of 75 by 54 cm and will later serve as a model to make a carpet. In the course of the same month of March 1954, Picasso also made a lithograph, Danseuse (R. 656, M. 259) in four colors (yellow, blue, violet and green) with lithographic pencil, and scraper for green, on report papers passed to stones, that will serve as 29.4 by 18.5 cm frontispiece printed at 296 10,000 copies of the book by Boris Kochno Le Ballet, published in 1954 by Hachette publishing house. Kochno had been, since 1921, personal secretary of the choreographer Serge Diaghilev. This lithograph will also be edited at 5 e.a. plus 50 proofs numbered and signed by the painter and printed on a larger paper of 38.2 by 28.2 cm. The last lithograph of the year 1954 is carried out on Tuesday, May 18, in Vallauris as well, like all of that year. The nostalgia of the family he has lost, which he had already treated in January 1953 (R.625-626), is also reflected here. Le petit Dessinateur (R.657, M. 263) depicts two children drawing under the protective mantle of their mother. Made in five colors (in order of printing: green, violet, blue, gray-brown and black) with pencil and frottage on transparent lithographic papers, deconstructed in 64 by 49.5 cm stones, this work is just a lithographic version of his series of oil paintings of the same theme, such as the one of 92 by 73 cm Claude et Paloma dessinant (Z.XVI: 272), dated by Zervos in April and conserved in the Picasso Museum in Paris. The funny thing is that both in this painting and the following Enfants dessinant, on May 12, the mother does not appear. Françoise does not appear in the painting, and also in lithograph, but on May 15 in Femme et enfants: dessin (not in Zervos, Mallén OPP.54: 321) and May 17 in Claude dessinant, Françoise et Paloma (Z.XVI: 323). What the painter does is superimpose on the children's drawing another one based on his Grande baigneuse au livre of 1937 (Z.VIII.351) that he probably saw those days. In any case, the customary 5 artist copies and 50 commercial proofs numbered and signed are printed, all on an Arches paper slightly larger than the stone: 65.6 by 50.4 cm. As we see, Picasso devotes less time and effort to lithography. At this moment there is a new parenthesis of more than eight months until Monday, January 24, 1955, when he returns to work. He had left Vallauris in October 1954 to settle, already with Jacqueline Roque, not in Gay-Lussac, where stayed Françoise and the children, but back to the residence studio of Grands-Augustins. Once there, his first project is the recreation of the work of Delacroix Les femmes d'Alger. Curious choice to recreate a scene of Algerian odalisques days after the National Liberation Front of that country launches its armed struggle against the 297 French occupation (October 31, 1954), a struggle that reaches its paroxysm of attacks and brutal repression precisely while the Andalusian paints his series. Or maybe it was his way of talking about the Algerian war without incorporating a theme of war or suffering. In a similar way, if on Friday, June 4, 1954, France signs in Paris the armistice in which it recognizes its defeat in Vietnam (due to the disaster of Diên Biên Phu the previous month), when Picasso joins the workshop on Monday 7, all he does is a series of ceramic dishes titled all The dove of peace. Nor should we forget that the odalisques are a favorite subject of his admired Matisse, who has just died, and also that one of the odalisques of Delacroix's painting keeps a surprising resemblance with Jacqueline. In any case, Picasso devotes much of his time in November and December to preparatory studies of that canvas, making even a first version in small size on December 13 (Z.XVI: 342). The month of January is devoted exclusively to this painting, making dozens of sketches and several small versions. Within this process, on Monday January 24, 1955 Picasso made an etching Femme d'Alger (d'après Delacroix) VII, and asked Mourlot to report it to stone, according to a first version of the printer, or zinc, according to the same printer in conversation with Brigitte Baer. In any case, five artist proofs in negative and in an Arches paper of 38.3 by 56.6 cm are printed from this plate on a 28 by 35 cm stone (Femmes d’Alger dans leur appartement (d’aprés Delacroix) I (R.659, M. 265). On Saturday, February 5, while continuing to work on the theme of the odalisques with other means, he takes an inked stone of 23.5 by 34 cm, smaller than the previous one, and draws on it the theme of the painting with needle and scraper. From this lithograph Femmes d'Alger dans leur appartement (d'aprés Delacroix ) II in its first state (R. 660, M. 266), 5 e.a are printed on Arches paper of 33 by 44.8 cm. On Monday, March 7, he returns to work the stone with a needle, scraper and lithographic pencil, printing another 5 e.a. of this second state (R. 661) in the same paper size. The painter repeats the process on Sunday 13 and Thursday 17 March, always with the same technique. Of these third and fourth states, only five artist proofs of each are printed 298 again (R.662-663). Unfortunately, they are not published commercially, probably because the painter has already painted the final canvas on February 14 (Z.XVI: 360). In conclusion, the painter has finished the main project, but he has left the stone of February 5 and wants to finish it, although this takes a month. Once again, Picasso introduces a parenthesis in his lithographic work, since he does not work the medium again until the month of November 1955. On Saturday 12 he makes a simple drawing in colors of two dancers, La Danse (R.664, M. 281) to be used as frontispiece of the third volume of Fernand Mourlot's catalog of lithographs. It is done with lithographic pencil on four transparent lithographic papers, passed to as many stones of 18 by 19.5 cm, one for each color: green, red, blue and black. It will be printed on 3,000 copies on a vellum paper of 32.1 by 24, 5 cm) and the design will even be used to decorate dishes in a charity edition. The next day he made the two lithographs of the cover of the book, a simple sketch of a bearded man's face and a more elaborate bacchanal scene. These lithographs, made with pencil on a single report paper transferred to a zinc plate of 32 by 51.5 cm, are printed on a paper of 51.9 by 65.2 cm with an ocher background the size of the plate ( Bacchanale R. 667, M. 280). This parenthesis of Paris that concludes in March of 1955 will be his last visit to the city. Jaded of its political and cultural life, he 299 decides never to return (he will only come back once for the three great retrospectives of his 85th birthday at Le Petit Palais, the Grand Palais and the Bibliothèque Municipale) breaking with the capital and deciding to establish his permanent residence in Cannes. However, he leaves Sabartés in Paris to watch what is going on there, to control the critics, etc. Inés Sassier is also there. The two remain in the studio of Grands Augustins until the painter is expelled from the premises in 1966, just when the great exhibitions are being held. 300 15. The study of La Californie That same month of November of 1955, Picasso recreates in lithography a theme in which he had been working on painting since the previous month: the Cannes workshop. These are representations of the Art Nouveau interior of his workshop in Villa La Californie, which he has just acquired and where he settles with Jacqueline Roque. The house is a splendid bourgeois residence of 1920 in La Petite Russie neighborhood, so called because the land had been acquired in 1848 by a Russian aristocrat, a friend of Prosper Mérimée, and she had attracted the rich Russians who fled the revolutions of 1905 and 1917. The villa had an impressive view over the Golfe-Juan bay. The first lithograph with this residence as a motive was made by Picasso on Sunday the 13th with lithographic pencil and a frottage on report paper passed on a stone of 36.5 by 50 cm. L'Atelier de Cannes (R.668, M. 267) is edited at 5 e.a. and 50 numbered and signed proofs, printed on an Arches paper of 66.2 by 50.2 cm, with a background in ocher the size of the stone. Curiously, the lithograph appears with the legible date located outside the contour of the stone, which does not seem logical. 301 That same Sunday the 13th he makes another version of the same theme, this time in colors. This is the one cataloged under the title Dans l'Atelier de Picasso (L'Atelier de Cannes) (R. 669, M. 269). It is a drawing with the same frame and objects as the previous one, but more simple and made with lithographic pencil on transparent report papers, passed to six stones, one for each color (blue, green, red, violet, yellow and black) of 56 by 36.5 cm. The lithograph is used as the front cover of the book by Jaime Sabartés Dans l'atelier de Picasso (Cramer 88), edited by Fernand Mourlot himself in 1957. We are here before an initiative of the printer himself that takes more than ten years to complete. There the painter's secretary recounts the beginnings of Picasso in lithography, as he had done in 1949 in the first volume of the catalog raisonné. 275 copies of the book are printed, all signed by Picasso, although curiously on a page illustrated with a simple fourcolor process. The book consists of loose sheets of 44.4 by 33.4 cm, that is, smaller than the stone of the lithograph, since it leaves space for Picasso to include annotations not used in the print contained in the book. The sheets, double, are included in a lithographic cover inserted in a side opening box. Of these 275 copies, 200 constitute the current edition, 50 form the 'luxury edition' and 25 are for the collaborators of the work. The 'deluxe' edition does not differ from the current one except in that it is accompanied by a Japanese Hodomura paper suite that includes another copy of the original six lithographs that the book contains, plus another 7 proofs of other lithographs made between 1946 and 1947 (Mourlot 32, 33, 76, 77, 91, 92 and 97). All the lithographs of the suite are numbered from 1 to 50, but are not signed. The other five original lithographs contained in the book, in addition to the one indicated before and that constitutes the cover, are the following: Faune (Tête de Faune), a four-color drawing – yellow, green, red and violet– made on April 7 302 1956 with pencil on lithographic papers transferred to stone, which is used as a back cover (R. 675, M. 270); L'Atelier de Cannes, a beautiful composition used as frontispiece and representing Jacqueline sitting in the studio, made on April 7, 1956 (Reuße dates it erroneously on 5.12.58) in six colors –light green, orange, dark green, brown, blue and black, always in order of printing– passed on to as many stones (R. 676, M. 279); Composition en trois couleurs, a simple drawing of a snail in brown, green and black on paper passed on stone made on March 11, 1947 (R. 193, M. 75); and two small lithographs of still lifes in black, Le couteau et la pomme and La petite grappe made on March 11, 1947 (R. 191 and 195, M. 78-79.) Picasso opted on December 5, 1958 (hence the previous error of Reuße) to improve the beautiful L'Atelier de Cannes lithograph used as frontispiece. On a copy of the book owned by Gilberte Duclaud, the painter takes this lithograph and completes it with nine additional colors, in addition to dedicating it to the gallerist and her husband Serge, to serve as cover for the 250 luxury copies of the second edition of the book by the gallery owner Ces peintres nos amis edited by his Galerie 65 in Cannes. The print thus completed is taken to Mourlot, who transfers the new colors in new stones and uses the stones he had used for the original colors of the lithograph of Dans l'Atelier de Picasso. The new and colorful version is printed on Arches 303 paper of 47 by 33 cm (R. 677). Despite being the simple cover of a book and not be signed by hand, this lithograph reaches for its great beauty and color high prices in the market. Already in 2003 Ketterer Kunst sold a copy for 3,220 Euros (Auction 281 of June 4, 1003, Lot 764). The painters had known Duclaud much earlier. La Galerie 65 had been inaugurated in 1954 with an exhibition by Picasso. And two years later Gilberte repeated the operation, convincing the painter that the wealthy tourists who came to the Riviera were a clientele as good as that of Paris. The painter accepts and prepares for the exhibition held between August 14 and September 30, 1956 a beautiful poster in six colors (light green, brown, blue, dark green and two violets). From this poster (R. 682, M. 282), which neither Mourlot nor Reuße can date, but undoubtedly made between June 3 and 6, 2,000 copies printed on vellum paper of 69 by 48.5 cm will be printed. But one hundred copies will also be printed on Arches paper of 77 by 57 cm with margins, numbered and signed by Picasso. This poster is yet another proof more of a certain underestimation of Picasso posters. It was executed by the painter and printer with the same or greater care than many of his lithographs published by the Galerie Louise Leiris. In addition, the circulation of 2,000 copies evidences that it was done with a commercial motive, since there were not in Cannes in 1956, with a population of 65,000 inhabitants, enough street corners to place a poster in each of them. In short, the posters are original work of the same value as any other graphic work and are made and printed with the same commercial purpose: that collectors acquire them. Picasso not only prepares the poster, but he also agrees to illustrate with an original lithograph the catalog of the exhibition, which exhibits engravings, lithographs and drawings made between 1905 and 1956, as well as a single oil painting: one of the many portraits made in 1954 of his model Sylvette David (Z.XVI: 306). To prepare this catalog, Picasso does on Sunday June 3 in Cannes a modest and small black drawing (8 by 12 cm) of a faun and a child. Le Faune et l'Enfant (R. 683, M. 283), did not satisfy Gilberte, 304 and Picasso made a new attempt that same day, producing the beautiful lithograph Faune et Marin (Méditerranée) (R. 684, M. 284) made in four colors (green, violet, blue and ocher), which is used as a cover, being printed at 1,450 copies on paper of 19 by 14 cm. This modest catalog (Cramer 75) even has a luxury edition of 50 numbered copies, printed with the monogram "GD" and that carry an additional impression of the lithograph in ancient Japan paper, signed by Picasso (it escapes to Reuße, who fails clearly here). These proofs on Japanese paper have a difference with the others: they keep the indications of Picasso to the printer regarding the order of colors: I for violet, II for blue, III for ocher and IV for green. The copies of the current edition of this beautiful lithograph are quoted at auctions for several hundred euros. We have also found a copy of the edition of the lithograph with the indications of colors, numbered (2/50) and signed, auctioned by Clars Auction Gallery of Oakland, California on February 7, 2010. This lot was estimated 2244 between 4 and 6,000 dollars. But in addition to the 50 luxury copies other copies were also printed with marks but without numbering or signing, since we have found one for sale in the Galerie Michael of Beverly Hills (reference # 912265). It is printed on Japan paper but does not have a number or signature. The clever Gilberte Duclaud is in fact doing, with the complicity of the painter, the competition to Galerie Louise, editing and printing posters, catalogs and even original lithographs. Perhaps to calm down Louise and her stepfather Kahnweiler, Picasso makes another lithograph on the same theme on the 5th of June, Scène antique (R. 685, M. 284) as unfortunate as the first attempt for cover of the catalog, but fifteen times larger (35 by 45 cm and printed on paper of 66 by 50 cm). But Leiris publishes it as always at 50 numbered and signed copies, considering that she has to take whatever Picasso provides and that there will always be clients for the signature of the painter, regardless of the work that accompanies it. 305 But returning to the chronological order, on December 29, 1955, Jacqueline Roque appears for the first time officially in the lithographic work of Picasso, although he had already painted her on canvas a year and a half before (the portraits of Madame Z, as the one renamed Portrait de Jacqueline aux fleurs, Zervos XVI.325). This Portrait de femme II (R. 670, M. 272 Reuße dated 29.11.55) is done with pencil and frottage on paper transferred to a stone of 38 by 64 cm. This black lithograph is edited, as always, by the Louise Leiris Gallery, at 5 + 50 numbered and signed copies, printed on Arches paper of 66.1 by 50.6 cm. Early in 1956, Picasso made two lithographs of crouching women on Tuesday, January 10, both in black. Deux Femmes sur la plage (R. 671, M. 274) is a classic cut of simple facture made with lithographic pencil on paper transferred to a 47 by 61.5 cm stone. Deux Femmes accroupies (R. 672, M. 274) presents a more elaborate drawing, with contrast of lights and made using frottage on paper transferred to stone of 44 by 55 cm. On Thursday, January 12th, he completes the series with Femme accroupie au bras levé (R. 673, M. 275), beautiful drawing on paper transferred to stone of 43 by 60 cm in which only the woman on the right remains, but acquiring abstract forms. These three lithographs are published by the Louise Gallery at a rate of 5 + 50 numbered and signed copies, printed on Arches paper of 50 by 66 cm. Proof 43/50 of Femme accroupie au bras levé was sold by Ketterer Kunst in 2009 for € 24,400 (Sale 360 Lot 212, 12.12.2009). But before, Ketterer had sold in 2004 the 37/50 copy of Deux Femmes accroupies for only € 8,424 (Auction 290, Lot 236). 306 The painter does not return to lithography until the month of April, in which apart from the print of the faun used in the Sabartés book, he makes the cover and back cover of the small catalog (Cramer 82) of the exhibition Dessins d'un demi-siècle from the gallery of his friend, Jewish art dealer Heinz Berggruen (R. 674, M. 268). Although much smaller, this lithograph is but a color version and much more elaborate than the one he had made in November of the previous year for the Mourlot catalog: a bacchanal scene for the cover and a bearded faun head for the back cover. Made in four colors, blue, violet, black and green on transparent lithographic papers passed to stones of 22 by 22 cm this work is printed at 1000 copies in the strong vellum paper for the cover of the catalog. But as the result is a beautiful print, Picasso gives the go-ahead to also edit it with color marks and large margins, on Arches paper of 50.3 by 38 cm, with 50 numbered and signed copies, an edition that escapes Mourlot in his reasoned catalog . On Wednesday, April 18, 1956, Picasso executed two studies of childish facture. They are Homme couché et femme accroupie and Personnage assis et personnage couché (R. 678-679, M. 277-278) both with pencil on paper passed to stone of 42 by 50 cm. In spite of their simplicity, both are published commercially (5 + 50), printed on paper of 50 by 66 cm, numbered and signed. The two discrete lithographs are in fact preparatory studies for the much larger (88 by 116 cm) and colorful oil painting that he paints on the same day: Homme et femme II (Homme et femme sur la plage), preserved in the Pompidou Center of Paris and cataloged as Zervos XVII.78. 307 On Tuesday, April 24, Picasso draws Le Toréro blessé (R. 680, M. 276) with lithographic pencil on paper passed to a 36 x 47 cm stone, which is also commercially edited, printed on 50 by 66 cm paper. That same day he made a more elaborate version of that drawing, but this time in Chinese ink and on a 33 by 42 cm paper, smaller than lithographic ones. This work, Taureau I, was cataloged by Zervos with the number XVII: 86. New parentheses until in November 1956 he went back to working lithography hard to create a beautiful portrait of Jacqueline. But before, on Saturday, September 15, he executed another assignment for a book. It is Portrait de Léon Tolstoi (R. 686, M. 287), a simple but well executed drawing based on a photographic portrait of the writer made in 1860. The Picasso drawing is executed with lithographic pencil and frottage on transfer paper 15 by 22 cm and will serve as frontispiece to an edition of the Grand Prize of Best Foreign Novels, of course edited by André Sauret, in this case La Guerre et la Paix, published in 1956 (Cramer 76). As usual with Sauret, the numbers are big, to Mourlot's rejoicing: 3,700 prints of the lithograph, of which 3400 in Arches vellum and 300 in China, all of course not numbered nor signed. 308 16. The 'emancipation' from Kahnweiler Given his early success as a painter, Picasso had a relatively untroubled relationship with dealers. He was able to control and dominate them because the demand for his paintings was enough for him to maintain the life standard he wanted. He thus limited the number of paintings he sold, always keeping it below the demand from the dealers. When he arrived in Paris at age 19, and after selling drawings to merchant Eugène Soulié, (Father Soulié), his first dealer was Catalan Pere Mañach, but two years later, in 1902 he was already exhibiting in the gallery of Alsatian Jew Berthe Weill, the discoverer of Matisse. Mañach also introduces him to Ambroise Vollard. At 27, Picasso already sells regularly to Weill, Vollard and Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. And in 1918 he concludes an agreement with Jews Paul Rosenberg and Georges Wildenstein to represent him all over the world. Picasso had met German Jewish dealer Kahnweiler in 1907 and had signed his first contract with him five years later, precisely because he was offering him 1,000 francs –some 3,300 € in 2014– for a painting of 81 by 65 cm, much more than what Vollard paid. But first world war brings the first conflict: the dealer has to go into exile, the stock of his gallery is confiscated as enemy's property, and what is worse, the gallerist owes Picasso 20,000 francs –41,000 Euros today– what for the Picasso of that time it was a considerable amount. It is not until Kahnweiler refunds the painter in 1923 that he agrees to give him some business, but only the commercialization of lithographs and etchings. Rosenberg had committed to buy a constant volume of works and could choose from those Picasso showed him, and remained his main buyer until in 1940, when he moved to the United States, fleeing the Nazis. After 1923, Kahnweiler got closer to the painter and managed to buy paintings little by little. The war of 309 1939-1945 physically separates them, since the dealer hides in the countryside and 'sells' his gallery to his stepdaughter Louise, who was not listed as an Israelite. But they do not separate emotionally, because the painter gets closer to his neighbors Michel and Louise Leiris, who keep him abreast of how Kahnweiler is. When he returns to Paris and the Andalusian begins to make lithographs with Mourlot, he renews the exclusive marketing of his graphic work, practically nonexistent in recent years, but in painting he refuses to sell at the prices offered by the dealer. Kahnweiler had managed to solve the equation of the price of the paintings in a clear way, explaining to the painter José de Togores in a letter in 1926: “Painting is a commodity like any other. It has a price according to the favor enjoyed by its author. This price has nothing artificial, or at least it should not have anything artificial if we want that price to be maintained and even increase with time. Here, as for any other commodity, there is the law of supply and demand. If the demand is low, you can not increase the price, under the penalty of going to a disaster” 306 . When Picasso started selling again in 1947, after the success of Kootz's exhibition in New York, he put Kahnweiler in competition with Rosenberg, Louis Carré and other dealers, selling little to each and not without a dose of humiliation that involved long waits until Picasso accepts to receive him. Françoise tells that Picasso often summoned Kahnweiler and Carré at the same time and forced them to wait in his anteroom before seeing them one by one, in order to put them in competition, get better prices for his paintings and remind them that the true boss was him, who can decide not to sell anything to them because he has venues with other dealers in France and abroad. It is in this framework that we must place the tensions that we relate below. As we have pointed out, unlike in painting, the Spaniard had an exclusive to market all his graphic work with Kahnweiler. But we cannot forget the close ties that bound them together. The dealer had been his first great admirer, had always been with him and was his best propagandist, to the point that sometimes Picasso felt ashamed of the dithyrambic articles, prefaces, books and lectures of the German 307. Such was the confidence they had in each other that they could tell each other atrocities, and the dealer was probably the only person who could make a fuss at the painter, which happened several times during the Kootz crisis. Picasso often called him exploiter, and never got him to bend to his demands to raise his cachet. The Andalusian tried to overthrow Kahnweiler with fits of anger, but the dealer won by a points decision, fitting the blows and never yielding, until the painter became tired. And 306 Letter from Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler to painter José de Togores dated 27 January 1926, Archives de la Galerie Louise Leiris, cited in Assouline, Pierre, L’homme de l’art, D.H. Kahnweiler 1884-1979, Éditions Balland, París, 1988, pp. 281-282 307 Assouline 1988, p. 426 310 since the painter lived on the Cote d'Azur, things were easier for the gallerist, because when he came to negotiate the purchase of work he was installed in Picasso’s house, as befitted their old friendship. In order to get Kahnweiler out of his house, Picasso had to give in, no matter how much the dealer might have abused him. On Wednesday, November 28, 1956, Picasso hurriedly began work to make a poster that had been commissioned to announce the exhibition Picasso: Un demi-siècle de Livres Illustrés that was to be held at the modest H. Matarasso Gallery in Nice between the 21st December 1956 and January 31, 1957. The gallery was the subsidiary that the Parisian publisher Henri Matarasso had opened in Nice in 1941, leaving it in the hands of his son Jacques. Picasso works quickly but conscientiously. His first attempt is already an achievement. He made a beautiful profile portrait of Jacqueline's face with pencil on transfer paper passed to stone of 42 by 51 cm (Profil en trois couleurs, R. 687, M. 288). Mourlot does not record this proof in black, but Reuße indicates that there is only one impression. However, we think there are more copies. One of them, in perfect condition and marked on the back 6/6 was shown in an exhibition at the gallery Alan Cristea in London between March 24 and April 21, 2011, along with the version in three colors. The same two copies came from the exhibition Heads held between March 31 and April 18, 2009 at the Rex Irving gallery in Woollahra, Sydney, Australia. 311 But the portrait is black and probably he had been asked for color, so the painter, who was probably satisfied with just one color, adds two zig-zag lines on report papers, one in brown and the other in gray, which are passed to stone. But something happens: either the magnificent result does not please, or Picasso decides that the first attempt was so beautiful that he had to edit it. Especially when his dealer in Paris is quite jealous of exhibitions in the provinces. Mourlot explains that it has been a sudden decision of the painter, who has felt inspired to make another portrait even more beautiful. In any case, the fact is that on Tuesday, December 4, just over two weeks before the exhibition opens, he makes another attempt from scratch. Meanwhile the first attempt is published by the Galerie Louise Leiris at 5 + 50 numbered copies and signed by the painter, printed on Arches paper of 66 by 50 cm (R. 688, M. 288). The copy number 30/50 of this beautiful lithograph in three colors was sold by Christie's in its London auction No. 6399 Old Master, Modern and Contemporary Prints on December 5, 2000 (lot 251) for £ 4,935 ($ 7,156). Two years later, proof No. 24/50 was also sold by Christie's in New York for $ 8,963 (Sale No. 1226 of 04.24.2003, lot 544). 312 The evidence that there has been a certain conflict and we are facing a compromise solution is that the second lithograph is no longer printed by Mourlot. Kahnweiler and/or Leiris, who are his true clients and who pay him, would have warned the printer that he should not participate, as he had done that same summer on the occasion of the exhibition of the Galerie 65, in Picasso’s infidelities. The second profile portrait of Jacqueline on December 4 is done by Picasso, like the first one, with lithographic pencil. The result is another beautiful lithograph (Portrait de Jacqueline, R. 692, M. 289), more worked but perhaps not as successful as the first one. This time the painter draws with several types of lithographic pencil (to obtain different shades of black) directly on a zinc plate provided by printer Jo Berto (Joseph Bertocchio) of Marseille. A first proof is printed in black and it is satisfactory, moving then to print another proof with the text (R. 693). But again someone says that color is needed, so the painter adds some scribbles that are pulled in gray and brown that add the required color note. 313 From this beautiful lithograph (R. 694) Picasso approves the printing of 15 avant la lettre prints, that is without text, on Vergé Montval paper, signed and numbered from 1 to 15, and 85 copies in Arches numbered from 16 to 100 and signed with multicolor pencil, all in the dimensions of 66 by 50 cm. One of these copies was put on sale at the auction of the Artcurial-Briest-Poulain-F.Tajan house on June 5, 2013 (Estampes et Livres Illustrés - Peintures & Arts Graphiques, Lot 161). The estimated price was between 8 and 10,000 Euros. The Artcurial house had sold copy number 16/100, signed in blue, in its auction nº 1707 of 08.12.2009 for € 16,576 (lot 141). Another proof, No. 31/100, was sold by Ketterer Kunst Münich in its auction No. 386 Modern Art, on December 10, 2011 for € 20,000, twice the initial estimate. The Bukowskis house in Stockholm sold copy number 72/100 signed with blue pencil at auction no. 569 from 24 to 26-10.2012 (Höstens Moderna Auktion lot 449), for 165,750 Swedish crowns (about € 18,500). Christie's on the other hand had sold at auction No. 7601 of London on 06.25.2008 (lot 261) another copy for £ 15,000. It was not numbered and was therefore a artist copy apart from the 100 edition, and it was dedicated to bullfighter Dominguín (Picasso Para ... Luis Miguel el 17.9.59). The seller was none other than actress Lucia Bosé. Other facts prove that many artist proofs were printed: Phillips auction house in New York sold on 8.06.2011 one of these, marked 'epreuve d'artiste' but signed in brown pencil. It was estimated at $ 3-4,000 (Modern and Contemporary Editions Auction, lot # 40). And Australian house Deutscher and Hackett sold in its auction Important Australian & International Art of 23.04.2013 in Melbourne another numbered 185/200 (sic) and with an ostensibly false signature, in spite of coming from the Baroness Maie Casey, very linked to MoMA and wife of the Governor of Australia Baron Robert Casey. Neither the counterfeiter nor the auction house had a reasoned catalog at hand. But attendees at the auction paid at the price of a false signature: only 840 Australian dollars. The gallery Michelle Champetier in Cannes had in November 2013 copy 45/100 for sale. Of the edition of the poster 314 with text, 500 copies are printed on somewhat larger vellum paper (70 by 50 cm). In any case, and in regard to his freedom with respect to his Parisian art dealer, the painter did not budge and edited again signed lithographs without the intervention Galerie Louise. A reservation: this time Mourlot has not been the printer, and it has been made with offset machines, which is evident when observing that the date is legible, while if it had been printed with the zinc plate would appear inverted. This does not detract the quality of these two magnificent lithographs, which is recognized by Mourlot himself. The second concession that the painter has to accept is that the circulation of the poster be reduced: from the 2,000 copies that have been printed of the poster of the Galerie 65, it is only 500 in the case of Matarasso (R. 695). This limitation of number is corrected, however, because as soon as the modest printer Berto prints his 500 copies of the poster, Picasso asks Devaye Imprimeur in Cannes, who had already printed additional copies of the poster announcing the exhibition la la Galerie 65 in the previous summer (R. 682), to pull more copies, but no longer in lithography. It is likely that the total number of copies of the poster printed by Devaye is 1500, because this would complete the 2000 copies that we got used to. In any case, no reasoned catalog refers to the intervention of the Cannes printer, which is in our view essential because it was clear that none of the copies of the lithographic edition was going to be wasted by being stuck in a wall of Nice. The Devaye poster is beautiful and decorative, but collectors, always armed with a good magnifying glass, must be careful not to be given a pig for a hare. A non-lithographic poster of Picasso can be beautiful and ornamental, but its artistic value is zero. In any lithograph, the link with the artist is direct, while a four-color process is nothing more than a photograph of the work itself, that is, of the lithograph. For this poster printed by Devaye there are gallerists who ask for hundreds of euros, while we think that their price should be counted rather in tens. The existence of the four-color edition removes value from the original edition in lithography, however much the two are clearly distinguishable, not only with a magnifying glass, but because the second one mentions the two printers, Devaye and Berto written below to the left and right respectively, while the original only bears the name of Berto on the bottom right. Christie's sold, in its auction No. SALE 6833 of December 2, 2003 (Lot 267) a copy of the original edition of the poster for 5,378 £ ($ 9,233), which appears to us as considerable for an unsigned poster. We have not found any more examples of sales at auction or available in galleries, which is strange given its large print run of 500 copies plus the well-known artist copies. 315 We suspect that there are in antiquarians unidentified copies waiting for a alerted collectors to arrive. But be careful: for example, the gallery specialized in posters Yaneff International of Caledon East, Canada, had on sale in October 2013 a copy, and for only 225 $. The trick is that the poster actually comes from a smaller version contained in the book Les affiches originales des maîtres de l'école de Paris, published in 1959 by Sauret, and that reproduces in lithography 102 posters –mostly in color– of Braque, Chagall, Dufy, Leger, Matisse, Miro and Picasso. The book was also published in editions in English (Art in Posters) and German (Kunst Im Plakat), and is sold today for no less than 1,000 euros per copy. The passage of arms with the gallery of Louise Leiris closes shortly after, since this one prepares an exhibition of his paintings of 1955 and 1956, to be held in March and April of 1957. Although this exhibition is, from the artistic point of view much more important than Matarasso's books show, Picasso only makes a small lithograph with a stone of 12.5 by 16 cm in four colors (green, red, blue and yellow) of a bisected face for the cover of the small catalog of the exhibition (Cramer 85) which is 16.6 by 16.6 cm. The lithograph (R. 696, M. 298) is printed at 4,000 current copies, without a deluxe edition, as had been edited in the case of the Galerie 65 in Cannes. Picasso also makes another lithograph for the poster announcing this exhibition. It is a festive but simple composition of dancing fauns realized in three colors (drawing in violet, and small touches of green and orange) on report paper passed to stone of 37 by 52 cm. The lithograph is not dated on the plate, and neither Mourlot, Bloch nor Reuße dare to put a date, but it seems clear to us that Picasso could not do it until at least the end of February, and probably he did not make it until March 25, very late for the poster to be effectively used to announce the exhibition. But we know that the usefulness of a Picasso poster printed by Mourlot is not to serve as an advertisement, but to be sold to collectors. The poster was printed at 1500 copies of 73 by 45 cm, but here there is no avant la lettre edition numbered and signed, as it happened with the galleries in Cannes and Nice. 316 To further derision, Picasso asks Mourlot to reserve for him 25 copies of the poster's lithograph without text, copies that he undoubtedly used to 'trade' them in gifts or exchanges. Interestingly, neither Mourlot nor Reuße catalog the poster, while they do with the artist proofs kept by the painter (R. 697, M. 299). The poster appears however as cover of the book Picasso in His Posters by Luis Carlos Rodrigo. Mourlot even adds a doubt about the poster itself, pointing out that the text, which the painter had composed by hand, had not been executed in lithography, but rather in photolithography. In short, Picasso has fulfilled his commitment to the Parisian gallery, with which he has been working for fifty years, but has given them less than to his two new galleries on the Riviera. Do not forget that if in oil paintings, sculptures and drawings the rights of Kahnweiler are limited, since the gallery owner only has a right of choice at preestablished rates, while the exclusivity is in principle total in terms of graphic work. But the affair does not end there, because Picasso takes up the theme of the fauns dancing of the poster and makes a beautiful lithograph with a much more elaborate drawing, made directly on zinc plate of 41 by 52 cm. And this lithograph (La Danse des faunes R. 699, M. 291) is made with an ocher background to be edited for the benefit of the communist newspaper Le Patriote of Nice. According to Reuße it is printed at one thousand copies in vellum paper and without signature, but according to Mourlot they print equally 200 copies numbered and signed by Picasso. Mourlot also points out that the 1,000 copies are signed on the plate. And in fact, we found a copy sold by Ketterer Kunst in 2004 for € 2,106 that carried the printed signature (Auction 286, Lot 1092). 317 The experts date this lithograph on May 24, 1957, and this is reflected by Reuße in its catalog of catalogs, but the date they give is wrong. It is true that Picasso has written on the zinc plate of this lithograph, as well as on the other two made on the same day, 'Dimanche 24.5.57'. But we understand that Picasso was wrong. May 25 was Saturday, and not Sunday. However, March 24 it is Sunday, and it is more than likely that it was that day when Picasso made the four lithographs in question (Mourlot 299, 291, 292 and 293). What proves the accuracy of our assertion is that while at the end of May the painter does not touch the subject of the fauns and seems fixed in that of the bulls, making several ceramics, on February 20, 1957 he had begun a series of ceramic dishes with drawings of dancing fauns. On the 26th of February he makes a dish Trois personnages: musicien, danseur et spectateur and the next day he makes Musiciens, both very close and cataloged by the Picasso Museum of Paris with the number MPP: 3732 and MPP: 3733. And he continues to work on the same subject in other dishes during the month of March. It seems therefore plausible that, if the lithograph for the poster of the gallery exhibition arrived almost on time, what we do not see as imperative, this was done at the end of February, and that the other three were on Sunday 24 March 1957. Having the same habits as the painter, we can certify that he could not have mistaken a Sunday for another day of the week. Every compulsive worker like the Andalusian knows that although you do not cease to work on weekends, it is essential to mark the days, create a routine or special liturgy for Sunday and be able to set goals and count the passage of time. Months do not count. What could have prompted the painter to make lithographs out of the Leiris gallery contract again is to mark the limits of his verbal contract with Kahnweiler and affirm his independence. On the one hand, he makes the aforementioned elaborated lithograph La Danse des faunes simply because he feels like it, for the benefit of his communist friends and commercialized, in an unsigned edition of 1,000 plus 200 signed copies, but this time, printed by Mourlot, without Kahnweiler. And on the other hand, to be forgiven by the gallery, he sends them two simple zinc plates of 53 by 71 cm (Bacchanale R. 700, M.292 and Jeu de la Corrida R. 701, M. 293) much less elaborated, to be edited by the 318 gallery. It will be at the usual 50 numbered and signed copies, on an Arches paper of 56.6 by 76.5 cm). The painter had already played the card of the graphic work versus canvases in his negotiations with the dealer many years ago. When after the liberation Kahnweiler offers him insufficient amounts for his oil paintings, Picasso refuses to sell him at those prices, but he accepts to give him the exclusivity of all the lithographs made with Mourlot. He thus maintains contact but refuses to accept his conditions for the sale of paintings. A copy of the lithograph La Danse des faunes published by the newspaper was sold by Keutterer Kunst in 2011 (Auction 383, Lot 703) for € 2,063. While a few years earlier, in 2005, Christie's had sold the 13/50 copy of the Bacchanale lithograph made for Kahnweiler, with its signature in red, for £ 5,040 or $ 9,143 (Sale 7063, Lot 351). Christie's had even sold in 2003 an unsigned artist copy of Bacchanale for $ 2,629 (Sale 1322 Lot 282, New York 28.04.2003). In 2009, Christie's also sold an e.a. unsigned from Jeu de la Corrida for $ 4,375, four times more than the minimum estimate (Sale 2187 Prints & Multiples, 22.07.2009). The Gallery sells evidently more expensive than the party. It would seem thus that the war with Kahnweiler goes on. But to show his friend that he does not completely turn his back on him, or to keep him tied up, Picasso made a series of portraits of the gallerist in June 1957. Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler has come to visit the painter to the French Riviera, and following his custom he settles for several days in La Californie. The reason for the visit is to renegotiate his contract with the painter after the reorganization, that same year, of the gallery. The visit is reflected in several photos by David Douglas Duncan. Note in this sense that Kahnweiler had lost influence since the war, and that after the liberation Picasso had begun working with Louis Carré and Sam Kootz, in addition to Paul Rosenberg. But the negotiation with several dealers at the same time tires the painter and it was easier to carry out when he was in Paris than when he resides on the coast. If Kahnweiler was willing to improve, even slightly, his conditions, it would suit Picasso. It would remove the harassment of dealers and collectors, especially North Americans, among whom the word has spread that Picasso sells directly if he is visited. At the same time a gesture of the dealer would allow the painter to boast that he has not budged. And the agreement is sealed in the course of that visit of Kahnweiler to Cannes in June 1957. The exact terms of the agreement have not been disclosed, but from that moment, and until his death, DHK will be his only dealer and will absorb all of the production that Picasso has for sale. 319 Picasso again says to those who show interest in buying work that they have to go to the Galerie Louise. It occurs to us that an element could have played an essential role in the agreement. It is difficult for Kahnweiler to accept raising the prices he paid to the painter for each work, and it is the volume that made the difference, that is, that he would accept to buy the entire production of Picasso. On one occasion, the painter sold him a package of more than a hundred paintings in one swoop. In any case, the result of the negotiations is that the gallery obtains the “almost-exclusivity” of the commercialization of his future canvases 308. And he is only unfaithful to Kahnweiler three times. The first was the 1925 painting Les Trois Danseuses, which he agreed to sell to the Tate Gallery in London in 1965 as a result of the efforts of Roland Penrose, a member of the board of the museum, who visited him on the French Riviera to obtain the favor. The second a sale to the Neue Staatgalerie in Munich and the third was the gift to the Kunstmuseum of Basel that we talked about before. To seal the peace with the dealer and at the same time demonstrate his friendship, Picasso made a pencil portrait on June 3 that is exhibited at the Centre Pompidou in Paris (Inventory No. AM.1984653) and three lithographs (Portrait de D.-H. Kahnweiler I, II and III, R. 703, 705 and 706, M. 295-297). The three are executed with pencil with frottage on lithographic papers, transferred to zinc plate of 49 by 65 cm and printed at 50 copies on 66 by 50 cm paper, marketed as always by the Galerie Louise Leiris. 308 Daix 1995, p. 503 320 Picasso has rendered unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, but he has also marked his independence, consecrating his freedom to make posters and editions signed outside Kahnweiler's environment, which he will do systematically in the following years. In short, in the intense and complex relationships between Picasso and his dealer, a verbal contract is fulfilled literally and the only written contract that exists between the two is systematically violated. And this practice satisfies both parties. Picasso understands that he gets his way by deceiving Kahnweiler with the lithographs, and the dealer has managed to be the obligatory intermediary in every purchase of Picasso's work in the last 15 years of the painter's life, which includes not only the new and very numerous production –one day Picasso boasted to Michel Leiris and Maurice Jardot that he had painted seven paintings 309– but also the previous work that the painter accumulates in several of his residences. Just three weeks after the gallerist's visit to La Californie, Picasso made a curious lithograph on Friday, June 28, to which he had special affection, as shown by the fact that he poses in front of it for several photographers. This is Composition (R. 710, M. 300), an abstract drawing made with lithographic pencil and frottage in three papers, one for each color blue, brown and black, passed to individual stones. What the reasoned catalogs do not reflect is that the drawing is only a small size copy made by Picasso himself of an oil on canvas of 146 by 114 cm painted the previous day: Tête (Zervos XVII: 344). Before making the lithograph, he had to make a drawing with colored pencils (Tête de jeune fille) on Friday the 28th so as to prepare the report papers. Neither the reasoned catalogs, nor Zervos, mention either that all these works are really... a portrait of Jacqueline. The painter will make this clear in other variants in oil made on June 29 and July 1. David Douglas Duncan photographed him painting those canvases, all called Tête (Zervos XVII: 345-347). This lithograph was a gift from the painter to a Norwegian association. The painter's signature appears printed in red on the 200 copies on Arches paper of 65.8 by 50.6 cm, although he apparently signed some of them on his own hand. 309 Statements of Maurice Jardot, deputy director of Galerie Louise cited in Assouline 1988, p. 435 321 It is difficult to find copies of this beautiful lithograph on the market. Swann Galleries of New York auctioned a copy with centering and color markings on March 3, 2011. Its price was estimated between 4 and $ 6,000. Christie's sold another one at its New York auction # 1481 Prints and Multiples, on 0902.2005 for $ 4,200. The story of this lithograph is one more example of solidarity by the Andalusian. In January 1957, Norwegian painter Carl Nesjar heads to the south of France with the somewhat utopian goal of seeing Picasso and handing him a letter asking the painter to make a lithograph for the Aktuell Kunst Art Club, a Norwegian art promotion group founded by the left-wing Labor party of Einar Gerhardsen. Once on the French Riviera, the young Norwegian realizes the difficulty of the task. But one day, at a party in his honor, Nesjar meets Jewish painter and potter Eugène Fidler, who lived in Vallauris and offered to introduce him to Picasso. When they met, and at Nesjar’s surprise, the Spaniard immediately accepted the commission, and also became interested in the “Betograve” technique he was developing to make sculptures in public spaces, and wanted to apply to the government complex in Oslo that he was building. This is the wellknown H-Block victim of the 2011 attack of far-right activist Anders Behring Breivik. Picasso prepared for the complex several drawings that were made in mural by Nesjar in 1959, and even participated in the plans for the Y-Block that was inaugurated in 1969 310. The same collaboration Nesjar/Picasso gave rise to the façade of the College of Architects of Catalonia in 1962. On this occasion the Andalusian 'stole' the job from Joan Miró, as the building's architect, Javier Busquets, wanted to imitate Miró's murals in UNESCO headquarters in Paris, but publisher Gustavo Gili suggested instead asking Picasso. The painter becomes unfaithful to his dealer the month after his visit. On Monday, July 15, 1957, Picasso drew in lithographic paper passed to a stone measuring 47 by 64 cm, a portrait of his friend from the Bateau Lavoir, the painter and sculptor Manolo Hugé, who died in 1945 in Barcelona, to be used as a poster for a exhibition in Céret, a small town on the French side of the Pyrenees that since 1910 served as a refuge for many artists. 310 Antoniou, Sylvia A. Pablo Picasso and Carl Nesjar , en the catalog of the exhibition Picasso-Oslo: art and architecture in the government building complex, Nasjonalmuseet 19 July to 6 October 2013, Riksantikvaren - Direktoratet for kulturminneforvaltning, Oslo 2013 322 Again a transgression, since Mourlot prints apart from the 500 copies of the poster (R. 712), 100 copies avant la lettre, that is without text, which Picasso signs (R. 711, M. 301). To our knowledge, the illustration of the poster, although printed in lithography, has had to be reduced by photomechanical procedures, since leaving ample space in its base to include the details of the exhibition, it nevertheless has the same size as the avant la lettre edition. The drawing has therefore been reduced. The painter even colors by hand some copies, all to be sold for the benefit of the Museum of Modern Art of the city, opened in 1950. One of them ends at the Thermalia Museum in the Catalan spa town of Caldes de Montbui. Interestingly, Picasso (or Mourlot) inscribes the name of his friend on the poster, writing 'Nanolo Huguet'. But nobody dares to remind him or change the title of the poster, printed to announce an exhibition of works of Catalan held between August and October 1957. But let's go back to the chronological order. Before finishing the year 1956, on Saturday 1st of December, the painter had made a curious lithograph on report paper, La collection de tableautins, undoubtedly inspired by some wall of his mansion La Californie, where he had hung about thirty paintings, lithographs, engravings or reproductions of his works. This lithograph constitutes a true centering exercise using transparent lithographic papers, since practically all the squares are made in blue and red. Picasso first draws the 49 by 65 cm paper destined for blue, tracing the contours of the frames and the main drawing of each picture. Then takes another transparent lithographic paper destined for red, places it on top of the previous one and completes the drawings of the little frames and adds some more. Of this lithograph Mourlot kept and published in his catalog the first proof sent to the artist and returned by the latter with the corrections to be made, limited to asking for stronger colors, for which he signals the corrections with pencils of the desired colors (R. 690 , M. 290). Picasso adds in a note that he is waiting for a new proof with the desired corrections. Mourlot follows the instructions of Picasso and the lithograph, printed on Arches paper of 56.8 by 76.2 cm, is published commercially by the Galerie Louise at 50 numbered and signed copies (R. 691, M. 290). Both Christie's and Sotheby's have sold copies of this lithograph in their sales 1481 (lot 130) of 09.02.2005 and L03160 of 25.03.2003 (lot 136) respectively. The sale price stood at $ 1,800 for the artist's copy of Christie's, while the proof numbered 33/50 and signed was estimated by Sotheby's between 2 and 3,000 Pounds. 323 And on the same day he made the three or four dance of fauns lithographs, he made another beautiful portrait of his future wife. Jacqueline de profil (R. 702, M. 294) is executed with lithographic pencil directly on zinc and is edited by the Galerie Louise at 50 numbered and signed copies. As in the case of La Dance, he put a date on the report paper: "24.5.57". Of course we understand that this lithograph was also made on Sunday, March 24, 1957, and not in May, as indicated by the reasoned catalogs. On Thursday June 6, 1957, Picasso portrays again Jacqueline Roque in lithography. Of this portrait Jacqueline au mouchoir noir, the painter makes a first version drawing with lithographic pencil reported on a zinc plate of 64 by 48.5 cm. He retouched it on Sunday, January 12, 1958 and he ordered the editing of this second state by the Galerie Louise at 50 signed copies, printed on paper measuring 66 by 50 cm (R. 708, M. 316). But a year later, on Saturday January 10, 1959, the painter returns to take the plate to add a dark shadow on the left side of the drawing. This new plate is also commercially edited with paper of the same size and quality (R. 709, M. 316). The 37/50 proof of the second state was sold by Ketterer Kunst at its auction No. 386 Modern Art, on December 10, 2011 (Lot 127) for 25,000 Euros, much more than the initial estimate of € 10,000. 324 Picasso does not take up lithography again until the end of November 1957. And here we see again his game with Galerie Louise. On Saturday, November 23, he makes a beautiful bullfighting lithograph for XXe Siècle magazine, an art magazine founded in 1934 and directed until his death in 1974 by publisher Gualtieri di San Lazzaro. This historical number X of the second period of the magazine, entitled L'écriture plastique, includes lithographs by Pablo Picasso, Jean Dubuffet, Serge Poliakoff and Zao Wou-ki, an engraving by Raoul Ubac, a zincography by Henri Michaux, and pochoirs by Joan Miró, Max Ernst, Giuseppe Capogrossi and Victor Vasarely. The contribution of Picasso is a small lithograph of 20 by 29 cm with one of the themes that has been reproduced most in posters, the bullring. It is La petite Corrida (R. 713, M. 302) printed on vellum paper of 30.3 by 23.9 cm. It is made in four colors (yellow, blue, red and black) with lithographic pencil on paper transferred to stone. But Picasso also authorizes San Lazzaro to market an edition with margins of 50 numbered copies signed on Arches paper of 42.5 by 29.5 cm, also printed by Mourlot. Nowadays, the complete copies of the current issue of X number of the XXe Siècle magazine, printed at 2,000 copies, are sold at more than 1,000 euros per unit. Christie's sold a copy numbered 10/50 of the edition signed with large margins at auction No. 5831 in London on June 2, 2005 (Lot 137) for 3,840 Pounds or $ 6,962. But there is still a way to procure a proof of this beautiful lithograph of a bullfighting ring, since, although the reasoned catalogs do not indicate it, Mourlot printed it again for San Lazzaro in 1971, to be included in his special issue Hommage à Picasso, from which an English and a German edition were also printed in 1976. There are still copies in the market for a few hundred euros. To compensate Louise Leiris, Picasso does the following day, that is, on Sunday, November 24, 1957, a new version of the small bullfight to be marketed by the usual channel. This is better than the previous one, 325 insofar as XXe Siècle had to adapt to the reduced vertical format of the magazine, while for the gallery he opted for the landscape format that best fits a bullring. He used seven lithographic papers of 46.5 by 61 cm passed to seven stones, one for each color: yellow, light blue, green, dark blue, vermilion red, purple and black. The gallery published it in 1958 at 50 numbered and signed copies (Corrida, R. 714, M. 303). Christie's sold a copy of this edition in its sale No. 1322 Picasso Lithographs: Themes And Variations, held in New York on April 28, 2003 for $ 6,573, that is, multiplying its estimate of 1,000 to 1,500 dollars (Lot 291). The two lithographs are made with the same theme, facture and colors as four drawings he had made on August 1 of that year on a notebook and were reproduced in 1961 in the book Toros y Toreros (Cramer 112), which we will discuss later. And Picasso still performs a few days after the first two other magnificent versions of the bullring, also in large size (36.5 by 54 cm). But this time it is not published as an original lithograph, but as one of interpretation made by Henri Deschamps from a Picasso drawing made on December 5, 1957. It is the splendind lithograph contained, folded in two, at the end of the book Le Carmen des Carmen ( Cramer 126). The following lithographic piece by Picasso, started on Thursday, November 28, 1957 in Cannes is again a work in colors, but more complicated to do than the previous ones. This is L'Ecuyère et les clowns (The Squire and the clowns), and it will not be finished until 1961. The first thing he does that Thursday is to draw with lithographic pencil and frottage two transparent report papers of 50 by 65 cm for the green (R. 715) and red (R. 716). The strokes of the two drawings are complementary: the arms and feet of the clown are 326 green, while the hands and legs are red. He sends the sheets of lithographic paper to Mourlot, who passes them to two zinc plates, and a first proof of state (R. 717) is printed and sent to the painter, along with the two zinc plates. Picasso is not satisfied and retakes the two plates on Friday, December 13. The red one he completes and reworks with a lithographic pencil and scraper, producing a 2nd state of red (R. 718) and with the green one does the same with pencil reaching a 2nd state (R. 720). But instead of returning the plates to Mourlot, he parks them in some corner of his studio and doest not pay attention to them for more than three years. On Monday, March 6, 1961, he found the two zinc plates and completed the drawing by adding a third color, black, on lithographic paper, which he sent to the printer along with the green and red plates. Conscientiously, Mourlot sends or probably personally brings on Friday April 21, 1961, a whole series of proofs in order to obtain the definitive approval of this color lithograph that has caused so much work. First of all, he provides a proof of the 2nd state of the red of 13.12.57 that Picasso has not seen. He also brings another proof of that same red plate but printed in black (R. 719). And he adds a proof of the 2nd state of green and another one of that same plate, but printed in black on a gray background (R. 721). Mourlot also provides a proof of the new black plate of March 6, 1961. And finally has a three-color proof printed with the three plates of 2nd state of the red and green, plus black. That Friday, April 21, 1961, when Picasso receives Mourlot and makes him visit La Californie, the painter is in an excellent mood, and not only gives the bon à tirer that Mourlot sought for the three-color proof, which is edited 50 copies printed on paper of 56 by 76 cm. (R. 723, M. 304), but also approves the commercialization, with the same print run and the same size, of the second states of red and green. When some time later they take the 150 copies for him to sign, Picasso uses three pencils of different colors: red for those of the same color; violet for green and blue for the proofs printed with the three plates. 327 The Swiss auction house Dobiaschofsky of Bern put up for sale in its auction A-115 of November 2012 a copy of the second state of green, numbered with graphite pencil and signed with violet pencil, with a starting price of 9,500 Swiss Francs. For its part, Swann Galleries of New York, auctioned No. 1950, Old Masters through Modern Prints, November 7, 2002, a numbered and signed copy of the final state. It was estimated between 12 and 18,000 dollars. The Berlin house Villa Grisebach took out a numbered and signed copy of the second state of red in its auction No. 185, Kunst des 19., 20. und 21 on May 28, 2011. It was estimated between 8 and 12,000 €. We have also found for sale in Galerie-F GmbH of Kranenburg, Germany a copy of the final state in three colors, but without signature, at the price of € 6,800. It also has for sale a second state in green, but again of the few unsigned artist copies, for sale for € 4,800. But let's go back to the year 1957, in which, before embarking on a new series of Jacqueline Roque portraits in lithography, the painter performs another original lithograph in colors on Saturday, December 7th. That same day, photographer David Douglas Duncan and his TurkishLebanese wife, Leila Hanki, visit Picasso and the painter, who had forgotten to prepare flowers for the visitor, offers her a nice drawing of a vase, dedicated 'pour Leila' . But when he completes it, he likes the design and decides to make a lithograph of it. This is the Vase de fleurs (R. 724, M. 305), a vase drawing of simple composition, but complex in execution, since, done in ten colors (yellow, orange, purple, light blue, vermilion, light green, violet, dark blue, dark green and black) it has needed ten sheets of transparent lithographic paper, passed to ten stones. This plate was also probably part of a group of lithographs lost by 328 Picasso, which we will discuss in the next chapter, since the commercial edition of 50 numbered and signed copies is postponed until his access of good humor of April 21, 1961. The sample that Reuße shows in his catalog is not that of the normal print that Mourlot illustrates, but a curious proof with four points (not crosses) of registration in the corners and with an indication in the base of the ten colors, each one in a Roman numeral from I to X. Sotheby's house took one of these copies for sale at its New York auction N09031 on November 1, 2013, marked epreuve d'état with graphite pencil and signed and dated 15.1. 58 below this inscription with light blue pencil. Its price was estimated between 25 and 35,000 dollars. It was not sold and it gives us the impression that the reason is that it was removed because of a suspicion that the signature was not authentic, not so much because of the signature, which seems standard, but because of the date, of doubtful calligraphy and that would not make sense if the report papers had been lost. For the rest, this copy with marks must necessarily come from the workshop of Mourlot, and unless it was the 'bon à tirer' should not have the signature of Picasso. The painter no doubt received from the printer a certain number of artist copies for his private collection or to market them behind Kahnweiler’s back, but he should not have a copy with the marks of the colors to be printed. 329 17. The 'lost' series of Jacqueline The new series of portraits of Jacqueline in lithography, to which according to Mourlot Picasso gives great importance, despite the difficulty involved in making them in Cannes and having to wait for the proofs executed in Paris, formally begins on Monday, the 16th December 1957, in which he does Buste de profil (R.725, M. 306). It is a nice drawing of a Jacqueline with very large eyes made by lithographic wash, scraper and sandpaper directly on a zinc plate of 64 by 49 cm. With a needle, the painter delineates the eye and the outline of the face. The drawing can not but remind the even more beautiful portrait of his companion that Picasso had already made fifteen days before, on Thursday, December 5. It is a very similar drawing, although this time he had disguised Jacqueline as Carmen with a fan in the illustration that serves as frontispiece os Le Carmen des Carmen, the new and beautiful 1964 version of the Carmen that he had illustrated in 1949 and that nobody liked. 330 The painter is in any case satisfied with this first essay of December 16 and ordered his commercial printing by the Galerie Louise at 50 numbered and signed copies on Arches paper 66 by 50 cm. But the plate is not polished or grated, and Picasso retakes it less than a month later, on Saturday January 11, 1958, darkening it with brush and lithographic pencil, while drawing more with the needle, especially the hair (R. 726 ). Almost a year later, on Saturday, December 27, 1958, the painter took the zinc plate again, doing the same as in the previous stage, that is darkening the drawing even more with a brush and then precise it with scraper and needle (R. 727). Unfortunately, neither of these two states is commercially edited, only the usual artist copies being printed. The day after the completion of the first state of the previous lithograph, that is, on Tuesday, December 17, 1957, Picasso returns to the fray with a new portrait of Jacqueline, this time with a white background. Femme au corsage à fleurs is made by wash with brush on zinc. The painter is satisfied and gives the bon à tirer for its edition to 50 copies, printed on the customary paper of 66 by 50 cm (R. 728, M. 307). 331 But as in the previous case, Picasso does not give up in his effort to achieve perfect lithograph and retakes the plate on Saturday, February 1, 1958 darkening the drawing with brush wash, scraper and needle to produce a splendid result, dominated by grays (R. 729). Unfortunately, Picasso does not give the go-ahead for its commercialization, possibly because he did not see this 2nd state. In any case, almost a year later, on Saturday, December 27, 1958, the painter took the plate again and darkened it even more using the same technique. But in this case, either the result satisfies Picasso, or he simply sees the proof that Mourlot sends him while that of the 2nd state had escaped him, and orders its commercial edition at 50 copies, printed on Arches paper of 66 by 50 cm (R. 730). As an example of the value that the markets attribute to this series, suffice it to say that a proof of this latest lithograph, signed and numbered 5/50, was sold at a Christie's auction in New York in April 2012 for no less than 110,000 dollars (Sale 2548 Lot 113). The gallery Alan Cristea of London exhibited and sold in the aforementioned exhibition and sale of March-April 2011 an artist proof from the third state for 90,000 British Pounds. Ketterer Kunst sold in its auction nº 392 Modern Art, on June 9, 2012 (Lot 105) a copy of the first state, signed in red, for 37,820 Euros. 332 The same day he made the first state of the previous portrait, on Tuesday, December 17, 1957, the painter made another portrait. This is Buste de femme au corsage blanc (R. 731), with wash and scraper on a somewhat larger zinc plate (69 by 50 cm). Picasso is satisfied and approves its commercial edition. But he retakes the plate on Friday, March 7, 1958, working it again to perform a 2nd state (R. 732). But in the confusion of the trips from Cannes to Paris and back to Cannes the proof of this state disappears. It is likely that it was next to the proof of the 2nd state of lithograph Femme au corsage à fleurs. In any case, there are only proofs of a third state, made with the same technique as in the previous cases and on the same date: December 27, 1958. But we can assume that the painter has made almost all changes, this is , the darkening of the plate through the use of a massive brush, with which he also draws the blouse, and the delineation of the face, the hair and the hands with a needle, in the month of March, and the touches of December 27. They are cosmetic. The reason is that in the third state, in which the lithograph has changed its name, to become Jacqueline de profil (R. 733, M. 311), the date of March appears in big characters and that of December in tiny ones. Although Mourlot provides a different explanation: Picasso had to be very tired in December because of the physical hardness of engraving directly with a chisel on the zinc plate, much harder than the copper he was so used to. Little convincing. 333 But let's go back once again: on Wednesday, December 18, 1957, that is, practically at the same time as the first plates of his other portraits of Jacqueline Buste de profil (16.12.57), Femme au corsage à fleurs and Buste de femme au corsage blanc (both of 17.12.57) Picasso has made a fourth portrait: Buste au corsage à carreaux, similar to the previous but more elaborate, with very precise features and made with lithographic pencil directly on a zinc plate of 56 by 44 cm. The Spaniard gives the bon à tirer and the lithograph is marketed at 50 copies by the Galerie Louise, printed on Arches paper of 66 by 50 cm (R 734, M. 308). This time without intermediate stage in March, the painter retakes the plate the same December 27, 1958 to transform it completely with lithographic pencil, grattage and needle. He is also satisfied with the result of this second state and ordered its printing on a commercial run of 50 copies on Arches paper of 66 by 50 cm (R. 735, M. 308). 334 The series does not end there, since the same Wednesday, December 18, 1957 the painter had made a fifth portrait: Jacqueline Lisant, a beautiful composition of his partner reading a book and with a gray background with wash and lithographic pencil on 55.5 by 44 cm zinc. Picasso is satisfied and orders its commercial edition, printed on Arches paper of 66 by 50 cm (R. 736, M. 309). But as in the case of Buste de profil, on Saturday, January 11, 1958, he took the zinc again, darkening the drawing with a brush and lithographic pencil, and finishing it with scraper and needle to outline the contours and face of the Jacqueline. But unfortunately, this beautiful version (R. 737) is not commercially edited. As in other cases Jacqueline series, again on Dec. 27, 58 Picasso reworks the zinc plate, obscuring even more with wash and pen, adding touches of scraping. He is satisfied and gives the bon à tirer for an edition of 50 copies, printed on the customary Arches paper of 66 by 50 cm (R. 738). Reusse unveils even a fourth state of the plate (R. 739), even darker, although we doubt that it was Picasso himself who has reworked it. We understand rather that it is a print proof made by the Mourlot stamper and where he used too much ink. 335 Following the saga of the Jacqueline portraits we are again forced to return to December 1957, because on Saturday 28 the painter had made a beautiful sixth portrait: Femme au chignon (Woman with bun), made with lithographic pencil and wash on zinc plate 55 by 44 cm. The lithograph is published commercially, printed on 66 by 50 cm paper (R. 740, M. 310). But Picasso returns to work the plate on Friday, January 31, 1958, transforming the drawing radically by wash, lithographic pencil, scraper, sandpaper and needle. In this second state the bun has disappeared to become loose hair; the shawl that Jacqueline wore in the first state also disappears; the profile portrait takes perspective adding a view of the left chin and eye; and the drawing darkens considerably except in some points like the right chin, the forehead or the neck, which are clarified by Picasso with chalk. The lithograph changes name, to become Jacqueline de profil à droite (R. 741), but it is not published commercially. The painter retakes the plate that famous Saturday December 27, 1958, when after darkening the hair and bust with brush, he works tirelessly the entire drawing with needle. The result is apparently the desired one, and the lithograph is edited by the Galerie Louise at 50 copies printed in Arches of 66 by 50 cm (R. 742, M. 310). 336 It should be noted that in all of Jacqueline's portraits that we have just described, when the painter has given his approval for the commercial edition of the first state, this does not mean that he considers them definitive, but that he has in mind to continue working in the lithographs, since he asks Mourlot to return the plates without erasing them. In this sense there is something that does not fit. There are basically three stages in each group of lithographs, and all these stages are coincident or very close in time. And finally we find that only the first and third states of them are commercially edited, although, at least in some of them, the second states are more beautiful than the third. This calls for a clarification. Let's recap and see the series in chronological order: with the zinc plates that Mourlot has supplied him, Picasso made the first state of Buste de profil (R.731) on Monday, December 16, 1957. The next day, 17 th he draws the first state of the lithographs Femme au corsage à fleurs, and Buste de femme au corsage blanc. And on Wednesday the 18th he made the first state of Buste au corsage à carreaux and of Jacqueline Lisant. Let us suppose that it is at that moment or immediately afterwards that the painter decides to send the five plates to Mourlot. There he stops his portrait project of Jacqueline until Saturday, December 28, 1957, when he executed the first state of Femme au chignon. It could also be, and it seems more logical, that he waited until he completed this last plate to make the shipment to Mourlot. In any case, the printer rushes to execute the work requested by Picasso, because on Saturday January 11, 1958 the painter already has at least the plates he had executed between December 16 and 18, since that day he makes the elaborate second state of Buste de profil, marking it with a burin in numbers as large as those of the first state. That same Saturday, Picasso draws the beautiful second state of Jacqueline Lisant, which he dates with a burin with smaller figures than those of the first state. If he sent the plates, let's say on Thursday, December 19 and received them back, let's say on Thursday, January 9, that would mean that in total the shipment, printing in Paris and return to Cannes took three weeks. Although Christmas was in the middle, three weeks seemed a long delay given the speed with which Mourlot worked for Picasso and the printer's interest in continuing to make lithographs with him despite the distance. The painter does not return to work on the subject until Friday January 31, in which he makes the second state of Femme au chignon, which is renamed Jacqueline de profil à droite, and which he dates with a burin with figures of the same size as those of the first state. If the shipment of the plates had been done in two batches, this would explain this delay from January 11 to 31 in the realization of the second states of the first and second group of portraits. However, Picasso did not execute the precious second estate of Femme au corsage à fleurs (also dated with 337 burin in numbers as large as those of the first state) until Saturday, February 1, 1958. Nor did the second state of Buste de femme au corsage blanc until Friday, March 7. This state is completely gone, but thanks to the third state, we have a record of its dating made with a buril and with figures even larger than those of the first state. It seems logical then to think that the painter had waited until after December 28 to send the six plates, that is, all the first states of the series. If this were the case, the delay of sending to Paris, printing and returning to Cannes would be only just two weeks, including the holiday on January 1st. This delay coincides with those experienced between the first and the second state of other lithographs made in the French Riviera and printed in Paris, such as those of Françoise sur fond gris (R. 550-551), made respectively on 5 and 19 November 1950 As we have seen, the painter has executed the second states of five of the six lithographs of the series between January 11 and March 7, 1958. The only zinc plate that he does not retake to make a second state in those days is that of Buste au corsage à carreaux. Following the logic of grouped shipments, and taking into account the special interest that Picasso has in the series, we should assume that he would have sent the bon à tirer of the six first states together with the five plates of the second states as of 7 March, let's say on Monday the 10th. Everything suggests that Mourlot's painters and printers would do the job diligently and that proofs and plates should have been back in the week that begins on Monday, March 24. But what we find is a vacuum of nine months, in which nothing moves. There is no doubt that Mourlot printed the usual five artist proofs, plus his own copy, plus some extra copies that always sneaked in and that fortunately have prevented the loss of those beautiful achievements. It can not be doubted either that the printer sent the five zinc plates back to Cannes, because on Saturday, December 27, 1958 Picasso retakes the six plates (the five returned with the proofs of the 2nd state and the one that never had second state) and performs the third state of each of them: Buste de profil (date with figures much smaller than those of the first and second state); Femme au corsage à fleurs (figures smaller than the first and second states); Buste de femme au corsage blanc, renamed Jacqueline de profil (date with very small figures, one third the size of those of the second state); the third state of Jacqueline Lisant (date with figures of a very small size) and the second state of Buste au corsage à carreaux (date with lithographic pencil double size than in the first state). This last proof is particularly interesting, since it is the only state that Picasso dates with larger characters than in the first state. Therefore he considers that it is a substantial change, such as those made between January 11 and March 7 for the second states of the other lithographs of 338 the series, and once he saw the result he approved for the commercial edition. It can be understood that the painter estimates, as we do, both in this lithograph and in the other five of the series, that the second state is the most achieved and important. If this is true, it is worth asking why a commercial edition of that state was not made. Mourlot does not help to find an explanation in his reasoned catalog, limiting himself to point out in the fourth volume when referring to each second state that “this state has not been executed”. The reasonable interpretation of this statement is that Picasso has not sent him the plate, since if he had, the printer would not dare to avoid printing proofs and sending them to the artist. Mourlot simply records that Picasso only sent him the bon à tirer of the six first states and of the four third states. The most convincing explanation is that the painter, after engraving the second state in the zinc plates, returned them to Mourlot along with the bon à tirer of the first states. Since he gave great importance to the changes made to the plates, as attested by the size of the date figures, he probably asked Mourlot to send him the proofs for examination and approval in this case, but to keep the plates so that they could be printed if he gave the bon à tirer. Hence, plates and proofs of the second state are separated. The printer awaits the instructions of Picasso that do not arrive because, in our view, the painter has lost the proofs and instead of asking for them or reprinting them in case Picasso had lost them (the painter does not like impertinences) Mourlot opts, probably at the end of the year, to send or take the plates to Picasso. The painter then decides that rather than giving explanations about what had happened with the proofs of the 2nd state, he will make some cosmetic touches and return them to Mourlot to print once for all the final states. He wants to finish the series and not to have to wait again for Mourlot to receive the plates, print them and send the proofs back to Cannes. When he sends out the third state plates, Picasso no longer asks the printer to return them, because he considers this definitive. After the Jacqueline series, to which as we said the painter attributed great importance, we move to his last decade of lithography in which, with some exceptions, he only performs minor works, most of them for posters, books or militant initiatives. This period begins in January 1958 with the design of the dish with a human face that would use so much. With it he made the cover of the catalog of an exhibition of his ceramics at the Maison de la Pensée Française in Paris (Cramer 90). This institution of the PCF was one of 339 the main beneficiaries of the painter's generosity. Housed in an ostentatious villa in front of the Elysee Palace, the establishment barely had an operating budget and Picasso managed on numerous occasions to organize exhibitions there, without caring about the absence of the most basic infrastructures. For the cover of the exhibition catalogue, the painter makes an undated picture with lithographic pencils for the background of the pumpkin and the text (orange), and green for the outline and the pupil of the eyes. The white hole of the eyes, nose and mouth is achieved by sticking a cut paper to the drawing. All this is passed to a 15 by 22 cm stone (R. 743, M. 312). 1,000 copies are printed on a strong vellum paper, the cover having a size of 24 by 16 cm. The painter also makes for the poster of the exhibition a similar but larger drawing in lithographic papers reported to stones of 40 by 59 cm. At first he uses only two colors: brown for the outline, the center of the pumpkin and the text of the poster, and black for the outline, the eyes, hollows of the nose and tongue, as well as for the signature and the date (14.1.58) and to reinforce his name at the bottom of the poster. This results in a first state (R.744, M. 313), which is estimated to have little color. Thus, the painter adds another stone printed in green reinforcing the outline, marking the eyes, nose and mouth. The result is approved and edited at 500 copies printed on vellum paper of 66 by 50 cm (R. 745, M. 314). According to Reuße, 125 copies in Arches paper and a size of 73 by 53 cm are additionally edited. Both the book and the poster are published and marketed naturally by the Maison de la Pensée Française in March 1958. Neither Mourlot nor Reuße refers to a possible signed edition of this poster. We have not found any copies either, which does not mean they do not exist, but there was no formal edition. 340 In March of 1958, Picasso made another lithograph for a book. This is the second frontispiece for a work by logistics industrialist André Level, who had died in 1946, after the beautiful portrait of Marie-Thérèse Walter that he already contributed in 1928 (R. 24). This time it is a simple drawing of two itinerant acrobats signed on March 3, 1958, made with lithographic pencil on report paper transferred to a stone of 17 by 21.5 cm. Following Mourlot, with this stone a total of 2,200 copies are printed of the lithograph Saltimbanques (R. 746, M. 285). Reuße gives the figure of Mourlot and adds confusing information. Studying the not very clear figures of Cramer, completing them with the examination of the justification page of the book and with the copies that we have found in auctions and art dealers, we nevertheless arrived at 2325 copies of the lithograph, distributed as follows: 2,100 printed on Lourmarin vellum paper of 22.5 by 28 cm as frontispiece of the book Souvenirs d'un collectionneur (Cramer 99), of which books numbers 1012.100 correspond to the current edition and 100 are 'presentation' copies; 200 copies in vellum Arches, with large margins in paper of 33.5 by 25.3 cm numbered 1-200/200 signed by Picasso; and a further 25 copies with large margins, numbered with Roman numerals and signed. The problem is that the Cramer, Mourlot and Reuße catalogs do not contain a complete explanation, since they do not give the exact data of the size and type of the paper of the signed edition, and even they lead to the confusion by the discrepancies that contain: Mourlot only gives a paper size data: 22.5 by 28 cm; Reuße also gives a single size: 28.4 by 22.5 cm; and Cramer gives 28.3 for 22.7 for the lithograph of the book and 33.5 for 25.3 for the numbered proofs that accompany the deluxe edition. This cataloging leads us to think that it is easy to add a false signature to one of the large margin copies of the 'luxury edition' of the book and pass it as one of the signed edition of the lithograph. And in fact, someone tried it. For example, Bonhams sold for $ 3,904 at an 341 auction in San Francisco (Sale No. 18560 of May 3, 2011) a copy of this lithograph with margins and a spectacular signature with red pencil. But it did not have numbering. It was either an artist proof not reflected in the reasoned catalogs, or it came from the printing of 100 unsigned copies, but what is clear is that the signature was spurious. The William Weston gallery in London gives us the key to the subject. It sold years ago a copy of the lithograph numbered and signed in red, printed on light cream paper of a size of 44.5 by 30.5 cm (it indicated 32.5 cm wide, but it was a poor conversion of the 12.75 inches they had measured). And the same Bonhams auction house that sold the lithograph with the false signature, auctioned for $ 3,125 in its sale No. 19353 of October 25, 2011 another copy in cream paper, numbered and signed that had exactly the same size (44.45 by 30.5 cm). While the copy with the false signature had dimensions of 33.2 by 25.4 cm (13 1/8 x 10 inches). The fake was more expensive than the real one. The key to the difficulty in identifying the origin and authenticity of the lithograph Les Saltimbanques is therefore that the reasoned catalogs lead to confusion regarding the volume of the edition of the print and in no case give the important information for the correct identification of the numbered and signed lithograph, that is the size and color of the paper. It is therefore not strange that, faced with the confusion created, the Museum of Modern Art in New York decided on the most reliable option: it has this lithograph in its permanent collection, but in the "safe" version, that is, the book 311. This lithograph can be used as an illustration to explain the risk of buying Picasso's false signatures. For collectors it is less expensive, but also often safer to buy an unsigned lithograph, as MoMA often does. Until the end of 1958, which will close as we have seen with the final states of Jacqueline's lithographs, Picasso does not carry out more lithographic works. 311 Referencia MoMA Number:1022.1964; Pablo Picasso 1216 342 18. More militant work The year 1959 begins for Picasso lithographer with a curious print for Galerie Louise. This is La Pique (R. 747, M. 315), a drawing dated Tuesday, January 6 with lithographic pen on report paper that the painter 'colors' in black using a technique he often uses according to Mourlot: placing the paper on a piece of wood and rubbing an elongated lithographic pencil on paper, he leaves a background pattern that traces the roughness of the wood, as the relief of coins was traced with paper and a pencil. Passed to a stone of 64 by 48.5 cm, it is commercially edited at 50 copies printed in Arches of 50 by 66 cm. 343 But immediately he defies Kahnweiler once more, and with a light theme: the eternal one of the powerful male and young lady. The drawing, made that same Tuesday, is curiously destined to help once again the communist Nice newspaper Le Patriote. This is Le vieux Roi (R. 748, M. 317) in which appears an old King dressed as Henry VIII, a naked young girl and a Celestine, also naked. Drawn with lithographic pencil and frottage on report paper passed to a stone of 49.5 by 64.5 cm, the lithograph is edited, to make it more attractive, with extreme care. On the one hand, 1,000 unnumbered copies were printed in 1959 on a light Arches paper of 67 by 51.2 cm with the signature of Picasso in red. But the signature is made in lithography in the printing press. And a further 200 copies are printed on a thicker Arches paper. In these copies the lithographed signature in red does not appear, and is replaced by an authentic one in blue. With this, an important collection of funds for the newspaper is achieved, and at the same time a large number of people are allowed to have an original lithograph by Picasso, in large format and with a signature (although not original) in red, so highly valued by the markets. And the two editions are clearly distinguishable, both by the thickness of the paper and the color of the signature. And as the painter was already doing to give more value to his militant collaborations and thus increase the income obtained from them, Picasso even colored by hand at least one of the copies signed by hand with waxes of many colors. The drawing, cataloged by the On-line Picasso Project with the number OPP.59: 386, is in the Museum Würth, Künzelsau, Germany, and appears reproduced in the book Pablo Picasso: Metamorphoses of the Human Form, edited by Roland Doschka , Prestel, Munich 2000. 344 With a bit of luck, the edition of 1,000 copies with the beautiful red signature of this good-sized lithograph can be purchased at a reasonable price. For example, the Stockholm Gallery Bukowskis sold at auction No. 555 of May 2010 a copy in perfect condition for 12,500 crowns, this is € 1,250. But Ketterer Kunst sold another one in 2008 for € 4,320 (Sale 335 of 4.04.2008, Lot 401). Note that the same house had auctioned another copy in 2003 for just € 2,415 (Sale 281 of 4.06.2003, Lot 763) and even two cheaper ones a few months earlier, in Auction No. 278 Art of the 19th and 20th Centuries (28.03.2003) for only € 1,035 (Lot 581) and € 920 (Lot 580). In direct purchase without going through an auction, it is more expensive: the Norfolk Antique Gallery in Norfolk, Virginia has a copy for sale for $ 3,500 (about € 2,700 at the May 2013 exchange rate). As for the edition of 200 copies with the authentic signature in blue, the Georgetown Gallery Frame Shoppe in Washington had a copy for sale for $ 11,000 (about € 8,600 in May 2013). Which is not very expensive, given that Christie's auctioned a similar copy in its sale No. 7572 of December 2012 in London (Lot 164) for 8,125 Pounds ($ 13,081). But Ketterer Kunst Münich auctioned in his Sale No. 395 (Modern Art / Side lines of the German Avantgarde, Lot 277), held on October 19, 2012 the copy 95/200 with the signature in blue for 5,375 Euros. It shows a temporary decline in the art market, since on 22.10.2010 it had sold the 144/200 copy for € 7686 (Sale 371 Lot 325). Without surprise, the MoMA of New York does not have in its permanent collection the aristocratic edition with the authentic signature in blue, but acquired the plebeian one with the signature in red 312. 312 Reference MoMA Number:270.1967 345 Picasso's support of the Nice newspaper has an explanation: it constituted, especially through its director Georges Tabaraud, his main contact with the PCF bases during his long residence on the Cote d'Azur. The journalist had presented himself to the painter in the summer of 1946 in Golfe-Juan and his friendship, which Tabaraud reflected in a memoir 313 , lasted until the death of the painter. The journalist helped the Andalusian to study the enormous amount of requests for material help that came to him. Picasso simply passed the petitions after reading them to Tabaraud, but not before recording with an inscription "Look" or "Attention" those requests he did not want to go unnoticed. The moment in which this aid in particular to Le Patriote occurs also has a deep meaning. Picasso does not support it just because it is a communist newspaper, but because we are in the harshest moments of the Algerian War, in which the pro-FNL posture of the publication causes its premises to be attacked and its employees and journalists harassed. The OAS (which was in fact founded in Madrid) plants bombs in its offices and in the private home of Tabaraud. Due to his Spanish nationality, which he never wanted to renounce, and his precaution of not speaking publicly on matters of French internal politics, Picasso had not been able to sign the Manifesto of the 121 that was signed on September 6, 1960 by the left wing French intellectuals. supporting the FNL rebellion. Among these were Arthur Adamov, Simone de Beauvoir, Breton, Marguerite Duras, André Frénaud, Michel Leiris, Maspero, Masson, Pieyre de Mandiargues, Hélène Parmelin and her partner Eduard Pignon, Alain Resnais, JeanFrançois Revel, Françoise Sagan, Sartre, Truffaut, etc. The Spaniard wanted to show, however, his solidarity with this cause and others with which the French Communist Party is identified by providing lithographs or drawings. 313 Tabaraud, Georges Mes années Picasso, Éditions Plon, Paris, 2002 346 We do not know if it was to compensate Kahnweiler or to provoke him, the same Tuesday, January 6, Picasso makes a new version of the previous lithograph. The name changes to Seigneur et Fille (R. 749, M. 318), but the King is still Henry VIII and the young woman is still naked. But the drawing, also done with lithographic pencil on report paper passed to a 66 by 50 cm stone, is clearly inferior to the previous one, and the Celestine does not appear. The lithograph is edited at 50 copies on Arches paper of 65.6 by 50.3, numbered and signed. But the signature is located outside the frame line that Picasso had drawn, is tiny and is made with graphite pencil. Undoubtedly Picasso received the Mourlot packages with the two lithographs and signed them that same day. For Kahnweiler the ugly one with the tiny signature in pencil, and for Le Patriote red and blue signatures, bigger and better placed. Of course, the Galerie Louise could not place any of her lithographs on the Riviera. But they sold well, and they continue to do so. For example, Ketterer Kunst sold at auction 306 of 5.12.2006 an artist's copy but signed for € 11,305 (Lot 226). It is obviously one of those Picasso kept and often traded in black to help his communist friends, further challenging Kahnweiler. We have still found another artist copy signed, but different from the previous one, for sale in November 2013 at the Galerie Nierendorf in Berlin. In any case, Picasso never stopped supporting the communist newspaper of Nice and will make a last exclusive work for it when he was 80 years old. On Saturday, June 3, 1961, he made another curious lithograph in colors. Titled Football (R. 800, M. 356) it is made with lithographic pencil on transparent report papers passed to stone. Made in five colors 347 (yellow, green, red, blue and black), it is edited at 200 numbered copies and signed by the painter for Le Patriote. Picasso dedicated the bon à tirer to Tabaraud The design is a development of the drawing with colored pencils Footballeurs, 51 x 66 cm, made on May 3 and preserved in the Picasso Museum in Paris (catalog no MPP: 1529, Zervos XX: 4). The artist would also make that year a sculpture of 58 x 48 x 24 cm in cut and painted brass entitled Footballeur with the body already defined. It is also preserved in the Picasso Museum in Paris (reference MPP 362). Once again, the interrelation between the different modes of artistic expression of the Spaniard is shown here. Copy 78/200 of this lithograph, signed in graphite pencil, was sold by Ketterer Kunst in 2011 (Auction 383, Lot 700) for 5,000 Euros. Although he will not make another work for Le patriote, he will do in his last years of life, in which he barely made lithographs, some more militant work. The last one would be in 1968, when he offered a 1951 drawing to make two protest posters against the Vietnam War (La guerre, R. 860). It was actually a drawing he had made for the October 5, 1951 issue of the magazine of the Démocratie nouvelle party, which was reduced and printed as offset lithography, despite which it has found a place in some reasoned catalogs. Swann Galleries of New York sold in auction No. 2206 of March 9, 2010 (Lot 526) copy No. 52/100 signed in graphite pencil, for the sum of $ 2,952. 348 But before that, on November 23, 1963, Picasso will draw a mine lamp to serve as frontispiece of the book Asturias published in 1964 by Cercle d'Art in support of the miners sanctioned after the strikes in Asturias the previous year. The book has other contributions, in the form of articles or lithographs by Alberti, Semprún, Mayor, Arroyo, Fenosa, Ortega, Juan Rejano, Tuñón de Lara, Sánchez-Albornoz, Úbeda, Blas de Otero, J. Haro, Max Aub and others. Like the rest of the book, Picasso's lithograph (Asturias, R. 851, M. 398) is made with lithographic pencil on report paper transferred to stone and was printed by Fernand Chinot, and not by Mourlot. Apart from the circulation of the book, 49 signed and numbered copies were sold, sold for the benefit of the miners. Nagel Auktionen of Stuttgart, sold copy number 14/49 in its auction No. 27M, in October 2004. Its starting price was € 1,000. It is very likely that many of the militant collaborations with the PCF and Le patriote such as this had as recipients of the funds collected the Spanish exile and its organizations. There is a lithograph of Picasso that has become famous and through which he has even been linked with the birth of Amnesty International for having created its best image and poster, that of a prisoner behind three bars and with a dove of peace. We recall that this organization was born in July 1961 at the initiative of the English lawyer Peter Benenson, who in November of the previous year had been surprised to read in a newspaper that some Portuguese students had been sentenced to 7 years in prison simply for having made a toast to freedom. Benenson began to investigate the issue of political prisoners and published an article in the Labor Weekly The Observer (The forgotten prisoners 314), which had a great impact and was reproduced in numerous newspapers throughout the world. 314 Benenson, Peter The forgotten prisoners, The Observer, 28 Mayo 1961. http://www.hrweb.org/ai/observer.html 349 The new organization used as its method the 'adoption' of political prisoners by headquarters or the national sections and the sending of letters requesting their release to the rulers of the countries that held them in prison. It has often been said that it was this organization that obtained the release of PCE official poet Marcos Ana. But the release of Marcos Ana occurred on November 17, 1961, too soon for Amnesty to play a role, and neither Benenson's article nor the book published in October Persecution in 1961315 included Marcos Ana among the prisoners whose freedom was urged. Moreover, the archives of Amnesty International kept in the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam do not contain any entry related to Marcos Ana prior to 1962. There had been, indeed, a major mobilization in France for the amnesty for prisoners in Franco's prisons between 1959 and 1961 and Picasso had contributed with the drawing of the prisoner and the bars in black and the pigeon in blue, made in Cannes and dated November 6, 1959. The drawing was printed in lithography at two hundred copies in a strong paper of 72 by 52 cm, with the date and signature printed in blue. One of these is in the Picasso Museum-Eugenio Arias Collection in Buitrago de Lozoya, Madrid. This copy, without any text, bears the date 6.11.59 and the signature of Picasso in blue in the upper left corner and another signature of the painter in black below to the left. In addition, there is a new one under the last signature with a dedication by Picasso to his friend and hairdresser. The reasoned catalog of this collection indicates that the first two signatures are printed in lithography316. Another larger print run was also made, also in lithography, with the title in Spanish Amnistía, edited by the Comité National d’Aide aux Victimes du Franquisme. It was 75 cm high and 52 cm wide. It had the same date 315 Persecution 1961, Penguin Books, Middlesex, 1961. The six prisoners mentioned in the book were Maurice Adin, Ashton Jones, Agostinho Neto, Patrick Duncan, Olga Ivinskaya, Luis Taruc, Constantin Noica, Spanish lawyer Antonio Amat and Hu Feng. 316 Jiménez-Blanco, Maria Dolores Catálogo Razonado Museo Picasso Colección Eugenio Arias, Consejería de Cultura y Turismo de la Comunidad de Madrid, Madrid 2008, pp. 36-37 350 and signature in blue as the previous one, and the indicated text, but it did not have the second signature. One of these copies was sold by Galerie Gerda Bassenge of Berlin in its auction No. 92 (Moderne Kunst, Teil II) held in Berlin, on November 28, 2008. It was Lot No. 7279 and its estimated price was 1,200 Euros. Of the 200 signed copies it is very difficult to find examples in the market or museums, because the Communist Party of Spain that received them offered most of them to foreign personalities who had supported the campaign. But we have found two that exactly match the one described and photographed in the reasoned catalog of the Buitrago del Lozoya Museum, one for sale in October 2013 in London by the bookseller Peter Harrington, with a price of € 15,200 and the other revealed in a press article 317. The only difference is that the second signature is different, it is in graphite pencil and numbered over 200. The explanation may be that the copy that Picasso gave to his friend Eugenio was from another edition, because it does not seem very logical that the two second signatures be autograph. Not being an original lithograph, but a drawing reproduced in lithography, the edition of 200 copies does not appear in any reasoned catalog. But the poster is included by Christoph Czwiklitzer with number 152 318. The same Picasso drawing was used as the cover of Marcos Ana’s Poemas desde la cárcel, a 18-page small book, published in Montevideo by the Uruguayan Association of Writers in preparation for the II Latin American Conference for Amnesty for Prisoners and Political Exiles in Spain and Portugal, held in Buenos Aires from November 11 to 13, 1960. Marcos Ana remembers having received with surprise a copy of this booklet while he was incarcerated. And the same drawing of the prisoner and the pigeon was in fact used by Amnesty International, first in 1961 in France for a discreet black poster of 60 by 40 cm of very little diffusion and the text Un espoir pour les prisonniers d’opinion dans le monde. Another edition in English followed, also in 1961, in black and with the text A conspiracy of hope and there is still another edition made 40 years later. In reality it is a gross manipulation, a typical example of what would happen if a Picasso design were given to be updated by a committee of designers, in this case two 317 Romero, Marco Un Picasso en el vertedero, Diario de León, 6 May 2012. http://www.diariodeleon.es/noticias/afondo/un-picasso-en-vertedero_688916.html 318 Czwiklitzer, Christoph Pablo Picasso, Plakate 1923 - 1973 : Werkverzeichnis, Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 1981 351 North American companies: Woody Pirtle and Pentagram. They used Picasso's drawing and printed it in a single color, black. The central part appears with a yellow background and the rest in light blue, with the name Amnesty International in white. It was edited by the North American branch of the organization in 2000. When Marcos Ana was released, he settled in Paris, where the Communist Party of Spain to which he belonged since 1936 placed him as Director of the so-called Center for Information and Solidarity with Spain (CISE), whose president was Picasso himself. The painter sent him several dozen copies avant la lettre of the lithograph of the bars and the pigeon signed and numbered by him, and the poet took them as a gift to the personalities who had contributed to the campaign for his release and to those he visited on a world tour that he started soon after his release. Among the personalities who received a copy were Olof Palme, Pablo Neruda and Pietro Nenni. The center, which had been co-financed by Communist millionaire Teodulfo Lagunero, was domiciled at 198 Rue Saint Jacques, in the Latin quarter where Picasso had his studio, but the painter never visited it, as Marcos Ana himself acknowledged in an interview that he never met him personally 319. But Picasso, who lived in the Riviera, did send aid to the institution, which took care to lend a hand to the exiles of all affiliations who came to Paris fleeing Franco's Spain. CISE also suffered an attack by the OAS. Undoubtedly a commission from Franco’s secret services, which had helped and welcomed the French terrorists when they left Algeria with independence, many of them establishing themselves on the sunny shores of Spain. The CISE even played an important role in Spain at the end of the dictatorship, serving as a meeting point between democratic forces, negotiating and printing there in 1974 the manifesto of the Junta Democrática, the precursor body of the democratic transition. When democracy was restored in Spain, Marcos Ana returned to the country and became deputy to Manuel Azcárate at the head of the international relations committee of the communist party, where the author of these lines met him several times to discuss African politics. The person in charge of taking Picasso's help to Marcos Ana (and probably the author and organizer of the initiatives) was none other than Eugenio Arias, known as Picasso's hairdresser, a character less banal than it seems and founder in 1985 of the Picasso Museum in Buitrago del Lozoya320. Arias, who had joined the PCE five years before Marcos Ana, had been Captain and Political Commissar of the 5th Popular Militias Regiment, the famous Fifth Regiment of the Republican Army that the 319 320 Romero 2012 See Czernin y Müller, 2002. 352 PCE organized and led the mythical Valentín González El Campesino. At the end of the war, along with 400,000 refugees, Arias went to France and was interned in the camp of Argelès-sur-Mer, where he coincided with the nephews of Picasso Javier and Fin Vilató, whom the painter had to extract from there by paying relatively big sums of money. Arias soon went to the mountains, joining the French communist resistance against the German occupier. At the end of the war, and because of medical reasons, he settled in Vallauris, where Picasso arrived shortly after. In July 1946, while he was vacationing at Golfe-Juan in the house of retired engraver Louis Fort, the painter traveled to the village of Vallauris, only a couple of kilometers away, to visit with his friend the annual ceramics exhibition, where he met Suzanne and Georges Ramié, owners of the Madoura oven. Picasso made some pieces and the following summer he decided to settle there, getting to buy a modest house, La Galloise. Suzanne Ramié, who will build her fortune thanks to the Spaniard, tipped Picasso, perhaps to convince him that in Vallaruris he will feel at home, that in the village there is also 'a Spanish hairdresser', and invited him to go and see him. In fact, Arias had already met Picasso on the occasion of the birthday of Dolores Ibarruri, that the Pasionaria had celebrated in Toulouse in December 1945. But when the painter showed up at his hairdresser, Arias did not tell him about that meeting. They soon made friends, and over the years a strong friendship developed between them. Arias was Spanish, republican, communist like him, and also discreet, a quality that the painter greatly appreciated in all those who had access to him. In fact, the hairdresser was Picasso's confidant in his amorous adventures, like Geneviève Laporte's, with whom he served as messenger, taking Picasso's sketches of her secretly 321 . As the painter's visits to the hairdresser attracted too much attention among the population of the town, the former captain of the Republican army offered to go twice a week to La Galloise. Since then he did not stopped cutting the hair and shaving Picasso until his death. The painter even offered him a car so he could travel more comfortably when he moved to his successive residences of La Californie in Cannes, Vauvenargues in Aix-en-Provence, and lastly Notre Dame de Vie in Mougins. 321 The drawings were auctioned in 2005 in Paris. See Pierre Daix and Geneviève Laporte, Art Moderne, Catalog de Vente aux Enchères. Geneviève Laporte et l'Art by Picasso, Artcurial, Paris 2005. 353 With discretion and tact, Arias obtained from Picasso from time to time drawings, artist books, lithographs, signed posters, etc., which were used to finance initiatives such as the CISE (Marcos Ana says that Arias carried suitcases every month with the proceeds of these activities) and other of humanitarian nature of the party organization in Toulouse. Teodulfo Lagunero relates in his memoirs 322 that Arias became the last years of Picasso's life as guardian of his privacy, playing, along with Jacqueline, the role Sabartés had previously played in Paris: filtering the visits. Lagunero also relates that Picasso boasted to Spanish visitors that he had often rejected the French government's offers to grant him the French nationality, stating that he retained the Spanish with as much pride as his Communist Party card 323. But the painter belonged to the rich and powerful French party, and not the poor, harassed and outlawed Spanish party. It was probably the best thing he could do to help the Spanish exile, because the best defender he could have in France was the powerful PCF, implanted in the whole territory and made up of militants who could mobilize when necessary. But let's go back to January 6, 1959, when Picasso drew the lithographs of the old King. That same day he made two others in which the only character is the lady who appeared in the lithograph he made for Kahnweiler. The first, with the lady dressed, is titled Noble Dame (R. 750, M, 319) and the second, in which the girl appears nude, is 322 Lagunero , Teodulfo. Memorias. La extraordinaria vida de un hombre extraordinario. Tabla Rasa/Ediciones Urano, Barcelona 2009 323 See El Picasso que yo conocí, Diario Sur, Málaga 25 de Octubre de 2006 354 called La Fille au chapeau (R. 751, M. 320). Both are made with lithographic pencil on paper transferred to stone of 49 by 64 cm. Mourlot affirms that both were published commercially, whereas Reuße, that normally has been able to consult much more data and previous studies that Mourlot, does not mention any commercial edition of the second. Here, however, we can trust Mourlot, because in fact the Louise Gallery published both lithographs, in editions of 50 numbered and signed copies, printed on Arches paper of 66 by 50 cm. Swann Auction Galleries in New York, sold in its auction on March 3, 2011 proof 29/50 of the second print, not documented by Reuße. Sotheby's had put an unsigned copy for sale at auction number N07888 in New York on May 1, 2003. Its price was estimated between 4 and 5,000 dollars. On Saturday January 10 Picasso makes a new version of the King and the young woman. Again it is the same King and the lady of the lithograph executed for the Louise Gallery, but this time in a smaller stone format, 18 by 22 cm. This new lithograph Le Seigneur et la Dame (R. 752, M. 322) is reserved for a book of professional memories that Mourlot planned to publish on the occasion of the transfer of his workshops from rue Chabrol to rue Barrault, near the Parc de Montsouris, in 1960. The work did not get published with the ruckus of the move and the difficulty that the printer had to obtain original works of the painters to illustrate it. Finally, the book was published in 1972, with the title Souvenirs et portraits d'artistes (Cramer153). The original lithographs of Picasso and other 24 great artists like Matisse, Miró, Chagall, Braque, Giacometti and Villon, were printed at 800 copies of the luxury edition of these first memories of the printer. 355 That same Saturday, January 10, 1959, Picasso also made a small still life, La tasse (R. 753, M. 321) with lithographic pencil with frottage and blanks achieved with cut out papers glued on report paper. The paper is then reported to a stone of 16 by 20.5 cm. Mourlot indicates in the fourth volume of his reasoned catalog that the stone was in his workshop, but Reuße has not found any trace of its commercial edition. As for Professor Mallén's team, it has only found the sale of one of these prints at a Christie's auction (Lot 307, Auction No. 1322 of April 28, 2003). It was a simple unsigned artist proof and was sold for $ 3,346, more than twice the starting price of $ 1,500. The following lithograph by Picasso goes back to the month of June 1959, to Wednesday 10 in particular, when he makes a color print for a poster of the exhibition Affiches Originales des Maîtres de l’École de Paris, held at the communist Maison de la Pensée Francaise that same month. The lithograph (R. 754, M. 323) is essentially composed of the text, but includes a drawing, as well as the date and the lithographed signature of Picasso. Made in three colors (red, yellow and green) with lithographic pencils on report paper transferred to 45 by 63 cm stones. It was printed on 1,000 copies on vellum paper, one part in Arches vellum of 68.5 by 50 cm and another on vellum paper of 66 cm 49 cm. But this time none of the posters was officially signed nor have we found any signed copy in the market. Without signature, we have found many copies for sale or sold, especially in the United States at prices between 500 and 1,000 €. 356 19. A los toros with Picasso When Picasso is approaching his eighties, his nostalgia for Spain accentuates, and with it his fondness for bullfighting, the only Spanish tradition that he could enjoy often thanks to the bullfights that were held in the south of France, and he came to see them whenever he could despite the complexity of attending. Indeed, bullfighting took place in Nîmes and Arles, 260 and 230 km away respectively from Vallauris, which at the time involved a five-hour car drive. Both the Spanish nostalgia and the return to the bulls have a clear reflection in his lithographic work. After attending several bullfights in Nîmes and Arles, the painter seems to be dedicated exclusively to painting bullfighting themes in the spring and summer of 1959. Picasso had begun a long series of picador drawings in March 1959, intensified in July and August, in which half of his artistic production is about picadors, and that extends until the first half of 1960. And he uses a drawing similar to the three lithographs that we describe below in two linoleum cuts made in 1959 in Vauvenargues, undated but cataloged by Bloch with numbers BI: 908 and BI: 910. Within this vein, on Wednesday September 2, 1959, Picasso retakes in lithography the theme of the picador with three compositions made on the same day but with a drawing very different from that of January 6 (R. 747). 357 The first is a somewhat surrealistic drawing, with a large horse and bull and a smaller picador and bullfighter. La Pique I (R. 755, M. 324) is made in Cannes with lithographic pencil directly on a zinc plate of 42 by 56 cm. In La Pique II (R. 756, M. 325), Picasso returns to the same subject, but removes the details of the drawing, especially the picador, the bullfighter and the bull's head, leaving those limited to simple lines. In return, the painter obscures the drawing a little, also creating a shadow at the foot of it, while rubbing a lithographic pencil flat against the plate of 46 by 62 cm. Picasso approves these two lithographs for commercial edition to 50 copies, printed on Arches paper of 50 by 66 cm. In the third attempt, La Pique III (R. 757, M. 325), the painter makes a new similar drawing with the same protagonists, but here he does the reverse work: he completes the drawing with numerous details, especially of the body and costume of the picador and the head of horse and bull, while filling the contour of the bullfighter and the two animals with lithographic pencil and brush wash. The background of the lithograph is filled with a flat pencil frottage against the zinc plate of 50 by 65 cm. Mourlot says that the zinc plate does not resist the printing of proofs and has to be erased in view of the bad result. However Reuße has found a proof printed with a reworked plate with wash and scraper (R. 758). In any case, this lithograph is not commercially edited. 358 The painter makes another lithograph in November 1959, also with a bullfighting theme. It is a large drawing of a bullfighter and several small acts of the corrida, made on Tuesday 3 with lithographic pencil on report paper of 26 by 38 cm passed to zinc plate. Picasso wishes to use it for the facsimile edition by Cercle d'Art of a carnet of drawings made between November 1955 and January 1956, under the title Carnet de la Californie (Cramer 101). But the painter believes that the plate of November 3 (R. 759) needs to be reworked and gets to work on Saturday 21 of the same month. For this he uses two lithographic pencils, a stronger one with which he reinforces the drawings by adding details and a character. With the second softest pencil he completes the work of the first and, by rubbing it flat, adds a gray background in several parts of the drawing. Finally, he uses a scraper to decorate the suit jacket of the bigger bullfighter's costume. From this second state (R. 760, M. 327) 150 copies are printed according to Mourlot on a paper of 39.6 by 29.4 cm, 25 of them numbered and signed and another 25 hors commerce for the artist. Needless to say, the copies 'hors commerce' always ended in the market signed by the artist. However, Cramer points out in his reasoned catalog of Picasso's books that the circulation is 100 copies for the luxury edition and 20 h.c. for the artist. This precious 'book' consists of a cardboard box wrapped in fabric containing two notebooks of reproductions, one of them fastened with a spiral of wire and another in loose sheets, and also a booklet with a text by Georges Boudaille (chief of the plastic arts section of the PCF magazine directed by Aragon Les Lettres Françaises). The one hundred luxury copies of the French edition of the Carnet de la Californie, numbered from 1 to 100, also have a folder with the original signed lithograph and a suite of lithographic reproductions. The hors commerce, also of the French edition, are numbered from 101 to 120 and carry the same suite, but in it the lithograph is theoretically unsigned. The book was published simultaneously in France, Germany, Italy and the United States, but only the copies of the French edition, numbered from 121 to 1500, were printed on Arches paper. The other editions also have 1,500 numbered copies each. 359 Other smaller editions of this book were published afterwards, and given its success, Cercle d'Art publishing house decided to make a new edition in large format, with a box wrapped in cloth in 1999. But this one, made in Spain by the Castuera print shop in Pamplona, only includes the second notebook and the reproductions are in four-color process and not in lithography. In the last month of 1959 Picasso returns to address in lithography the theme of the dance of the fauns that he developed in May 1957, in two lithographs made on Sunday December 6, but now called Bacchanale. The first, Bacchanale I (R. 761, M. 328) is made with lithographic pencil on zinc plate, drawing a background of mountains with parallel lines or concentric curves in the manner of an etching. The second, Bacchanale II (R. 762, M. 329) is a simpler drawing, without background, also directly on zinc. Both are published commercially at 50 numbered and signed copies, printed on Arches paper of 50 by 66 cm. Note that in those same days Picasso makes three of his best known linocuts, in a similar size and that are very similar to these lithographs. These are Bacchanale au taureau (Bloch.I: 933), Faunes et chèvres (B.I: 934) and Bacchanale au taureau noir (B.I: 935). The latter are not dated but were probably made on Friday, November 27, since it is the date indicated in another very similar one and made with the same colors (Bacchanale avec chevreau et spectateur, Bloch I: 931), only one of the four that Picasso dated in the linoleum. 360 That same Sunday, December 6, 1959, Picasso draws, always with lithographic pencil on zinc, two compositions Combat de Centaures III and IV (R. 763-764, M. 330331), both edited commercially at 50 copies. That same day he made an oil painting of the same size (50 by 66 cm) also entitled Combat de centaures and cataloged by Zervos (Z.XIX: 104). And on January 2, 1961, he colored the Combat de Centaures IV lithograph by hand to dedicate it to Zette and Michel Leiris, that is, to the gallery owner Louise and her husband. This work is in the Centre Pompidou of Paris, cataloged with the inventory number AM1984-655, forming part of the important Donation Leiris of 1984. The following lithographic work of Picasso is again a poster for an exhibition of his work in a gallery in Nice, in this case the city hall owned Galerie des Ponchettes. Made in Cannes, probably in November 1959 although cataloged as dating from January 1960, the poster Femme au balcon (R. 765, M. 335) appears as a counterpoint to the lithograph (R. 759) that he made the 3rd of November for the Carnet de la Californie. The style and delicacy is the same, and like that one is made in report paper passed to stone, this time of greater size (47 by 61 cm). If the lithograph of the Carnet represents a bullfighter on the left who observes several lots drawn to the right, the poster represents a Spanish lady with mantilla and peineta that observes from the right an act of the bullfight. Our attribution of date in November is supported by the fact that the exhibition takes place between January and May of 1960. 361 The poster carries the text penned by Picasso and the painter's signature on the same lithographic paper. It was printed according to Reuße at 15 artist proofs and 635 copies in Arches paper of 65.6 by 52.3 cm (Mourlot speaks of 625, which seems more plausible). But again Picasso authorized or promoted an edition by the Galerie des Ponchettes of 145 numbered copies and with an additional signature in red. Christie's sold at London auction No. 5981 of October 29, 2009 (lot 16) and for 4,750 £ ($ 7,795) a copy allegedly from the edition of 145 copies of this beautiful lithograph but not numbered –which suggests that comes from the current edition– signed in red pencil and with the dedication 'pour Marie-Anne mon amie Picasso, le 16.12.71'. Galerie Bassenge of Berlin-Grunewald put a copy (Lot 8291) for sale at its Moderne Kunst Teil I auction on June 1, 2013, although it confused its cataloging, attributing it No. M.355. It was a pretended artist proof with an additional signature but with graphite pencil, and not in red. Its price was estimated at 3,800 Euros. The editions of 635 and 145 copies are printed on the same paper of the same size and in this case caution is imposed in the event of the impossibility of certifying the authenticity of the signature. Ketterer Kunst sold copy 136/145 of this print with signature handwritten in red for 4.080 € in Sale 324 of October 26, 2007 (Lot 294). The same house had sold another copy (61/145) for € 2,875 in 2002 (Sale 270 of 15.05.2002, Lot 347). As was his custom, the painter also dedicated some copies of this beautiful poster, and in some he added color. This is the case of the one dedicated to photographer Edward Quinn, sold by Sotheby's. (# 98, 03/25/92, cataloged by Mallén with nº OPP.60: 216). The painter does not return to lithography until April 1960. On the 21st and 22nd of that month, the painter makes, L'Ecuyère (R. 766, M. 333) to help Nice’s Le patriote, in an environment charged by the week of barricades in Algiers, in which French settlers had rebelled against the intention of the Paris government to cede the territory to the FNL. The rebels were finally subdued by the army. 362 On Thursday the 21st he made a drawing of a circus scene, with a woman on horseback watched by a squire, with soft lithographic pencil and frottage on a sheet of report paper. On Friday the 22nd he adds a decoration of spots all over the paper, made with another harder pencil that leaves a darker impression. The paper is passed to a stone of 50 by 65 cm and Mourlot prints 1,000 copies on a light vellum paper of 55 by 69 cm with the printed signature of the painter. But also printed are another 200 copies numbered and signed by the painter on a thicker Arches paper. Here the publisher is also the newspaper Le Patriote. Ketterer Kunst sold copy 57/200 for € 6,710 (Sale 371, Lot 326, 22.10.2010), but before, in 2004, the same house had sold one of the 1,000 copies for € 1,755 (Auction 286, Lot 598). The following militant lithographic works are done by the painter in October of 1960, and again behind Galerie Louise’s back and, what is more surprising, without Mourlot himself. The first is the lithograph Femme espagnole (R. 769, M. 357), made on Tuesday 4 with lithographic pencil on report paper transferred to stone. It is actually a portrait of Nicolasa Herranz de Arias, the mother of his hairdresser Eugenio Arias, who gave him a dark portrait of his parents so that the painter could do it. 141 numbered copies are printed on Fabriano granulated vellum paper of 68 by 53 cm and edited by Edizioni d'arte Il Bisonte, the later famous art press that had just been founded in Florence. The lithograph is not printed by Mourlot, which leaves it out of the fourth volume of its catalog raisonné, completed in May 1964, although he does include it in its corrected and enlarged edition of 1970. The same drawing is used a few months later in a poster and the cover of the Amnesty pamphlet: Conférence de l'Europe Occidentale pour l'Amnistie pour les emprisonnées et exilés politiques espagnols. 363 The conference took place in Paris on March 25 and 26, 1961, and shortly after (from April 27 to May 14) an exhibition-sale was held at the Maison de la Pensée Française of works donated by the authors to help the Spanish republicans exiled in France. They contributed, in addition to Picasso and the Cádiz-born artist Vázquez de Sola, committed French painters, such as René Aberlenc, Paul Rebeyrolle, Catherine Lurçat, Jean Milhau, Autenheimer, Bret-André, Commère, Cueco, Simone Dat, Fougeron, Michel de Gallard, Pierre Garcia Fons, Hélène Girod de l'Ain, Gromaire, Léger, Marquet, Mentor, Mireille Miailhe, Minaux, Mottet, Ottaviano and Pignon. The extensive assistance given by Picasso to Spanish Republicans in French exile is not sufficiently documented, although there are some references in a book written by Josep Palau i Fabre 324. That same month of October of 1960 is, in all likelihood, when he makes another poster and catalog that does not pass through either Kahnweiler or Mourlot. This is the lithograph without drawing for the exhibition of his paintings held in the Sala Gaspar gallery in Barcelona in NovemberDecember of that year. It was the first paintings exhibition he made in Spain since the civil war and marks the return of Picasso to Spain. The exhibition, made up of 30 oil paintings painted between 1917 and 1960 never exhibited before and which the painter had selected and sent from Paris, became a cultural, social and political event with huge lines, which were said to be formed by PSUC communist militants. Despite the public success... not a single work was sold. The show was in any case the first step towards the creation of the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, for which Sabartés donated his collection of paintings precisely on October 26, 1960. In a parallel donation, Sabartés donated his collection of illustrated books by Picasso to the city of Malaga, which constituted the initial fund of the future Natal House Foundation of that city. The initiative of the exhibition undoubtedly corresponds to Sabartés, who in November 1955, on his return from a trip to Barcelona, had been accompanied to Paris by his gallerist friends Miguel and Joan Gaspar, who had already organized the city in 1956 a first exhibition of Picasso, but only of lithographs. 324 Palau i Fabre, Josep Picasso i els seus Amics Catalans, Aedos, Barcelona, 1971 364 But despite the importance of the event, the painter limited himself to writing a text: Sala Gaspar. Consejo de Ciento Barcelona. Pinturas de Picasso. Noviembre-Diciembre 1960. The lithograph (R. 767) made with lithographic pencil on paper transferred to stone, is published at 500 copies on light vellum paper of 76 by 57 cm and to 50 numbered and signed copies, all printed by Damián Claus in Barcelona. For the cover of the catalog of the exhibition (R. 768, Cramer 109), Picasso rewrites the same text. The catalog is printed at 1,000 copies with a cover on a paper of 23.5 by 19 cm. Neither of the two lithographs is catalogued by Mourlot. The pity is that Picasso had made on Monday November 7 a nice scale model for the exhibition poster that included a more elaborate calligraphy and a small drawing. This drawing was printed on a diptych of 18.3 x 24 cm sent by the gallery to its customers in December. To compensate in some way Louise Gallery, which also housed in Paris between November 30 and December 31 another exhibition of drawings by the painter, this time of bullfighting themes, Picasso executed on November 23 a poster, this one printed by Mourlot (R. 770, M. 334). It was made according to Reuße with lithographic pencil in two papers of report, passed to two stones, one for the drawing of a picador, printed in brown, and another one for the text, printed in black. But something in this poster seems suspicious. First, the text is printed in a corner and above the drawing. In the second place, Picasso signs the text in the lithograph, and not the drawing, which does not seem logical. 365 In addition, Mourlot does not speak in his catalog of a composition made with lithographic pencil, but only of a lithograph. It could mean that some of the drawings of Picador and bullfighter that the painter made between July 12 and 14, 1959 and that have a surprising similarity with the poster were used. Mourlot could well reproduce that drawing by photomechanical procedures and print it in lithography on the blank left by the handwritten text, dated and signed by Picasso on report paper. In any case, the gallery edited 1,500 copies printed on lightweight vellum paper. And there was no signed edition for Kahnweiler, while Picasso had done it for his exhibition in Barcelona. Picasso did not take long to reoffend, becoming unfaithful to Kahnweiler and Mourlot, and again with Sala Gaspar in Barcelona. As soon as the exhibition of paintings of November and December of 1960 closed, Miguel Gaspar organizes another one in January and February 1961, this time of drawings. The painter writes again by hand the text of the poster, although this time he adds a small drawing of a picador and a bull barely distinguishable in between text lines. The poster Dibujos de Picasso (R. 782, M. 337), made with lithographic pencil on report paper, is printed again by Damián Claus's printing house in Barcelona. According to Mourlot it is published at 250 copies on vellum paper. But there is also an edition of 50 numbered copies signed by Picasso printed on Rives paper. According to Reuße actually 500 copies are printed, but in ordinary paper, and another 60 additional copies are printed in Rives, but this time without numbering or signing. The unsigned edition can be found for a few hundred Euros in the market. For example, Germann Auktionen house in Zürich sold one in its auction on November 18, 2009 for 340 Swiss Francs (Lot # 476). And is has also been possible to acquire copies of the signed edition at an affordable price. For example, Ketterer Kunst of Munich sold in auction No. 312 of November 4, 2006 (Lot 51) signed copy No. 6/50 for only € 774, including expenses. On the opposite side of the price scale, we found in November 2013 a signed copy for sale in the Artisonline gallery of Faubourg St Honoré in Paris, for € 7,000. 366 Recidivism should not have pleased his printer and gallery owner, but this did not daunt the painter, who once again committed himself to infidelity in the Barcelona project. The Gaspar Gallery, just after the last exhibition, once again organizes yet another one for the month of April, this time of drawings, gouaches and watercolors, and Picasso from Cannes helps the effort to renew the visitors’ success of the previous ones. In the first place, on Tuesday, March 7, 1961, he made a black print with a lithographic pencil on a report paper turned to stone. Here again he writes the text, but this time with more care and a greater sense of composition and includes a large drawing in the center, Trois bouveurs (R. 796, M. 340). Picasso also signs the poster on the report paper. According to Mourlot 250 copies of the poster printed on vellum paper are printed, always by Damián Claus, but according to Reuße they would have been 500 and printed on ordinary paper. In addition, 50 numbered and signed copies (that is, with a second signature with a graphite pencil) are printed on Rives vellum paper. That is according to Mourlot, because Reuße increases the print run to 60. But the thing does not end there. In April, Sala Gaspar repeated the exhibition of drawings, and Picasso made a second poster, this time with the text and a color drawing with a face formed by two eyes, a zig-zag line for the nose, a red point for the mouth and two vertical strokes marking the sides of the face. (R. 798, M. 339). To do so, the painter uses lithographic pencil and five report papers, one for each color (light blue, yellow, green, dark blue and red) two of them with flat frottage on different surfaces, which give three types of plot. According to Mourlot, of this poster of 72 by 52 cm, 250 copies would 367 have been printed on vellum paper, which according to Reuße could be 550, of which 60 on Rives. In addition, another 50 numbered copies are printed and signed by the painter in pencil. For this exhibition, the gallery also publishes a catalog in which the 72 drawings, gouaches and watercolors that are exhibited are reproduced and a preface by José Bergamín is included. And Picasso also makes the cover of the catalog with a drawing similar to the poster and the same text, but a smaller size. The catalog (Cramer 110) is published at 1,000 unnumbered copies, all with Picasso's lithograph of 24.5 by 19.3 cm (R. 797, M. 338). Finally, Miguel Gaspar also publishes a portfolio on the occasion of the exhibition: Picasso: 2 litografías originales (Cramer 111) which includes a wide-margins print of the lithograph in colors of the cover of the catalog and another titled Espectadores (R.783, M. 341), a cartoon in black of small size made on Friday, January 27, 1961 with pencil on lithographic paper transferred to stone. Both lithographs are printed on a thick Guarro paper of 46.3 by 36 cm and the print run is 50 numbered and signed copies and 10 proofs hors commerce. But let's go back to November 1960, when the painter made an original lithograph to accompany the book Le Carmen des Carmen (Cramer 126), a beautiful realization that has a whole history behind it. The Carmen by Prósper Mérimée, published in 1847 is the favorite of French literature in terms of Hispanic themes, gave rise to Georges Bizet's opera of the same name in 1875 and has been taken more than twenty times to the cinema since the first version of Arthur Gilbert in 1907. The book has been illustrated over and over again in France by 368 dozens of painters, especially in the first half of the 20th century, inflating the coffers of each publishing house that launched a new edition. Among the most popular are those illustrated by Maurice Barraud, Charles Martin, André Lambert, Baron Hans Henning Voight (Alastair), Picart Le Doux, Jean Charlot, Ben Sussan, Albert Dubout, Umberto Brunelleschi, Hermann-Paul, Gaston de Sainte- Croix, Marguerite Frey-Surbek, Gaston Vuillier, Demetrios Galanis, André Collot, Leon Courbouleix, Paul Cuchet and Jean Traynier. But somehow, French publishers wanted a Spaniard to illustrate it too, thinking that an Iberian would know how to recreate a more authentic plastic universe of the bullfighting and gypsy worlds than the French artists could achieve. We suppose that Picasso must have rejected on more than once an invitation to illustrate the book. The painter and friend of Picasso Antoni Clavé, who had gone into exile in France at the end of the Spanish Civil War and established in Paris friendship with the Andalusian –who often invited him to satisfy his hunger in the restaurant Le Catalan in front of his studio in Grands Augustins– received in 1944 his first assignment as an illustrator, a job with which he would earn his living for many years. It was the book Lettres d'Espagne, a precursor text of Mérimée from 1831, the fruit of his first trip to Spain the previous year, in which the writer became friends with Don Cipriano Guzmán Palafox and Portocarrero, Count of Montijo and his little daughter Eugenia, future wife of Napoleon III and Empress of France. Picasso had a special fondness for Clavé, whom painters Flores García and Grau Sala, had brought to his studio. In June 1944 Clavé celebrated with the Andalusian the Allied landings in Normandy and spent hours chatting. The beautiful book by Clavé, illustrated with 27 beautiful and elaborate original lithographs, of which 8 full page, had considerable success, and he was thus asked to illustrate Carmen. He did it in 1946 with 39 original lithographs and with similar success. 369 Picasso could not avoid the commission, and in 1948 he accepted the one from La Bibliothèque Française, the communist publisher founded by Louis Aragon, which published it the following year. To illustrate the book (Cramer 52) Picasso chose to make 38 burin etchings representing mostly faces reduced to the minimum expression, in an exercise that Louis Aragon would later call 'Jansenist', that is, excessively austere. Although Pilar Rodríguez Martínez and Salvador Bonet claimed in their study Temas españoles en 8 libros ilustrados por Picasso, that the explanation of the austerity of the illustration is that the painter “felt distant” from the myth of Carmen and considered the theme of Mérimée’s text as false and contrived 325 , it seems more likely that the painter simply found himself in a period in which 'Spanish' themes did not attract his attention. In all the year 1948, in which he made the Carmen etchings and he illustrated Góngora too, he did not do any work on the subject, not even faintly Spanish, and in this we include the etchings of the book Góngora, which except for the portrait of the poet could perfectly serve to illustrate any work by a Swedish author. Besides, Picasso probably wanted to distance himself from the illustration that was traditionally done in France of the work, and specifically that which his compatriot Antoni Clavé had made three years before. Before the disappointment of the publisher, who expected something with more energy, the painter agreed to add four original aquatints, made in May 1949, when the book was already printed and ready to be commercialized, and only for the first 11 copies. Of the etchings, two represent women with peineta (decorative comb), one a picador and another a bullfighter, but even so the book does not convey a Spanish atmosphere and did not impress anyone. In 1957, Louis Aragon asked from Paris a gesture to help raise funds for the Comité national des écrivains, a communist organization that he presided and suffered from a growing bleeding of affiliates and economic difficulties arising from the support he had given to the Soviet invasion of Hungary. Picasso accepts, perhaps to compensate for the slight he had inflicted on the poet in the summer, by refusing to open him the door to La Californie, or perhaps to point out that although he did not want to see him, he was still willing to help the party's causes. 325 Ferrer Barrera, Carlos y Inglada, Rafael Picasso. Libros ilustrados. Colección de la Fundación Picasso (1988-2008), Fundación Pablo Ruíz Picasso - Museo Casa Natal, Málaga 2009 370 So, at the suggestion of Aragon, he illustrates on December 5, 1957, a copy of the Carmen of 1949, adding everything it needed: joy, color, eyecatching and Spanish atmosphere, with which the book took on a new life. It contains a beautiful portrait of Jacqueline with peineta, mantilla and fan as a frontispiece, and bullfighters illustrations, young ladies and flowers in the margins of the text and a magnificent new version of the corrida that he had made on November 23 and 24 of that year for San Lazzaro and for Galerie Louise. This beautiful artist's book gave rise to the exhibition Picasso Carmen: Sol y Sombra, held at the Picasso National Museum in Paris between March 21 and June 24, 2007. The catalog of the exhibition reproduces many pages of the book and was published by Flammarion 326. The painter does his best in the illustration of this book, and prepared the work conscientiously. The illuminations that Picasso adds in the margins of the texts are placed in the essential passages of the book. As Anne Baldassari, director of the National Picasso Museum in Paris, points out, the painter adds bull heads as trophies to underscore the importance of the text and accompany the key replicas exchanged between Don José and Carmen. Picasso seems to be personally involved in the drama. For the curator, through Carmen, Picasso made in this artist's book “the portrait of painting”, approaching as much as 326 Baldassari, Anne Picasso Carmen: Sol y Sombra, Flammarion, Paris 2007 371 possible “that zero and blind point where the real emerges in the painting” 327. Following the planned liturgy, the copy is auctioned and acquired by publisher, actor and friend of the painter Marcel Duhamel, who gives it back to the party so that its new publisher, Editeurs Français Réunis, also founded by Aragon, can publish it in 1964 with the title Le Carmen des Carmen. The preparation of Picasso's new illustrations for the book is of course entrusted to Mourlot, who evidently designates Henri Deschamps to carry out the work, with remarkable success. The lithographs of interpretation are as showy and Picassian or more than the ones that the artist does personally on stone. In any case, the painter has to give the bon à tirer of each illustration. Deschamps also gets on this occasion the recognition of being cited in the artist's book, along with the signatures of Aragon and Picasso, as one of the 'authors' of it. And to complete the book and provide the party with a sufficient amount of income, the painter also contributes three original aquatints of the same series that he made on Saturday, April 3 and Monday, May 2, 1949 for his first Carmen. He also adds a nice drypoint of a picador made especially for this book on October 24, 1960 (Picador au repos, Bloch 1000) and an original lithograph (Torero y señorita R. 772, M. 332), the latter made the same Monday, October 24, 1960 for the black plate and 327 Baldassari 2007, pp. 29-31 372 Friday, November 4 for the red one, on report papers transferred to stone. From all this work, 245 copies of the book and of the prints numbered by hand are printed on Arches paper in the 'current' edition. And Picasso, who of course does not charge a franc for all the work, numbers and signs with a green pencil, for the 30 copies of the luxury edition, the same number of copies of each of the 3 previous aquatints and an additional one, all with large margins, as well as the lithograph and drypoint, all printed on Japan nacré paper. From the lithograph, Reuße records and illustrates a proof of the black plate (R.771) and two cross-proofs, that is, canceled with a large X of black (773) and red (774). However, we have found that Mourlot also printed some proofs of the red plate printed in black. One of these was auctioned by Bonhams Auctions in its sale nº 21014 Prints & Multiples held in San Francisco on October 22, 2013 (Lot 128). Printed on Arches paper with the Mourlot watermark, the proof was unnumbered but it was signed in red by Picasso. The lot also included a proof of the lithograph in two colors but without signature on Japan nacré. In any case, the commission of Aragon, who signs the book with the painter in the justification, was completed: Picasso had finally illustrated Mérimée’s Carmen as the French public wanted, and after selling most of the copies to dealers, the coffers of the party publisher are inflated thanks to the Spaniard. Note in this sense that the lithograph, drypoint and aquatints have reached remarkably high prices at auctions. Already in 2002, Sotheby's, in its sale nº L02195 (Old Master, Modern and Contemporary Prints) held in London on December 5, 2002, sold a copy of the Torero y señorita lithograph signed on Japanese paper (Lot 178) by 3,585 Sterling Pounds, and one of the aquatints (Lot 173) for 3,346 Pounds. In October 2007, Christie's 373 auctioned in its Sale nº 1897 (Prints and Multiples) the complete series of prints in Japan paper, numbered each XXI / XXX, of the luxury edition. The catalog included an estimate of between $ 40 and $ 60,000, but the final bid reached $ 109,000. The Leslie Sacks Fine Art Gallery in Los Angeles later sold some of the XXI / XXX copies one by one for higher prices and in June 2013 it still had one for sale (Ref. PIX1003C). That same month of November of 1960, and between the two plates of the lithograph for Carmen, the painter made a new version of the Bacchanal. It is the Hommage à Bacchus (R. 775, M. 336), made with lithographic pencil, pencil frottage, brush gouache and scraper on report paper transferred to a 50 by 63 cm stone. The painter works this print, more elaborate than the previous versions of the same theme, on 27, 28, 30 and 31 October, as well as on November 1 and 2, 1960. The lithograph is published by the Louise Gallery, at 50 copies printed on Arches paper of 54 by 69.5 cm. Before finishing the year 1960, the painter draws a beautiful portrait of the poet Arthur Rimbaud made with lithographic pencil on report paper passed to a stone of 23 by 30 cm (R. 776, M. 342). The portrait is made from a photo taken in 1871 and is used as a frontispiece in the 'book' (rather portfolio) Arthur Rimbaud vu par les peintres contemporains (Cramer 119) edited in 1962 'on behalf of an amateur', which it is none other than Henri Matarasso. Rimbaud had been considered by the Surrealists as a precursor, and for the Matarasso album also contributed with signed original graphic work Jean Arp, Georges Braque, Jean Cocteau, Max Ernst, Valentine Hugo, Alberto Giacometti, Joan Miró and Jacques Villon. Picasso's is signed in the report paper on Tuesday, December 13, 1960, and those contained in the 'book' carry an additional signature with graphite pencil. The portfolio of 38 by 52 cm is printed at 104 copies, of which 97 in Arches paper numbered from 1 to 97 and 7 in old Japan, numbered A to G. 374 Some copies were also made on Richard de Bas color paper of for the collaborators of the edition, which were many, but according to Mourlot, all would be signed by Picasso. Of these, Reuße has found three proofs of the Picasso lithograph, one in brick red paper (R. 777) another in blue (R. 778) and another in brown (R. 779), but none of them carry the second signature of the painter. We have nevertheless found a copy in red brick signed for sale for € 10,000 at the Michelle Champetier Gallery in Cannes and a copy of the signed lithograph by Miró marked as hors commerce but printed on white paper. We have also found a sale at Christie's (Lot No. 319, Auction No. 1322 of April 28, 2003) of the Picasso's lithograph printed on white paper but without additional signature, which indicates that as usual, some proofs were printed that were not cataloged by Mourlot or Cramer. The day after making the portrait of Rimbaud, that is on Wednesday, December 14, 1960, Picasso made another lithograph for a “book”, in this case one of Pablo Neruda (Toros, Cramer 107). The communist poet, whose freedom Picasso had sought in 1948, visited the painter in Paris in 1960, and there agreed with Picasso to publish his poem Toro illustrated with reproductions (made by the mythical Daniel Jacomet) of 15 wash drawings done between July 1959 and June 1960 that the painter had showed him. To accompany the 50 luxury copies of the edition, published by the communist art publisher Au Vent d'Arles, Picasso made a lithograph on 14 December in Cannes on report paper passed to stone of 27 by 47 cm, printed on Richard de Bas vellum paper. Picasso numbered and signed the 50 copies of the Toros lithograph (R. 780, M. 343). The same lithograph was used for the poster announcing an exhibition held at the Bellechasse Gallery in Paris between April and May 1961 and printed at 300 copies (R. 781). According to Mourlot, Reuße and Cramer, the 15 wash drawings that had been reproduced in the book were exhibited, but this does not seem very coherent, among other 375 things because in December of 1960 Galerie Louise had already exhibited the originals of the Picasso bullfighting wash drawings (along with gouaches and pen drawings, all of bullfighting themes), and everything suggests that it had sold them. In any case, it would be very rare for Kahnweiler to transfer part of its stock to the Bellechasse Gallery. Most likely, what was exhibited (and sold) in the gallery was simply the book itself –with French translation by Jean Marcenac– since the name of the publisher, directed by Jeanine Crémieux, wife of L'Humanité journalist Francis Crémieux, appears on the poster. From this book, published in 500 copies, a reedition was made in Chile in 2007, this time in lithography and only 350 copies, financed by the Itaú Foundation. Picasso does not abandon bullfighting, since his next lithographic work is for another book: Toros y Toreros (Cramer 112), made for his friend the bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguín, whom the painter asks to write the introduction. The matador describes in an interesting text his friendship with Picasso and the Spanish nostalgia of the painter, exemplified by his love for bullfighting. The book, one of the most popular ever published on works by Picasso, also has a study by the collaborator of Aragon and art critic Georges Boudaille and the reproduction of 16 drawings in sepia wash made on October 4, 1959, as well as the drawings, washes and sketches contained in three sketchbooks, one made between June 1957 and July 1959, another on March 1959 and the third on April 3, 59. The book was published in 1961 by Cercle d'Art at 150 luxury copies and a massive current edition of no less than 48,000 copies, a part of them in English distributed by H. Abrams of New York, another in Spanish distributed by Gustavo Gili of Barcelona (who reissued it in 1980) and another in Italian by Banca Popolare. The book sold out so quickly that the publisher printed a second edition in 1962, a third in 1980 (also in French, Spanish by Gili, English by Alpine Fine Arts, German by M. DuMont Schauberg, and Italian by Rizzoli) and a fourth in 1993, again in several languages, including Japanese. 376 But the edition that interests us is the luxury one of 1961, which is the one that contained the original lithograph and was made with an unusual care by five different companies that took care of the different tasks: Imprimerie Union for the text and the typography, Imprimerie Moderne du Lion for simple reproductions, Bosson and Auclair for photoetched prints, Barast and Adine for binding and Mourlot for original lithography and lithographic reproductions. It was printed, like all luxury editions, on loose sheets of Arches vellum paper and was accompanied by a suite of the 16 color illustrations of the sketchbooks, reproduced in lithography by Mourlot, as well as the original lithograph that Picasso does, in a conventional way and without much effort. In fact, Picasso made the same Tuesday, February 7, 1961 two essays for this book. The first one, called Corrida (R. 784, M. 244) was made in black with a lithographic pencil on paper passed to stone of 32 by 49 cm. It is a very simple drawing of a picador, a bull and a bullfighter. The painter has made two backgrounds with frottage of a pencil in flat on two surfaces of different roughness. But this drawing is discarded and sent to Galerie Louise to be published commercially at 50 copies, printed on Arches paper of 66 by 50 cm). In the second, also in black (R. 785, M. 345), which is the one used in the book, Picasso draws using the same technique and again with two backgrounds made with frottage, not one but six bullfighting suertes (acts) and two loose characters. The problem is that the size of the stone is even smaller (27 by 37 cm) than the previous one, with which the drawings are reduced to their minimum expression. We assume that the director of Cercle d'Art Charles Feld should not have been very satisfied. Picasso could have enhanced the lithograph with something colored on sheets of transparent report paper, but the publisher did not have much time. In fact, the book is ready for a massive launch when Luis Miguel Dominguín has not yet written his introduction and the publisher, worried because it is the publication with the largest circulation ever made by the house, his most ambitious project, asks Mourlot to proceed with the print 377 run of the 160 copies of the lithograph, in Arches paper of 50.2 by 37.7 cm. Then he invents a trick that his friend Picasso accepts to raise the value of the book and thus contribute once again to the finances of the party: at the time of signing the 155 copies of the lithograph, the painter will apply color by hand to five proofs, which will be included in the folder of reproductions of the first five copies of the luxury edition. The total print run of the latter is, according to Cramer as follows: 5 copies numbered 1 to 5 with the lithograph signed with graphite pencil as frontispiece of the book, another proof from the partially erased stone and yet another additional proof colored and signed by Picasso with color pencil, included in the suite of lithographic reproductions; 120 copies, numbered from 6 to 125, with the lithograph signed in pencil as frontispiece and the suite of lithographic reproductions; and 25 hors commerce copies for the artist and his friends, numbered from 126 to 150. Note that there is a discrepancy among the authors regarding the total number of printed proofs of the lithograph that we have just described. On the one hand, Mourlot speaks of 125 copies, numbered and signed by Picasso and 25 proofs hors commerce for the artist, which would make a total of 150. Probably on the basis of Mourlot's description, Reuße speaks of 25 artist copies plus 155 signed, which makes a total of 180 copies. We opted for a different figure of 160 copies in total, calculated as follows: 150 proofs signed from the frontispiece in each of the copies of the book, including hors commerce copies; 5 proofs colored by hand of the first 5 copies and another five proofs of the lithograph from the partially erased stone that are also included, according to Cramer, in the folder of the first 5 copies. Of these 160 proofs of the lithograph, 125 are signed by hand with graphite pencil and the first five additional proofs (1 to 5) are signed with colored pencil. But it is more than likely that, after the edition, Picasso signed most of the 25 proofs of the artist copies that were delivered to him, possibly as the only payment for his work and for the reproduction rights of the popular illustrations of the book (reproduced ad nauseam in tableware, key chains, bookmarks, etc.), which go to the party and continued to give dividends until in 1993, when the heirs of Picasso sued the publisher, claiming that the transfer that Picasso had made of the rights of reproduction was only worth for the first edition. The case ended with a decision of the Paris Court of Appeal in 2001 that obliged the publisher to pay reproduction rights to the heirs of the painter. Of the five proofs of the lithograph colored by hand by the painter for the book Toros y Toreros, the trace of three of them has been lost. Cramer reproduces in his catalog raisonné one, probably taken from the collection of the Swiss banker Jean-Léon Steinhauslin to which he had had access and which seems to be the only complete collection existing in the world of books illustrated by the painter. Picasso has added to the drawing in 378 black some touches in red, yellow, orange, light blue, green, brown and burgundy, all with crayons, and signed in the lower right corner with a brown pencil. After looking for more copies, we have only come across one, numbered 4/125, auctioned on November 11, 2009 by the American house Swan Galleries, which contained two signed lithographs, one black and white and another hand-heightened with colors. In this copy, most of the light blue color has disappeared, but the painter uses green and orange more, signing the proof with a gray pencil on the lower left, next to the date. The book was sold for the modest sum of $ 26,000. The same book appears later in the catalog of the Wisby Smith Fine Art gallery in Dallas, Texas. We have not found more copies of the edition of 5, but we have found a reproduction, although it appears somewhat doubtful. It is reproduced in xylography and included in the book by Federico García Lorca Chant funèbre for Ignacio Sanchez Mejías, published in France by art publisher Pierre de Tartas in 1976. In this case, the blue of Cramer’s copy has been replaced by a gray, only three other colors (red, blue and yellow) have been used and the signature appears in black. What curiously does not include this woodcut is the date inscribed by the painter. We do not know if Picasso would have approved the publication of this last book, as his heirs did authorize the use of his drawings. What we do know is that the poem, in translation by poet and publisher Guy Lévis Mano, was illustrated by his nephew Javier Vilató in 1950 with five etchings. We also know that André Sauret once proposed the Spaniard, always using Fernand Mourlot as an intermediary, to illustrate a text by the Granada poet, possibly the same one. The painter was not very enthusiastic about the idea, perhaps because he was already engaged in the preparation of several books with bullfighting themes. In any case, Sauret had the audacity to show up in La Californie to ask for a handful of lithographs to illustrate a Quixote and the Lorca text. To convince him he told the painter, according to Mourlot, that he had a suitcase with 100 million old francs in the car (about 200,000 dollars at the time) to pay him in advance. Picasso kindly refused to accept the cash and the project fell into oblivion. Picasso does not close bullfighting with Toros y Toreros, since his next lithographic work is done on Monday, March 6, 1961, and again for a 379 book. It is the text of Jaime Sabartés A los Toros avec Picasso (Cramer 113). Here, the publisher André Sauret does not want to waste the vein that Toros and Picasso mean, and that Neruda's book has already shown. The idea arose probably on the occasion of the exhibition of bullfighting drawings made in the Louise Gallery on December 1960, for which the painter drew the poster that we described above (R. 770, M. 334). Well, those 103 wash drawings are the ones that are reproduced in this book, with a text by Sabartés about the enthusiasm of the fans and the atmosphere in the plaza. To add value to the book, Picasso made that March 4 four original lithographs drawings with lithographic pencil on report paper four themes: La Pique (R. 786, M. 346), Le picador (R. 787, M. 347), Jeu de la cape (R. 7910-791, M. 348) and Les banderilles (R. 794-795, M. 349). They are simple drawings with lithographic pencil in the manner of the many that the painter does in those years, and particularly similar to the one made in December 1960 for Neruda's book. These four litographs will be the only ones that Picasso will do in his life in the castle of Vauvenargues, in the department of Bouches-du-Rhône, which he had acquired in 1958 in memory of his admired Cezanne, who painted in those forests and where in fact he died after being surprised by a violent storm. As soon as he bought the Castle, the Spaniard telephoned Kahnweiler to say “I bought Cezanne’s Montagne Sainte-Victoire”. The dealer, who could not remember which painting he was referring to, asked him to clarify it, to which Picasso replied: “the original”. The following month, on Friday, April 21, 1961 Mourlot appears with his wife in the castle to give the painter the proofs of these lithographs and 380 with a request from Sauret. The printer, accustomed to Picasso's refusals to the demands of the publishers, transmits without much conviction the desire of his best client for something in color, suggesting the possibility of adding some color to one of the proofs that he presented to him. The painter, of an evident good humor that day, reflects a moment and responds "Ah, so he wants colorrr, Mr. Mourrrlot ...!" He immediately calls Jacqueline, whom he had married on March 2, and asks her to show the mansion to the visitors. After they have completed the tour, Picasso invites them to go down to his studio, anticipating to the printer that, since he wanted color, he would be satisfied. He then proceeded to show them the proof of the lithograph Le picador colored endlessly with wax pencils. Picasso knew that what he had done was going to create a major problem for Mourlot, since one stone would have to be made for each color, that is, he would have to prepare 24 additional stones to print the lithograph. The painter laughed like a child, and before the face of circumstances of the printer, he explained: “I used all the colors because it looks better. What is a pity is that there are no boxes of 36 colors! I hope you have fun !” This anecdote gives rise to one of the most popular color lithographs of Picasso. Mourlot’s chromists were forced to make a transfer of each stain for each color that Picasso had used and prepare each of the colors so that the tone coincided with that of the wax pencils before passing to each stone. The work took ten days but finally the painter gave the bon à tirer. This new lithograph, which has two dates inscribed by Picasso, 6.3.61 (for black) and 21.4.61 (for the 24 additional colors), is listed by Reuße with number 788 and by Mourlot with the 350. At the time of printing there is a new challenge from the painter to his Parisian dealer, since Sauret not only edited the book, but also made a separate print of each of the lithographs, printed at 50 numbered and signed copies, the same as Kahnweiler. In terms of size and the exact lithographs that are the subject of this limited edition, there is some confusion. On the one hand, Mourlot indicates in his catalog that the separate circulation is 50 numbered copies, signed and with margins. Mourlot never gives in his catalog the sizes of the papers on which the lithographs are printed, but that of the lithographic 381 stone. Reuße does not help us, since of the 5 lithographs, he only catalogs and illustrates one copy with margins. It is precisely that of the black plate of the picador (R.787, M. 347) and gives as measurements of the paper 37.9 by 51.4 cm. The lithograph is not signed, as almost none of the Reuße catalog, which are usually artist proofs. For the rest, he only indicates that a lithograph, La Pique (R. 786, M. 346), has been printed with large margins, but the measurements of the paper given are 24.4 by 31.8 cm, that is, the size the book. We have looked for copies with margins and we have managed to find several proofs of the lithograph of the picador that confirm the signed edition on Arches paper of 38 by 51 cm. The first one we found was auctioned by Christie's in its 1990 sale of April 29-30, 2008 (Lot 218), awarded in New York for $ 16,250. In this case, it is an artist's proof, apart from the 50 copies edition of the color lithograph (M. 350), but it is signed with a graphite pencil. And the dimensions of the paper are 38.1 by 50.8 cm. We have also found another copy of the color lithograph of the edition of 50, also auctioned by Christie's in a previous sale in London (Nº 7282 20-21 September 2006, Lot 317). The dimensions here are approximately the same (38.2 by 51.2 cm). It is numbered 22/50 and signed in pencil and was sold for 7,200 British Pounds (then equivalent to 13,630 dollars). Interestingly, the previous lot of this auction was the lithograph of the picador but in its impression from the black stone only (Reuße 787 Mourlot 347). It is a numbered proof and at large margins. The lithograph was not sold and does not appear in the auction results archives of Christie's. The only dimensions that we have of this proof are 18.5 by 22.2 cm, which coincide with the dimensions of the stone that Mourlot gives, although Reuße mentions 19.2 by 22.8 cm. As for the book of 25.2 by 32.5 cm, this was printed in landscape, bound with gray cloth with a printed wash drawing of a picador and a bull and slipped in a red case with the reproduction of a lithograph in black (lithograph R. 127, M. 25 made on January 7, 1946). No luxury copies were published, but the print run, not documented, must have been very large. We are probably talking about thousands of copies, as the publisher liked to do. Three editions were made with different titles: in French A los Toros avec Picasso, in English Toreros and in German A los Toros mit Picasso. In spite of the great circulation, the copies of that book of fifty years ago containing the four lithographs are sold in the market for several thousand dollars, proof of the attractiveness of a good color lithograph by Picasso. 382 20. The last lithographic jobs The following lithographic work by Picasso was again for another book, in this case by his friend Jean Cocteau (Picasso de 1916 à 1961, Cramer 117). The initiative of the book of course came from the poet, who had already asked Picasso to illustrate another book of his. Fernand Mourlot says that when he visited the painter on April 16, 1950 (the day he made the portraits of Paloma and Claude in lithography), Picasso agreed to illustrate a book by Cocteau to be edited by Mourlot, but when the printer tells him that he has the right text, a book on the Andalusian published by Cocteau in 1924, Picasso says he does not know the text and asks him to lend him a copy. Mourlot brings him the book, but when days later he asks him what he thought of it, Picasso pretends to have lost it and offers Mourlot as compensation for the loss an original drawing. The printer is sure that the painter had not lost the book, but simply had not liked it and to avoid to embarrass Cocteau he had faked the loss. And the book was never talked about again. But in 1961 the painter did not manage to escape once more. The publisher of Cocteau, Pierre Bertrand from Éditions du Rocher, gathers eleven poems dedicated to the painter and asks Picasso to illustrate them with 24 lithographs. The painter chooses to imitate the poet, who was also a wellendowed draftsman with an unmistakable style, and makes 24 drawings or scribbles with lithographic pencil on report papers, of which 8 are full-page and two are double-page. Although many of them could resemble those that Cocteau had made, they are all totally Picassian and despite their simplicity they are not devoid of beauty,originality and grace. 383 As he had been asked to make a cul-de-lampe (a vignette included as an ornament at the end of a text), Picasso took the order literally, drawing on page 18 an oil lamp with an appendage in the shape of buttocks. On page 104 he repeats, but this time without a lamp, only the buttocks. The lithographs, made with a supreme quality by Mourlot in the size of the book (37.7 by 28 cm) are cataloged by Reuße with numbers 801 to 824 and by Mourlot (which does not include the cover) with numbers 359 to 380. Of these lithographs at least 302 proofs are printed, 255 of which are for the book and 47 for the suites. If we follow Cramer, an indeterminate number of artist copies of the book would have been printed away with two suites each, which would increase the number of printed proofs. The painter offered at the last moment another more elaborate lithograph for the book. It is called Tête (R. 825, M. 358), of which 30 copies signed and numbered from 1 to 30 were printed, 16 of them for the first copies of the book and 14 for the artist. It is a face of man in profile, which houses another profile in the interior (Picasso and Cocteau), and is made on Monday, November 6, 1962 with lithographic pencil and frottage on report paper and passed to stone. The 16 lithographs (without margins) are printed on a paper of 36.5 by 25.5 cm, while those that Picasso kept were printed with margins on a paper of 55.1 by 37.5 cm. The book is published in loose sheets with a print run of just over 255 copies and a complex distribution: 199 numbered copies on Rives vellum paper with the signature of Cocteau and Picasso on the justification page. These include the 24 lithographs by Picasso, but not the additional lithograph Tête. They come in loose sheets with a cover in green and gray with a Picasso lithograph printed in a cut out profile, behind which appears the title and the authors. A new black cover protects the previous one, with a spine marked "COCTEAU * PICASSO" that slides into a 384 gray box. In addition to these copies, 25 copies on paper of better quality numbered XXVI to L are printed; 15 copies on paper of the same type but in ivory color and with a suite on chiffe de France paper numbered XI to XXV; 10 copies on Mulberry rice paper with two suites, one in Mulberry and one in chiffe de France, including the additional lithograph Tête, and numbered I to X; 5 copies on Cévenole Nacré paper with two suites, one in natural silk paper and one in China paper, a handwritten page by Cocteau and the additional lithograph, numbered A to E. Finally, a copy is printed in Tussor silk paper, with an autographed text by the author, two suites, one in Tussor silk bark and the other in Cévenole, several originals and additional lithograph. This unique specimen is marked "". According to Cramer, the 56 copies cited outside the 199 edition are printed on paper with the watermark of the signature of Cocteau and Picasso. Actually, only the suites carry the watermark, and this is alternatively Cocteau’s or Picasso’s, but not both. Finally, Cramer points out that some additional copies are also printed with two suites, one in Mulberry and another in pure chiffe de France for the author, illustrator and collaborators. These are unnumbered and marked exemplaire d'artiste. However, we have verified that publisher Pierre Bertrand’s copy comes from the series of 25. In any case, even in the case of Cocteau, 56 already seem too many hors commerce copies for a book. 385 While Cocteau's book was being developed, Picasso also contributed a lithograph (Le déjeuner sur l'herbe, R. 826, M. 352) to another book for Cercle d'Art. In this case it is Les Déjeuners, which reproduces the 138 drawings and 27 preparatory paintings for the canvas of the same title, Picasso's version of Edouard Manet's painting and in which he had worked intensely in 1961. It was drawn on Saturday, January 27, 1962 in Cannes with lithographic pencil on report paper of passed to stone and is a sketch of the painting. A day earlier, he had started working on a linocut with the same motif, completed on March 13 (Bloch I: 1027). According to Reuße, of this lithograph, only a few e.a. are printed on Arches paper of 27.1 by 36.8 cm. and 150 numbered and signed as frontispiece of the luxury copies of the book Les Déjeuners. Mourlot specifies that 25 artist copies have been printed for Picasso and his friends. Cramer confirms this statement, noting that the latter accompany the 25 artist copies of the of the book, apart from the luxury edition of 125. Cramer adds that of the current edition, without the lithograph, 14,000 copies have been printed, distributed in editions in French, Spanish, Italian and English. We should note that there is also a German edition (A+G De May, Düsseldorf, 1962), and another North American edition (Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1963). In the same year 1962 Picasso makes again a poster, this time for the Polish Jew Alexandre Glass, tailor and resistant reconverted into gallerist in 1955 with the name of Alex Maguy. Between May 30 and June 30, 1962 he holds at his Galerie de l'Elysée, at No. 69 of the Faubourg Saint Honoré in Paris, an exhibition of 7 important paintings by Picasso, which was not a banal competition for Galerie Louise. To announce it, the painter creates a poster for which, on Sunday, April 15, he makes a 37.1 by 30 cm drawing of a face with lithographic pencil, frottage and a scraper on transfer paper passed to stone, of which an avant la lettre proof exists (R. 827). To add color, the painter then writes part of the text in another larger lithographic paper, which will be printed in ocher. The 386 painter adds brown to another part of the text and as an additional background to the portrait. The beautiful Affiche pour la Galerie Alex Maguy (R. 828, M. 382) is printed at 2000 copies in Arches vellum paper of of 65.1 by 48, 2 cm. 25 artist copies of this beautiful poster would also have been printed. We found a copy with a light blue signature of Picasso for sale in Drosia (Athens) in May 2013 for $ 4,700 and another without a signature in the Rare Posters and Prints gallery in New York for $ 3,850, which seems somewhat exaggerated. For example, the Von Zezschwitz gallery in Zurich sold an identical copy of the 2000 edition at auction number 36 on June 4, 2007. Although we do not have the award price of this Lot No. 257, its starting price was only € 400. And Bonhams sold in London on March 26, 2007 (Auction No. 14850, Lot No. 110) a copy for 720 pounds. Sales house Drouot Richelieu of Paris also sold a copy on December 15, 2008. The estimated price of this lot No. 13 was 400-500 € And linked to the United States, the painter made a poster for an exhibition held at the Art Gallery of the University of California at Los Angeles (R. 799, M. 351) between October 25 and November 12, 1961 under the title Bonne fête, monsieur Picasso! It is a simple drawing of flowers in a vase, signed in Cannes on Tuesday May 23 of that year and dedicated for U.C.L.A. It was made with lithographic pencil in seven transparent report papers, one for each color (yellow, light green, dark green, red, light blue, dark blue and black) passed to stone. 100 avant la lettre proofs, numbered and signed by the painter were printed on Arches vellum paper 57.8 by 45.2 cm and another 2,500 copies of the poster with the lithograph in the center and an ocher background with the text, printed on paper vellight vellum of 75.3 by 53.5 cm. Both the poster and the signed edition were printed by Mourlot. The same lithograph was used (reproduced in four colors) for the cover of the exhibition catalog, a small 64-page booklet with a prologue by DanielHenry Kahnweiler. It is in fact the only gift that the painter will give to an American institution, after the paintings donated to be sold to the benefit of the Spanish republicans after the war. The initiative was carried out by Frank Perls, a German Jew who emigrated along with his gallerist parents in 1937 –fleeing the Nazis– to the United States, where he opened with his brother Klaus his own gallery in Hollywood. In 1944 he was part of the 387 expeditionary corps that landed in Normandy. As he spoke German and French, the Army Intelligence Service asked him to help investigate the pillaging by the Hitlerites of works of art owned by Israelites. But his greatest glory was the discovery, along with Sergeant Martin Dannenberg, also Jewish, of the original Nuremberg Laws of 1935, signed by the Fürhrer himself. He stayed a while in France and there he made friends with Picasso, Matisse and other painters. Then he returned to California where he developed a lucrative career as a gallerist and established a close relationship with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. At the approach of the 80th anniversary of the painter, the bold Perls came up with the crazy idea of organizing an exhibition in California. He asked the help of his clients, friends and millionaire Californians and managed to gather more than 250 works from all the Picasso periods, which were exhibited at the Dickson Art Center, the university's exhibition hall. To complete the initiative, Perls went to see Picasso and asked him, as gallerist, to make a lithograph for the exhibition. But Picasso gave him the lithograph for free, asking that the profits from the sale were dedicated to finance a new program of scholarships so that Fine Arts students at UCLA could study abroad. The signed lithographs were sold for $ 200 each, and the unsigned posters for $ 15, which produced a considerable funding for the time. Everything was sold on the first day of the exhibition 328. Picasso made another poster in lithography for his friend Frank Perls, although in this case we do not know if the painter was paid or not by his wealthy friend. It is the lithograph announcing the Picasso exhibition: 60 Years of Graphic Works, held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art between October and December 1966 (R. 859, M. 406), the last poster he made with Mourlot. For this purpose, on Tuesday, June 28, 1966, he drew a drawing with fifteen colors (two yellows, orange, vermilion, rust red, two browns, ocher, two greens, two blues, violet, pink and black.) The drawing, which includes a face of the type which the painter was painting at that time and all the text of the poster 328 Ramzanali, Asad Long-forgotten Picasso drawing,‘Flowers for UCLA,’ was given to school in 1961 for artist’s 80th birthday. Published in UCLA Daily Bruin, 23 de Noviembre de 2009 388 except the name PICASSO, was made with wax pencils and was passed to stone by the Mourlot workers, who did it so well that the painter returned one of the proofs with the inscription très bon a tirer. A current edition of 2,500 copies was printed with the painter's name in white typography on a gray background, and 100 copies avant la lettre (that is, only without the name, since the rest of the text is handwritten by the painter) that were numbered and signed by Picasso. The signed copies were printed on a Arches vellum paper of 76.5 by 56 cm, while the posters, printed on ordinary paper, were somewhat smaller (74 by 51 cm). In fact, avant la lettre copies were also printed outside the signed edition, as shown by the impression sold by Ivey Selkirk of Saint Louis in its auction on November 10, 2012 (Modernism with Regional Fine Art). It was estimated between 350 and 450 $. One of the signed copies is in the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA Number: 65.1967), a gift from Frank Perls. On Sunday, May 20, 1962, Picasso makes again a portrait in lithography of his wife, which will be his last: Portrait de Jacqueline à la mantille (R. 829-830, not cataloged by Mourlot). This time he works in Mougins with wash drawing and lithographic pencil and scraper directly on zinc. From the first state (R. 829) only 8 artist copies are printed. Picasso takes again the zinc plate on Friday July 6, 1962, remaking almost the entire portrait with lithographic pencil, wash and scraper. From this second state, only 5 artist proofs are printed on Arches paper of 66 by 50 cm, just like the previous one. In June 1962 Picasso undertakes in lithography a family portrait in the manner of neoclassical painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, favorite painter of the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie of the nineteenth century, who had already inspired him in 1907 to make his oil Grande odalisque. The first version of Portrait de famille ingresque (R. 831, Mourlot 1970 383ª) is made on Tuesday 19 with lithographic pencil on zinc plate. It could have been inspired by a drawing by Ingres made in 1818 (La Famille Stamaty). In this first attempt there are three characters in a bourgeois room: a gentleman, a lady and a young woman, all three sitting and looking to the left of the drawing. Only 7 copies of this lithograph are unfortunately printed on Arches paper of 56.2 by 76.3 cm. 389 But Picasso in October took one of those proofs and filled it with colors with wax pencils, achieving a beautiful composition that is preserved in the Picasso Museum in Paris (Catalog 1532, Zervos XXIII: 4). His second attempt (Portrait de famille I-Homme aux bras croisés, R. 832, M. 383) is done with the same technique on Thursday, June 21. The same three characters appear plus a young man and now they look at the painter, with a fireplace as background. This time the painter is satisfied and orders to publish it commercially at 50 numbered and signed copies in Arches paper of 56.5 by 76.2 cm. Picasso also took a proof of this lithograph and filled it with wax colors on October 9 of that year (Zervos XXIII: 2). And interestingly, another colored copy has also appeared, but in which the lithograph is printed inverted, this is with the date legible. In addition, the second date of 5.10.62 corresponding to coloring, appears inverted. In any case, it is cataloged by the On-line Picasso Project with the number OPP.62: 398 and reproduced in Picasso: Painting Against Time. Düsseldorf, Hatje Cantz Verlang, 2007. The third attempt (Portrait de famille II, R. 833, M. 384) is drawn, always with lithographic pencil on zinc, the same Thursday, June 21. The drawing is new but the characters are the same, although placed differently, that is, the young man on the right and the young girl on the left. The reason is that the zinc was passed to another plate or stone before printing, since the date appears legible in the proofs. The result again satisfies the painter, who ordered his commercialization by Galerie Louise at 50 numbered and signed copies. And again 390 Picasso retakes on October 11 a proof to color it with wax pencils (Zervos XXIII: 5). On July 6, 1962 the painter returns to the subject making new versions III, IV and V of his lithograph Portrait de famille (R. 834836, M. 385-387). These are simpler drawings and all three are published commercially, printed on Arches paper of 50 by 66 cm the first two and 57 by 76 cm the last. The latter will also be colored by Picasso on October 16 (Zervos XXIII: 3). On the same Friday, July 6, when he drew the second set of the Portrait de famille, Picasso made three other lithographs for the book Regards sur Paris (Cramer 120), another product of the initiative of the tireless André Sauret, who compiled texts on the French capital by ten members of the Académie Goncourt, which since 1900 had been awarding the most important literary prize in France. Each writer was, at Sauret's initiative, to be illustrated by a painter of his choice. One of the members of the Academy, Pierre Mac Orlan, who had known Picasso at the time of the Bateau Lavoir, expressed his desire that the Andalusian illustrated his text. Fernand Mourlot was commissioned by his client Sauret to convince Picasso, and so he asked him on one of his trips to Cannes. Picasso gladly accepted, and drew that July 6th three versions of his classic theme Le Peintre et son modèle with lithographic pencil on report paper. The painter dated the three and in the third he inscribed a dedication "for my dear Mac Orlan". The first (R. 837, M. 353) and the second (R.838, M. 355) were printed in the book on Arches paper on full page (38.5 by 26cm) and the third and largest (R. 839) , M. 354) was printed on a double page of 38.7 by 54.3 cm. The painters Carzou, Chagall, Villon, Dunoyer de Segonzac, Van Dongen, Masson, Brianchon, Beaudin and Braque also collaborated in the book with lithographs. 391 The book was printed in 180 copies, of which 120 were the normal edition, signed by all authors and painters on the justification page and with the 33 lithographs. In addition, ten copies were printed with a suite of all lithographs signed on Japan Nacré paper and another suite in Arches, numbered 1 to 10; 20 copies with a suite in Arches, numbered from 11 to 30; and 30 hors commerce copies for authors, artists and collaborators. In total, 220 copies of Picasso's lithographs were printed, of which ten were signed by the painter. In 1963, Picasso's first lithographic work is the illustration of the cover and back cover of the fourth and last volume of Mourlot's catalog of lithographs. For this work, he produced on Monday, February 4 an original lithograph of two masks with lithographic pencil and frottage and with cut-out paper, all on a report paper passed to stone. The double lithograph Deux Masques (R. 840-841, M. 388) recalls the small dry point that the painter used in 1957 to illustrate a mini-book by Pierre André Benoit (Bloch 829). The lithograph was printed on vellum paper of 50.9 by 67 cm with a print run of 3,000 unnumbered copies. Some copies were also printed with large margins, that is, without the paper being folded to wrap the unillustrated covers of the book. Picasso did not realize the frontispiece of this work until almost a year later, on Saturday, January 11, 1964, when he executed a new version of his theme Le Peintre et son modèle (R. 852, M. 399), made with pencil and frottage on report paper and printed on vellum paper of 32.1 by 24.5 cm. 392 That same Saturday, January 11, Picasso made another version of the same theme for Mourlot and with the same technique. The lithograph Le Peintre et son modèle II (R. 854, M. 400) will be used that same year and the following year in two small books of presentation of an itinerant exhibition. These exhibitions were actually motivated by a campaign to discredit lithography that shook Mourlot in the early sixties of the last century. A London art magazine had published an article describing Mourlot's printing press as a factory of falsehoods, adding that nothing that came out of there had anything to do with an original lithograph. He pretended that an artist could send a gouache to Mourlot from any corner of the world, that he would reproduce in lithography and sometimes even signed in place of the artist. In response to these attacks and to regild the blazon of original lithographs and his own company, Fernand Mourlot was sponsored by none other than the Smithsonian Institution, the main American cultural organization, which organized an exhibition of hundreds of lithographs of 57 artists who had made their lithographic work with the French printer. The exhibition of lithographs of the Mourlot workshop toured the United States between 1964 and 1965 and the book of presentation was Prints from the Mourlot Press (Cramer 128) in which collaborated with original lithographs Chagall (illustrating the cover), Miró, Picasso, Braque , Beaudin, Estève, Villon, Matisse, Guiramand, Florsheim, Cathelin, Brasilier, Brianchon, Cocteau, Minaux, Jenkins, Calder, Kito, Giacometti and Manessier. The circulation of these lithographs, all of them in the book, was 2,200 copies, of which 2,000 were printed on Arches paper of 25.4 by 19.3 cm and 200 on Rives paper of 29.6 by 21.7 for artists and collaborators, without a doubt their only remuneration. The book published for the North American traveling exhibition included a preface by Sidney Dillon Ripley II, patron of the organism, and a text by Jean Adhémar, in which the then head of the printing cabinet of the National Library of France tells the history of lithography and describes the work of the artists in the 393 Mourlot press. The book closes with a text by Mourlot himself, in which he presents his arguments in defense of his trade. The exhibition passed in December 1964 to the Redfern Gallery in London, where it stayed until January 31, 1965. The presentation book for this exhibition was L'Atelier Mourlot (Cramer 132), although this time there only were ten lithographs, including Le Peintre et son modèle II of Picasso and others by Chagall, Miró, Giacometti, Minaux, Jenkins, Matisse, Masson, Calder and Buffet. The size was unique here, of 25.7 by 19.3 cm, and the circulation of 1,000 copies in Arches and 150 copies for the artists and collaborators. After having abandoned lithography for nine months to devote himself to painting, ceramics in the summer and engraving in the Commelynk workshop since October 16, Picasso took the lithographic pencil again on Wednesday, November 6, 1963 to make a strange series of works drawing directly on zinc plate, all executed the same day. In principle, allowed him it is an important project of portraits, since it uses large plates of 62 by 46 cm and the wash drawing technique that has to make his best lithographs. However, none of the nine will be edited commercially (Tête de jeune femme de profil regardant à droite (R.842, M. 389, Profil d’homme regardant à gauche (R. 843, M. 390), Profil de femme regardant à droite (R. 844, M. 391), Grand profil de femme brune regardant à droite (R. 845, M. 392), Profil de femme blonde regardant à droite (R. 394 846, M. 393), Profil de femme regardant à droite (R. 847, M. 394), Jeune Femme de face (R. 848, M. 395), Profil d’homme regardant à gauche (R. 849, M. 396), Profil d’homme barbu regardant à gauche (R. 850, M. 397) and Profil d’homme barbu regardant à gauche (R. 850, M. 397). One of them, (R. 848) is a strange portrait that reminds one of Max Jacob in 1907. The rest are five faces of a woman in profile (R. 842, 844-847) and three faces of a bearded man in profile (R. 843, R. 849-850) that derive, especially the last two, from the drawing of the frontispiece for the Cocteau book we cited before (R. 802). Reuße does not give us more information on this series than the dimensions of the proofs he has examined and reproduced in his catalog, and which had been lent by Mourlot to Castor Seibel for an exhibition in Bonn. They were printed only at 10 artist copies of and made with “wax pencil” and wash drawing (and one with scraper) on zinc plate. There is no explanation on why they were not published commercially, which suggests that either Picasso had forgotten in a drawer the proofs that Mourlot sent him or that the painter was not satisfied with the result. The explanation is found in a small paragraph in Mourlot's memoirs of 1979, in which he points out that on one occasion Picasso had made a terrible mistake: he had begun to make a drawing with white wax to create a reserve that would be left without ink at the moment of printing, but the wax turned black. Picasso asked Mourlot to return the nine large zinc plates, which he did, but Mourlot never saw them again. In any case, the explanation has as a consequence that Mourlot was left with eight or nine proofs of each of the nine failed lithographs. The nine resurfaced in 1994 on the occasion of the auction by Sotheby's of the lithographs of the Mourlot collection (Sale No. 6624 held in New York on November 14, 1994). The proofs are annotated by Mourlot himself and marked "pour Eric", that is, given by the printer to his American grandson Eric Mourlot, son of Jacques born in 1970 and who founded and still runs the Galerie Mourlot at 16 East 79th Street in NY. We do not have the result of the auction, but the pre-sale estimate was between 1,000 and 5,000 dollars, which seems little for such rare proofs. But in 2003 a new set of proofs went on sale. It was rescued this time by Christie's, more specialized than Sotheby's in graphic work. This is sale No. 1322 held in New York on April 28, 2003, Lots 333 to 341. In this case it is proofs marked by Mourlot with its initials FM and the number of its catalog, but without dedication. The lithographs reached a sale price between 1,554 and 4,551 dollars. We have not detected other sales or auctions in which the rest of the artist copies were put on sale, but there is no doubt that they are or will be in the market. 395 The culmination of this failed series can not be other than the magnificent Portrait de Mademoiselle Rosengart (R. 857, M. 402). It is a portrait of Angela, the daughter of the German Jewish dealer (Swiss national since 1933) Siegfried Rosengart, friend of the painter, which was drawn on Thursday, October 29, 1964. Picasso had already made several portraits of her: a first drawing of the 22-yearold girl in Vallauris on April 28, 1954; a second and beautiful portrait with pencil and charcoal on a drawing paper of 37 by 27 cm on October 2, 1958 (Portrait d'Angela Rosengart, Zervos XVIII: 310) and will still make another portrait of the same person on 30 October 1966, but this time it is an aquatint that lacks the grace and beauty of the previous portraits (Bloch II: 1844). The Zammlung Rosengart Museum in Lucerne, where Siegfrid had his gallery, also has an aquatint of which we have not found other references. It is dated October 29, 1963 and is a simple profile portrait. Although perhaps the date is a mistake by Picasso and it was made the same October 29, 1964. 396 As for the precious lithograph, Picasso made the drawing with pencil and scraper on a zinc plate of 62.4 by 46.5 cm and which, according to Reuße, unfortunately only 6 proofs were printed. It is the last great lithograph by Picasso, printed on Arches vellum paper of 76.2 by 56.5 cm. Of the 6 printed copies, one is kept at the Museum Zammlung Rosengart in Lucerne, and another at the MOMA in New York (Ref 224.1976 donated by Angela Rosengart herself). This rare lithograph did not appear in the sale of the proofs given by Mourlot to his grandson at Sotheby's in 1994, but it did in the subsequent one of Christie's in 2003. It was included in this sale with the Lot number 345, with a price estimate of between $ 8 and $ 10,000, but the winning bid was $ 22,705. On Monday, February 3, 1964, Picasso made the lithograph of tribute to Braque, of which we spoke when we referred to the friendship that united the two painters. It was the only one made by the Spaniard for gallerist, publisher, printer and sworn enemy of Mourlot Aimée Maeght, who included it in a special issue of his magazine Derrière le Miroir in homage to the French painter (Cramer 124), together with other original lithographs by Miró , Tal Coat, Ubac and Pallut, as well as an etching by Braque and lithographic reproductions of Chagall, Giacometti and Chillida. But Picasso's lithograph was done by Mourlot, who had to work once again with his competitor Maeght. The lithograph Nu couché et chat (R. 855, M. 401), made with lithographic pencil and frottage on report paper passed to stone, was printed at 5,000 copies in the thick paper in which was always printed the current edition of the magazine and 350 in Rives vellum paper for the deluxe edition, all of them 37.9 by 55.9 cm. 397 On Friday June 12, 1964, Picasso renews his infidelity to Kahnweiler making two lithographs that will illustrate a book and will also be sold signed. But this time it is for a good cause: to pay tribute to the gallerist himself for his 80 years. The idea came from art critic Werner Spies, who wanted to tell Kahnweiler's story in the book. It also included the testimony of dozens of writers, artists and intellectuals. In addition to Picasso, other artists contributed to the book with lithographs (Elie Lascaux, Andre Beaudin, Andre Masson, Suzanne Roger, Eugene de Kermadec, Yves Rouvre and Sebastien Hadengue). For the cover of the book (Visage, R.856, M. 403), Picasso draws a face with lithographic pencil and frottage to which vertical and horizontal strokes give a cubist air that make the painter return half a century, to the time he made his famous portrait of Kahnweiler from 1910 preserved in the Art Institute of Chicago (Zervos II.1: 227). The second lithograph (Le Fumeur, R. 856, M. 404) represents a smoking man's face in the style of which Picasso painted almost obsessively since May 1964 and for many months. Both are printed at 800 copies for the current edition of the book Pour Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (Cramer 133), plus 100 copies printed on Rives vellum, with a suite of 9 numbered and signed lithographs (two of them by Picasso). A further 100 copies numbered I to C are printed for friends and collaborators of Kahnweiler and the publisher, which also carry a suite of lithographs. In total then, 1200 copies of each lithograph, in sizes of 29.5 by 21.5 cm for the cover and 28 by 19.5 cm for the one included in the book. The Spaniard does not make any lithograph until Sunday February 28, 1965 in which he draws a small portrait of William Shakespeare to illustrate a book by his ex-friend Louis Aragon, edited as usual, by Cercle d'Art. Picasso had made the 17th and 18th of April 1964, 9 days before the fifth centenary of the birth of the great bard, a series of eleven portraits of the poet with pencil and ink on paper. Perhaps inspired by them, Aragon wrote an account of a dream he had that took place in 398 Shakespeare's Denmark. Aragon may also appropriate an initiative that was not his, since on December 29, 1964, Kahnweiler had transmitted by letter to Picasso a request from Hélène Weigel, the widow of Bertolt Brecht who was still directing the Berliner Ensemble in Communist Germany, to make a portrait of Shakespeare, probably to illustrate a book edited by the actress with texts of the German playwright on the great bard 329. The story by Aragon, together with a preface entitled “Shakespeare, Hamlet and us” were enough to make a book that carries in the center a booklet with reproductions of the eleven Picasso drawings. But of course something original was needed, so Picasso contributed an original lithograph for the frontispiece of the luxury copies. The lithograph (R. 858, M. 405), made on a report paper that Picasso dates and signs, passed to stone, was printed on a large Arches vellum paper (48.5 by 32.6 cm) despite the fact that the drawing only occupies a quarter. 150 copies of it were printed, numbered from 1 to 150 for the 125 luxury copies of the book and the 25 hors commerce copies for Picasso, Aragon and other book collaborators. Picasso also contributed another small drawing as a vignette for the title page, a vignette that was published in green in the current English edition and in black in the French edition (3,000 copies in total that did not include the original lithograph). Although the Reuße reasoned catalog indicates that the 150 luxury copies of the book contain this numbered and signed lithograph, the illustration that accompanies the entry appears only with the signature and date, 329 Letter from Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler to Picasso dated 29.12.1964. Galerie Louise Leiris Archives. Cited in Assouline 1988, p. 436 399 which are actually made on the plate. The fourth volume of Mourlot's catalog, for its part, omits this lithograph. In fact, the 150 copies of the lithograph are all signed and dated on the report paper and also contain the graphite pencil numbering 1-150/150 at the bottom left and an additional Picasso signature in pencil below the printed date. We have located several copies with large margins and with the additional signature of Picasso. A copy of this lithograph, unnumbered, was sold by Ketterer Kunst in its auction No. 276 Art of the 19th and 20th Centuries, on December 7, 2002 (Lot 326). It was awarded € 3,680. But ten years later, Ketterer herself sold another copy signed and numbered 1/150 for € 2,500 (Auction 395 Modern Art / Side lines of the German Avantgarde of October 19, 2012, Lot 279). In 2005, Cornette de SaintCyr in Paris had auctioned copy numbered 111/150 and signed twice by Picasso in its sale on November 20. This lot 175 was estimated between 4 and 5,000 Euros. Swann Galleries of New York sold another copy numbered 48/150 and signed at its auction 2286, 19th & 20th Century Prints & Drawings, on 20.09.2012. This lot 570 was estimated between 4 and 6,000 dollars. Christie's also sold another copy in 2012, this time numbered 20/150, in its London auction 5334 Valuable Printed Books And Manuscripts held on June 13, 2012 (Lot 115). It was awarded for 2,750 Pounds ($ 4,252). To buy the complete book with lithograph becomes more expensive. The house Marninart of Reston, Virginia (USA) had in the autumn of 2013 a copy for sale for $ 8,000. It is numbered 20/150, and the lithograph it contains has the same numbering and the two signatures of Picasso, printed and autograph. The last lithograph made by Picasso is also for a book. This is Femme nue et homme à la canne (R. 861, M. 407), drawn on Friday, February 11, 1969 and intended for the luxury copies of the book Picasso Dessins 27.3.66-15.3.68, which contains the poem Mille planches de salut by René Char, published by Cercle d'Art and with text by Charles Feld, the resistant Jew who, after founding the Movement against Antisemitism, receives the commission from the French Communist Party to launch the publishing house, whose main sustenance would be precisely Pablo Picasso. Cercle d'Art published dozens of books on the painter, and in 14 of them the Andalusian also contributed original works without 400 receiving any remuneration, something that did not happen however with André Sauret, to whom he charged for his collaborations at market prices. In any case, Picasso seemed to pay special attention to this initiative by Feld to collect thousands of drawings made by the painter between 1966 and 1968. He reproduced 405 of them in the book. Picasso also drew on the same February 11 the original cover of the book, in the style of the paintings he painted in those days. The lithograph of 26.5 by 22.5 cm is a beautiful composition of a man with a cane that observes a pretty naked young woman and was printed at 150 numbered and signed copies on a much larger Arches vellum paper (56 by 39). cm). Of the 150 numbered and signed copies, 125 corresponded to the deluxe edition of the book and another 25 to the hors commerce edition for the authors and collaborators. One of these last copies 'h.c.' was sold on December 7, 2007 by Mallet Japan Auction House (Lot 291) for only 200,000 Yen (about 1,200 euros at the time). Picasso continued producing graphic work in large quantities after 1964, and also illustrated more than twenty books, but he did so using other techniques, mainly etching in the workshop that Aldo Crommelynck had established in Mougins in 1963 to exclusively serve the painter. Son of the Belgian dramatist Fernand Crommelynck, of which Picasso illustrated in 1968 a book (Le Cocu magnifique, Cramer 140), Aldo Crommelynck worked in the prestigious engraving workshop of Roger Lacourière (which had printed in 1933 the Vollard Suite), where he made engravings for Léger, Masson, Rouault and Miró, at the same time as he began to work with Matisse and Picasso. In 1959 he established himself along with his brothers Piero and Milan and soon managed to attract Masson, Arp, Jacques Villon, Zao Wou-ki, Hans Hartung, Miró, Le Corbusier, Giacometti and Paul Delvaux to his studio, while Picasso stayed with Jacques Frélaut, who had taken over in 1957 Lacourière's workshop when he retired. It is in this Crommelynck workshop where Georges Braque did his series of aquatints L'Ordre des Oiseaux. In the summer of 1963, Aldo moved to Mougins with his brother Piero after an agreement with Picasso, with whom they had begun to work in 1961, just as the painter moved in with Jacqueline to what would be his last residence: NotreDame-de-Vie. In this new workshop of Mougins, Picasso made no less than 750 prints, including among them the controversial erotic series 347 of 1968, the series 156 of 1971 and his books El Entierro del Conde de Orgaz and the aforementioned Le Cocu magnifique. At the death of the painter, Aldo returned to Paris and worked mainly with English and American artists such as David Hockney, Jasper Johns and Jim Dine. 401 Bibliography ADHEMAR, Jean, La Gravure originale au XXe siècle. Éditions Simery Somogy, París 1967 ALFORD, Kenneth D. Hermann Goring and the Nazi Art Collection, McFarland Publishing, Jefferson, N.C., 2012, ANTHONIOZ, Michel, L’album Verve, Flammarion, Paris 1987 ASSOULINE, Pierre, L’homme de l’art, D.H. Kahnweiler 1884-1979, Éditions Balland, París, 1988 AZCÁRATE, Manuel Derrotas y esperanzas: la República, la Guerra Civil y la resistencia, Tusquets. Barcelona. 1994 BAER, Brigitte Picasso the Printmaker: Graphics from the Marina Picasso Collection, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, 1983 BALDASSARI, Anne Picasso Carmen: Sol y Sombra, Flammarion, Paris 2007 BÄRMANN, Matthias Georges Braque: Obra gráfica. Colección C.S., Fundación Bancaja, Valencia 2002 BARR, Alfred Picasso: Fifty Years of His Art, Museum of Modern Art, Nueva York 1946 BERNADAC, Marie-Laure ; RICHET, Michèle y SECKEL, Hélène Musée Picasso: Catalogue sommaire des collections, I, Peintures, Papiers Collés, Tableaux-Reliefs, Sculptures, Céramiques. Paris: Réunion Des Musées Nationaux. 1985 BLOCH, Georges, Pablo Picasso. Catalogue of the printed graphic work, Kornfeld & Klipstein, Berna, 1968 - 1979. BRASSAÏ, Conversations avec Picasso. Paris, Éditions Gallimard, 1964 BREKER, Arno The Collected Writings, West Art Pub, New York 1990 402 CABANNE, Pierre, El siglo de Picasso, Vol II La guerra Gloria y soledad 1937-1973, Ministerio de Cultura., Madrid., 1982. 1992 — Le siècle de Picasso. Volume 3 Guernica et la guerre, Denoël, CABAÑAS BRAVO, Miguel La política artística del franquismo: el hito de la Bienal Hispano-Americana de Arte, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid, 1996 CASANOVA, Laurent Le communisme, la pensée et l'art, rapport au XIème congrès national du PCF, Strasbourg, 25-28 juin 1947. Éditions du PCF, Paris 1947 CORPUS BARGA, Los pasos contados: una vida española a caballo en dos siglos (1887-1957). Ediciones de EDHASA & Alianza Editorial Visor (1963-2002) COUTURIER, Marie-Alain ‘Se garder libre. Journal 1947-1954 Éditions du Cerf, Paris, 1962 CZWIKLITZER, Christoph Pablo Picasso, Plakate 1923 - 1973, Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 1981 CZERNIN, Monika y MÜLLER, Melissa El Barbero de Picasso, Siglo XXI de España, Madrid 2002 CHAPON, François Le peintre et le livre, Flammarion, Paris 1987 DAIX, Pierre Dictionnaire Picasso, Robert Laffont, Paris, 1995 DANCHEV, Alex Braque: A life, Arcade Publishing, New York, 2005 FERRER BARRERA, Carlos y INGLADA, Rafael Picasso. Libros ilustrados. Colección de la Fundación Picasso (1988-2008), Fundación Pablo Ruíz Picasso - Museo Casa Natal, Málaga 2009 GATEAU , Jean-Charles, Éluard, Picasso et la peinture (1936-1952), Droz, París 1983 GAUSS, Ulrike, Marc Chagall The Lithographs, Verlag Gerd Hatje, Stuttgart, 1998 GEISER, Bernhard ‘L’œuvre gravé de Picasso, La guilde du livre, Lausana 1955 GEISER, Bernhard y BAER, Brigitte Picasso. Peintre- graveur, Catalogue Raisonne de l'oeuvre grave et lithographie et des monotypes 1899-1972, seven volumes, Kornfeld, Berna 1986-1996 GEISER, Bernhard y BOLLIGER, Hans, Picasso: Fifty-five years of his graphic work, Harry Abrams, Inc. , New York, 1965, pag. XVI. — Pablo Picasso: Recent Etchings, Lithographs and Linoleum Cuts, Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1966 403 GILOT, Françoise y LAKE, Carlton “Vida con Picasso”, Ediciones B, Barcelona 1998. Original edition Life with Picasso, McGraw-Hill Inc., 1964 GIBERT Tristan (Editor) Réunions du Comité central du PCF 1944-1953 État des fonds et des instruments de recherche. Archives départementales de la Seine-Saint-Denis, 2009 GIEURE, Maurice G. Braque, Éditions Pierre Tisue, París 1956 GOEPPERT, Sebastian Pablo Picasso The Illustrated Books: Catalogue Raisonne, Patrick Cramer, Ginebra, 1983 GOSSELIN, Gérard (Editor) 145 dessins pour la presse et les organisations démocratiques, L’Humanité, París 1973 (supplement to Humanité Dimanche dated 5-11 September 1973) — (Editor) Picasso & la Presse, Éditions Cercle d’Art & L’Humanité, Paris 2000 GRENOUILLET, Corinne Lecteurs et lectures des communistes d’Aragon, Presses Universitaires franc-comptoises, Belles Lettres, Paris 2000 GUEGAN, Stéphane Les arts sous l'occupation : Chronique des années noires, Beaux Arts Éditions, Paris 2012 HORODISCH, Abraham Picasso as a book artist, The World Publishing Company, Cleveland & New York, 1962 HUFFINGTON, Arianna Stassinopoulos, Picasso, Créateur et destructeur Stock, Paris 1989 (original English version of 1988) JIMÉNEZ-BLANCO, Maria Dolores Catálogo Razonado Museo Picasso Colección Eugenio Arias, Consejería de Cultura y Turismo de la Comunidad de Madrid, Madrid 2008 LAGUNERO, Teodulfo. Memorias. La extraordinaria vida de un hombre extraordinario. Tabla Rasa/Ediciones Urano, Barcelona 2009 LAPORTE, Geneviève Si tard le soir, le soleil brille, Éditions Plon, París 1973 LEONHARD, Kurt L’Œuvre gravé de Picasso, Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1966 — L’oeuvre gravé de Picasso 1955-1966, Guilde du Livre, Lausanne, 1966 LEONHARD, Kurt / BOLLIGER, Hans L’Œuvre Gravé de Picasso, La guilde du Livre, Geneve 1966 LICHTENSTERN, Christa Picasso: Monument á Apollinaire, Éditions Adam Biro, París, 1990 404 MADELINE, Laurence y FERRI, Laurent Les archives de Picasso : « On est ce que l'on garde ! », Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris, 2003 MANTURA, BRUNO, MATTIROLO y VILLARI (editores) Picasso 1937-1953. Gli anni dell'apogeo in Italia, Umberto Allemandi & C.Turín & London, 1998 MIGUEL MONTAÑÉS, Mariano. Pablo Picasso: The Last Years, Assouline Publishing, New York, 2004, MOREL, Maurice Max Jacob post mortem, publicado en DENOËL, Jean In Memoriam Max Jacob, Les Amis de Max Jacob, Paris, 1974 MOURLOT, Fernand, Picasso Lithographe Andre Sauret, Montecarlo (volumes I, II, III & IV, 1949, 1950, 1956 y 1964) — Miró Litógrafo, Tomo I, Polígrafa, Barcelona 1972 1970. — Picasso Lithographe, André Sauret - Éditions du Livre, Paris, — Souvenirs et portraits d’artistes, A.C. Mazo , Paris 1973 (Normal edition. The luxury edition with lithographs was published in 1972) — Gravés dans ma mémoire, Éditions Robert Laffont, Paris 1979 MUNDY, Jennifer Georges Braque: Printmaker, Tate Gallery, London, 1993 NADEL, Ira B. Modernism's Second Act: A Cultural Narrative, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2013 NASH, Steven A. (Editor) Picasso and the war years 1937-1945, Thames and Hudson, San Francisco, 1998 NERET, Xavier-Gilles Henri Matisse: Les papiers découpés, Taschen, Kohln, 2009 OCAÑA, Maria Teresa; BOZAL, Valeriano; LÉAL , Brigitte; GRACE GALASSI, Susan y VIVES, Rosa Picasso: Paisaje interior y exterior; Electa/Institut de Cultura de Barcelona/Museu Picasso, Barcelona 1999. OROZCO, Miguel La odisea de Miró y sus Constelaciones, Visor, Madrid 2016. An English version of this book, under the title The true story of Joan Miró and his Constellations is available at Academia-edu: https://www.academia.edu/36154630/The_true_story_of_Joan_Mir%C3 %B3_and_his_Constellations PARMELIN, Hélène Picasso Plain: An intimate portrait, StMartin’s Press, Nueva York 1963 405 PALAU I FABRE, Josep Picasso i els seus Amics Catalans, Aedos, Barcelona, 1971 — Picasso 1917-1926, Könemann, Colonia 1999 PAULHAN, Jean Braque le Patron, Mourlot Editor, París 1945, luxury edition — Lettre aux directeurs de la Résistance, Les Éditions de Minuit, Paris, 1952. Re-edited in 1987 by Éditions Ramsay, Paris. PAULHAN, Jean y GRENIER, Jean : Correspondance 1925-1968, Calligrammes, Paris, 1984 PEYRE, Yves Peinture et poésie: Le dialogue par le livre, Éditions Gallimard, París 2001 PENROSE, Roland Picasso, Flammarion, Paris 1982. First English edition: Picasso: His Life and Work, Victor Gollancz Ltd, London, 1958 RAU, Bernd Pablo Picasso Obra gráfica, Ed. Gili, Barcelona 1982. — Pablo Picasso. Die Lithographien. Verlag Gerd Hatje, Stuttgart 1988-1994 READ, Peter Picasso & Apollinaire: The Persistence of Memory, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2008 REUSSE, Felix, Pablo Picasso Lithographs, Hatje Cantz Publishers, Ostfildern 2000 REVERDY, Pierre Pablo Picasso et son œuvre, Ed. de la Nouvelle Revue française, Paris 1924 — Une aventure Methodique. Maeght, Paris 1950 — Ancres, Maeght Editeur, Paris 1977 — El canto de los muertos seguido de Arena movediza. Colección Poemas y Ensayos Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, Ciudad de Méjico 1992 RICHARDSON, John The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Picasso, Provence and Douglas Cooper, Pimlico, London, 2001 RODRÍGUEZ MARTÍNEZ, Pilar and BONET, Salvador Temas españoles en 8 libros ilustrados por Picasso. Fundación Picasso Casa Natal, Málaga 2009 SABARTES, Jaime Portraits et Souvenirs, Louis Carré et Maximilien Vox, París, 1946. SECKEL, Helene & Chevriere, Emmanuelle (Editor) Max Jacob et Picasso (Catálogo de exposición), Réunion des Musées Nationaux, París, 1994 406 SEIBEL Castor A même la pierre - Fernand Mourlot lithographe, Pierre Bordas et Fils, Paris 1982 SORLIER, Charles Mémoires d’un homme de couleurs, Le Pré aux Clercs, Paris, 1985 SZCZUPAK-THOMAS, Yvette Un diamant brut, Vézelay-Paris 19381950, Éditions Métailié, Paris 2008 SZYMUSIAK, Dominique Matisse et Tériade, Anthese, Arcueil, 2002 TABARAUD, Georges Mes années Picasso, Éditions Plon, Paris, 2002 THE PICASSO PROJECT. Picasso's Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings & Sculpture. A Comprehensive Illustrated Catalogue, 1885 -1973. 26 volúmenes, Alan Wofsy Fine Arts, San Francisco 1995-2016. THOREZ, Maurice Rapport au 12ème congrès national du PCF, Gennevilliers, 2-6 avril 1950 UTLEY, Gertje R. Pablo Picasso: The Communist Years, Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2000 VALLIER, Dora Braque, the Complete Graphics, Gallery Books, New York, 1988. French 1982 edition by Flammarion, Paris. VANDERPYL, Fritz-René L'art sans patrie, un mensonge: le pinceau d'Israël, Mercure de france, París 1942 WALTHER, Ingo F. Pablo Picasso 1881-1973 Le genie du siecle, Taschen 1986 WARNCKE, Carsten-Peter Pablo Picasso 1881-1973, Taschen MaxiLivres Profrane, Kohln, 2002 ZELEVANSKY, Lynn (Editor) Picasso and Braque, a symposium, MOMA, New York, 1992 Doctoral theses and Journal articles ALVAREZ DE TOLEDO, Sandra: Un ghetto à l’est. Wilno, 1931, Review Communications, Centre Edgar Morin, Paris, 2006 - Volumen 79 – Numero 1 ÁLVARO OÑA, Francisco Javier La “I Bienal Hispanoamericana” de 1951. Paradigma y contradicción de la política artística franquista, memoria presentada al VII Congreso da Asociación de Historia Contemporánea Santiago de Compostela-Ourense, 21-24 Septiembre de 2004. 407 CONESA, Séverine Ici en Deux: étude critique et génétique de l’album Matière et mémoire, ou les lithographes à l’école, de Jean Dubuffet et Francis Ponge, PhD Thesis Université Lumière Lyon 2, 2011. CABAÑAS BRAVO, Miguel Picasso y su ayuda a los artistas españoles en los campos de concentración franceses. Congreso Internacional sobre la Guerra Civil Española 36-39. Sociedad Estatal de Conmemoraciones Culturales, Madrid 2006 DAIX, Pierre Picasso at Auschwitz. ARTnews, September 1993, pp. 188193 DENOYER, Aurélie L’opération Boléro-Paprika : origines et conséquences. Les réfugiés politiques espagnols : de l’expulsion à leur installation en RDA, published in Résonances françaises de la guerre d'Espagne, Éditions d'Albret, Nérac, France 2012 Derrière le Miroir, Hommage a Georges Braque, Maeght Éditeur, Paris 1964 DULPHY, Anne. La politique espagnole de la france (1945-1955), published in Vingtième Siècle. Revue d'histoire. N° 68, Presses de Sciences Po, Paris, Octubre-Diciembre de 2000, páginas 29-42. FERNÁNDEZ MARTÍNEZ, Dolores Complejidad del exilio artístico en Francia, published in Revista Migraciones & Exilios, UNED, Madrid 2005, pp. 23-42 FORCADE, Olivier: Censure, secret et opinion en France de 1914 à 1919, published in Matériaux pour l'histoire de notre temps, Volumen 58 - Numero 1, París 2000 LAHANQUE, Reynald Le Réalisme socialiste en France (1934-1954), Thesis under the direction of Profesor Guy Borreli, Nancy II University, 2002 LAVIN, Irving Picasso's Bull(s): Art History in Reverse, published in Art in America, March 1993, Brant Publications, New York, 1993 MARCOS ÁLVAREZ, Violeta Los comunistas españoles exiliados en la región de Toulouse, 1945-1975, published in ALTED, Alicia y DOMERGUE, Lucienne editors: El exilio republicano español en Toulouse: 1939 – 1999, UNED/Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 2003, pages 149-170 OROZCO, Miguel Braque contra Picasso. Babelia El País 11-01-2014 READ, Peter Dans 'La Cuisine' du peintre: connotations littéraires et politiques d'une oeuvre de Picasso, Revue du Louvre No. 3, París October 2003, pp. 75-84 408 SALAS, Denis La justice de l’épuration. À la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. published in La Documentation française, Revue Histoire de la justice, n°18, Paris 2008 VERDES-LEROUX, Jeannine L'art de parti: le parti communiste français et ses peintres 1947-1954 published in Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales Centre européen de sociologie et de science politique de la Sorbonne Vol. 28, París, June 1979 ZERVOS, Christian Réponse à Laurent Casanova, membre du bureau politique du PC, published in Cahiers d’Art, Nº 1 1949, pp. 73-80 ZERVOS, Christian Oeuvres récentes de Picasso exposées à la Maison de la pensée française, published in Cahiers d’Art, Nº 2 1949, pp. 237272 409 Table of equivalences of Picasso's lithographs in the catalogs of Reuße/Mourlot/Bloch Reuße Mourlot Bloch 1 I 35 2 II 36 3 III 38 4 VII 1310 5 VIII 40 6 IX 41 7 X 42 8 XI 43 9 IV 39 10 V 1309 11 VI 2018 12 XII 1312 13 XIII 1313 14 XIV 64 15 XV 65 16 XVI 66 17 XVII 67 18 XVIII 68 19 XIX 69 20 XX 73 21 XXI 74 22 XXII 75 23 XXII 75 47 6 - 24 XXIII 95 48 6 379 25 XXIV - 49 12 - 26 XXIV - 50 12 - 27 XXIV - 51 12 - 28 XXIV - 52 12 - 29 XXV 1314 53 12 - 30 XXVI 96 54 12 380 31 XXVII98 55 8 - 32 - 682 Vb 56 8 - 33 - 682 57 8 378 34 1 375 58 9 - 35 2 376 59 9 - 36 3 377 60 9 - 37 4 - 61 9 - 38 4 384 62 9 - 39 5 - 63 9 - 40 5 - 64 9 - 41 5 - 65 9 - 42 5 383 66 9 - 43 7 - 67 9 393 44 7 - 68 13 - 45 7 - 69 14 - 46 6 - 70 15 - 410 71 16 - 106 17 - 141 37 - 72 16 - 107 17 - 142 37 - 73 16 - 108 17 - 143 37 - 74 16 - 109 17 389 144 37 - 75 16 - 110 17 389 145 38 - 76 16 - 111 19 382 146 39 - 77 16 - 112 20 - 147 40 396 78 16 - 113 167 386 148 41 397 79 16 - 114 10 1342 149 42 398 80 16 - 115 11 1343 150 43 399 81 16 - 116 11 1343 151 44 400 82 16 - 117 30 - 152 45 401 83 16 - 118 31 - 153 46 402 84 16 - 119 31 - 154 47 403 85 16 - 120 24 - 155 48 404 86 16 - 121 24 385 156 - (905) 87 16 - 122 21 1344 157 49 405 88 16 - 123 22 - 158 50 406 89 16 - 124 23 - 159 50 406 90 16 - 125 27 - 160 51 407 91 16 - 126 28 1345 161 52 - 92 16 - 127 25 1346 162 53 408 93 16 - 128 26 387 163 54 409 94 16 - 129 29 388 164 55 410 95 16 390 130 32 - 165 56 411 96 18 381 131 32 - 166 57 412 97 17 - 132 32 391 167 59 413 98 17 - 133 33 - 168 58 - 99 17 - 134 33 - 169 60 414 100 17 - 135 33 392 170 61 415 101 17 - 136 34 - 171 62 416 102 17 - 137 34 394 172 63 417 103 17 - 138 35 395 173 64 418 104 17 - 139 36 - 174 66 419 105 17 - 140 37 - 175 65 420 2 176 67 421 211 109 - 369 111 518 177 69 422 212 109 - 370 112 519 178 70 424 213 109 - 371 113 520 179 68 - 214 109b 442 372 114 521 180 68 - 215 86 443 373 115 522 181 68 - 216 85 444 374 116 523 182 68 - 217 88 - 375 118bis 525 183 68 - 218 89 446 376 118ter 526 184 68 - 219 87 445 377 118 185 68 423 220 90 - 378 119bis 527 186 73 - 221 91 447 379 119ter 528 187 73 425 222 92 448 380 119 188 74 426 223 93 - 381 120bis 529 189 74 426 224 94 - 382 120ter 530 190 76 429 225 95 - 383 120 1260 191 78 430 226 96 - 384 121 573 192 71 427 227 97 449 385 125 576 193 75 428 228 98 450 386 122 - 194 77 431 229 98 450 387 126 577 195 79 432 230 99 - 388 127 578 196 72 433 231 100 451 389 128 579 197 80 434 232 103 454 390 129 580 198 81 435 233 101 452 391 130 - 199 82 436 234 102 - 392 131 - 200 83 437 235 102 453 393 131 - 201 84 438 236 104 455 394 131 - 202 109 439 237 104 - 395 123 574 203 109 440 238 104 455 396 124 575 204 109 - 239 105 456 397 133 - 205 109 441 240 106 458 398 133 - 206 109 - 241 107 459 399 133bis - 207 109 - 242 108 460 400 133bis - 208 109 - del 243 al 401 134 - 209 109 - 367 117 524 402 134 586 210 109 - 368 110 517 403 134 586 3 1258 1259 404 134 - 439 140 - 474 160 591 405 134 586 440 140 - 475 159 - 406 134 - 441 142 582 476 163 594 407 134 - 442 143 584 477 163 594 408 134 - 443 141 583 478 163 594 409 134 - 444 145 - 479 164 595 410 134 587 445 145 - 480 165 596 411 134 - 446 145 - 481 166 597 412 134 - 447 145 - 482 168 598 413 134 586 448 144 585 483 169 - 414 134 - 449 146 - 484 170 - 415 135 - 450 146 - 485 172 599 416 136 - 451 147 - 486 175bis 601 417 136 - 452 148 - 487 175 - 418 136 - 453 151 - 488 176 602 419 137 588 454 152 - 489 163bis - 420 137 588 455 149 - 490 176bis 603 421 137 588 456 149 589 491 176bis 603 422 137 - 457 153 1836 492 178 - 423 137 588 458 - - 493 178 - 424 137 - 459 154 - 494 178 - 425 137 - 460 155 - 495 178 - 426 138 - 461 150 - 496 178 - 427 138 - 462 150 609 497 178bis - 428 138 - 463 156 590 498 178bis - 429 138 1353 464 158 - 499 178ter - 430 138 1354 465 158 - 500 178 431 138 - 466 157 - 501 178ter 612 432 132 581 467 157 - 502 179 - 433 139 405 468 173 - 503 179 604 434 139 - 469 174 600 504 180 615 435 139 - 470 161 592 505 180 616 436 139 - 471 162 593 506 180 617 437 139 - 472 - - 507 180 618 438 140 - 473 160 591 508 180 619 4 - 509 180 620 544 188 675 579 201 - 510 180 621 545 188 675 580 201 - 511 180 622 546 190 676 581 201 686 512 180 - 547 191 677 582 201 686 513 180 623 548 192 678 583 201 686 514 180 624 549 193 679 584 209 - 515 180 625 550 195 - 585 209 - 516 180 626 551 195 681 586 202 - 517 180 627 552 195 681 587 203 687 518 180 628 553 194 682 588 204 1262 519 177 605 554 196 683 589 205 - 520 177 606 555 197 - 590 206 - 521 177 607 556 197 - 591 207 688 522 177 608 557 197 - 592 208 689 523 185 611 558 197 - 593 210 708 524 171 610 559 197 - 594 211 709 525 182 - 560 197 - 595 212 710 526 183 - 561 197 - 596 213 711 527 183 613 562 197 - 597 214 1356 528 184 614 563 198 1838 598 214 712 529 181 629 564 200 684 599 215 549 530 181 630 565 199 685 600 215 - 531 186 664 566 201 - 601 217 715 532 186 664 567 201 - 602 216 714 533 187 665 568 201 - 603 218 716 534 187 666 569 201 686 604 219 717 535 187 667 570 201 - 605 220 718 536 187 668 571 201 686 606 221 719 537 187 669 572 201 686 607 222 720 538 187 670 573 201 - 608 223 721 539 187 671 574 201 - 609 225 723 540 187 672 575 201 - 610 226 724 541 187 673 576 201 686 611 227 725 542 189 674 577 201 - 612 224 722 543 188 - 578 201 - 613 228 726 5 614 229 727 649 255 761 684 284 800 615 230 728 650 256 762 685 286 801 616 231 729 651 257 764 686 287 825 617 232 730 652 262bis - 687 288 - 618 233 731 653 262bis - 688 288 826 619 234 732 654 262 765 689 290 - 620 236 733 655 264 766 690 290 - 621 237 734 656 259 767 691 290 828 622 235 738 657 263 768 692 289 - 623 238 - 658 - 916 693 289 - 624 238 740 659 265 - 694 289 827 625 239 739 660 266 - 695 289 1274 626 240 741 661 266 - 696 298 837 627 241 742 662 266 - 697 299 1275 628 271 743 663 266 - 698 291 830 629 271 744 664 281 796 699 291 - 630 271 744 665 280 795 700 292 831 631 242 - 666 280 795 701 293 832 632 243 747 667 280 795 702 294 833 633 243 747 668 267 778 703 295 834 634 245 748 669 269 779 704 295 - 635 244 749 670 272 780 705 296 835 636 244 749 671 273 789 706 297 836 637 246 750 672 274 790 707 316 - 638 247 751 673 275 791 708 316 873 639 248 752 674 268 792 709 316 874 640 249 753 675 270 793 710 300 838 641 250 754 676 279 794 711 301 1278 642 251 755 677 279 - 712 301 1278 643 254 758 678 277 797 713 302 839 644 252 756 679 278 798 714 303 840 645 258 759 680 276 625 715 304 - 646 260 760 681 282 - 716 304 - 647 261 763 682 282 1272 717 304 - 648 253 757 683 283 - 718 304 842 6 719 304 - 754 323 1285 789 350 1017 720 304 843 755 324 898 790 348 1015 721 304 - 756 325 899 791 348 1015 722 304 - 757 326 - 792-3 348-9 1015-16 723 304 844 758 326 - 794 349 1016 724 305 841 759 327 - 795 349 1016 725 306 845 760 327 900 796 340 1294 726 306 - 761 328 901 797 338 1018 727 306 - 762 329 902 798 339 1293 728 307 846 763 330 903 799 351 1297 729 307 - 764 331 904 800 356 1019 730 307 847 765 335 1289 801 - 1037 731 311 848 766 333 999 802 359 1038 732 311 - 767 - 1840 803 360 1039 733 311 - 768 - 1841 804 362 1040 734 308 849 769 357 1009 805 361 1041 735 308 850 770 334 1288 806 363 1042 736 309 851 771 332 - 807 365 1043 737 309 - 772 332 1005 808 364 1044 738 309 852 773 332 - 809 366 1045 739 309 - 774 332 - 810 374 1046 740 310 853 775 336 1006 811 368 1047 741 310 - 776 342 1007 812 369 1048 742 310 854 777 342 1007 813 370 1049 743 312 856 778 342 1007 814 371 1050 744 313 1280 779 342 1007 815 372 1051 745 314 1281 780 343 1008 816 373 1052 746 285 855 781 343 1008 817 367 1053 747 315 868 782 337 1292 818 375 1054 748 317 869 783 341 1010 819 376 1055 749 318 870 784 344 1011 820 377 1056 750 319 871 785 345 1012 821 378 1057 751 320 872 786 346 1014 822 379 1058 752 322 2017 787 347 1013 823 380 1059 753 321 - 788 350 1017 824 381 1060 7 825 358 1845 838 355 1036 851 398 1182 826 352 1024 839 354 1035 852 399 1155 827 382 - 840 388 1108 853 399 1155 828 382 1298 841 388 1108 854 400 1846 829 - 1368 842 389 - 855 401 1847 830 - 1368 843 390 - 856 403-4 1179-80 831 - 1369 844 391 - 857 402 1843 832 383 1029 845 392 - 858 405 1197 833 384 1030 846 393 - 859 406 1302 834 385 1031 847 394 - 860 - - 835 386 1033 848 395 - 861 407 1464 836 387 1032 849 396 - 837 353 1034 850 397 - 8 Names Index , 135 Arias, Eugenio, 266, 267, 350, 352, Abelló, Juan, 253 Aberlenc, René, 364 Abetz, Otto, 75, 84 Adamov, Arthur, 346 Adhémar, Jean, 17, 47, 393 Adorno, Theodor W., 187 Aliquot, Geneviève, 50, 118 Allégret, Yves, 70 Ana, Marcos, 350, 351, 352, 354 Andreu, Pierre, 81 Angiolini, Gerard, 8 Apollinaire, Gillaume, 33, 46, 68, 353, 354, 363, 404 Arp, Jean, 93, 374, 401 Arroyo, Eduardo, 106, 349 Aub, Max, 349 Aubert, Georges, 160, 281 Aubier, Jean, 82 Autenheimer, Claude, 364 Azcárate, Manuel, 186, 267, 402 Baer, Brigitte, 9, 10, 15, 128, 298, 402, 403 Baldassari, Anne, 371, 402 Balzac, Honoré de, 34, 160, 274, 275 Bardot, Brigitte, 295 Bärmann, Matthias, 44, 402 Barr, Alfred H. Jr, 75, 76, 77, 402 Barrault, Jean-Louis, 82 Bataille, Georges, 37, 82, 158 Bataille, Sylvia, 82 99, 162, 163, 180, 185, 186, 187, 193, 194, 264, 280, 404, 406 Aragon, Louis, 46, 65, 73, 77, 78, 83, 85, 88, 94, 96, 99, 100, 153, 155, 174, 185, 192, 197, 249, 254, 256, 258, 264, 282, 283, 284, 359, 370, 371, 372, 373, 376, 398, 399, 404 2 Cabanne, Pierre, 49, 52, 67, 80, 105, Baudelaire, Charles, 34, 163 Bazaine, Jean, 87, 91 Beaudin, André, 157, 391, 393, 398 Beauvoir, Simone de, 82, 281, 346 Beloyannis, Nikos, 249 Benenson, Peter, 349, 350 Bergamín, José, 39, 368 Berggruen, Heinz, 307 Bernadac, Marie-Laure, 53, 402 Berto, Jo (Joseph Bertocchio), 187, 403 Campan, Zanie, 82 Camus, Albert, 35, 82 Capogrossi, Giuseppe, 325 Carco, Francis, 33 Carré, Louis, 19, 45, 51, 69, 101, 170, 310, 319, 406 Carrillo, Santiago, 186, 266 Cartier-Bresson, Henri, 37 Carzou, Jean, 35, 391 Casanova, Danielle, 80 Casanova, Laurent, 80, 153, 155, 156, 157, 158, 174, 260, 282, 403, 409 Casares, Maria, 82 Casey, Baron Robert, 314 Casey, Baroness Maie, 314 Cassou, Jean, 83, 93, 156, 197, 268 Castillo, Alberto del, 263 Célestin, Jean “Tintin”, 109, 110, 115, 123 Cendrars, Blaise, 33 Cezanne, Paul, 153, 189, 380 Chagall, Marc, 5, 16, 23, 31, 37, 56, 59, 61, 86, 103, 251, 287, 316, 355, 391, 393, 394, 397, 403 Chalit, Volf, 63 Chanel, Coco, 36, 66, 82, 150, 171, 234 Chapon, François, 102, 164, 167, 403 Char, René, 66, 179, 180, 400 Chastel, Roger, 157 Chenot, Fernand, 261 Cheronnet, Louis, 157 Chevigné, Pierre de, 264 Chipp, Herschel Browning, 11 Chrysler Jr., Walter P., 251 Cirici, Alexandre, 251 Clará, Josep, 262 Claudel, Paul, 37 Claus, Damián, 365, 366, 367 Clavé, Antoni, 97, 106, 251, 263, 369, 370 Clergue, Lucien, 16, 105 313, 315 Bertrand, Pierre, 383, 385 Bloch, Georges, 10, 11, 12, 15, 122, 212, 402 Bolliger, Hans, 9, 54, 403, 404 Bonet, Salvador, 370 Bonnard, Pierre, 35, 66 Bordas, Pierre, 237, 407 Bores, Francisco, 35, 105 Borsi, Manfredo, 105 Bosé, Lucia, 314 Boudaille, Georges, 359, 376 Boudin, Marcel, 115 Boupacha, Djamila, 249 Braque, Georges, 5, 6, 16, 20, 23, 37, 38, 40, 44, 52, 54, 56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 79, 82, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 198, 207, 280, 287, 391, 397, 401 Braque, Marcelle Dupré, 70, 72, 73, 82, 91, 106 Brassai (Gyula Halász), 16, 37, 48, 91, 162, 191 Brecht, Bertolt, 399 Breker, Arno, 84, 402 Bret-André, Jacqueline (Brétégnier), 364 Breton, André, 21, 46, 155, 346 Broder, Louis, 280 Buber-Neumann, Margarete, 257 Buffet, Bernard, 35, 394 Burlin, Paul, 159 Busquets, Javier, 322 2 Cocteau, Jean, 24, 46, 73, 81, 82, 84, Deschamps, Henri, 8, 22, 23, 31, 264, 283, 374, 383, 384, 385, 395 Cogniot, Georges, 151, 152 Colmeiro, Manuel, 263 Commère, Jean, 364 Cooper, Douglas, 92, 93, 406 Corpus Barga, 82, 265, 403 Courbet, Gustave, 197 Cramer: Gérald, 102, 170 Cramer, Patrick, 11, 12, 168, 170, 223, 341, 359, 375, 378, 384, 385, 386, 404 Cranach, Lucas, 87, 144, 222, 233, 253 Créixams Picó, Pedro, 97 Crémieux, Francis, 376 Crémieux, Jeanine, 376 Crommelynck , Piero, 401 Crommelynck, Aldo, 401 Crommelynck, Fernand, 401 Crommelynck, Milan, 401 Cueco, Henri, 364 Czwiklitzer, Christoph, 272, 351, 403 D’Ors, Eugenio, 31 Da Vinci, Leonardo, 88, 178 Daix, Pierre, 49, 54, 67, 95, 106, 157, 158, 162, 167, 172, 173, 175, 180, 186, 187, 189, 194, 249, 257, 283, 284, 403, 408 Dalí, Salvador, 31, 227, 251, 261, 262 Danchev, Alex, 69, 70, 92, 93, 403 Dat, Simone, 364 David, Sylvette, 295, 304 Davis, Stuart, 159 De Gaulle, Charles, 96, 264, 269 Deferre, Gaston, 265 Degand, Léon, 153, 154, 157 Delacroix, Eugène, 35, 202, 297, 298 Delaunay, Robert, 93 Delaunay, Sonia, 93 Delmas, Gladys Krieble, 76 Demeure, Fernand, 86 Derain, André, 79, 82, 87, 93, 94 40, 50, 60, 61, 62, 64, 65, 104, 123, 126, 133, 206, 207, 227, 228, 229, 235, 326, 372 Desjobert, Edmond, 31 Desnos, Robert, 83 Diaghilev, Serge, 297 Dignimont, André, 33 Dine, Jim, 401 Domínguez, Oscar, 97, 263 Dominguín, Luis Miguel, 314, 376, 377 Dor de la Souchère, Romuald, 157 Douglas Duncan, David, 16, 66, 105, 319, 321, 328 Draeger (printer), 18, 37 Dreyfus, Alfred, 265 Drieu La Rochelle, Pierre, 78, 81, 85, 87, 88 Dubois, André-Louis, 84, 96 Dubuffet, Jean, 61, 62, 157, 325, 408 Duchamp, Marcel, 8, 21, 22 Duclaud, Gilberte, 303, 304, 305 Duclaud, Serge, 303 Dufy, Raoul, 34, 316 Duhamel, Georges, 33, 86, 99 Duhamel, Marcel, 372 Dumas, Alexandre, 34 Dunoyer De Segonzac, André, 35, 79, 391 Duras, Marguerite, 158, 346 Eisenhower, Dwight, 269, 270 Éluard, Cécile, 82 Éluard, Nusch, 68 Éluard, Paul, 46, 68, 77, 78, 80, 82, 83, 90, 94, 95, 96, 99, 100, 153, 157, 164, 174, 186, 187, 260, 264, 268, 274, 403 Engelmann, Godefroy, 28 Ernst, Max, 93, 157, 325, 374 Fadeïev, Aleksandr, 186, 197 Farreras, Elvira, 251 Faure, Edgar, 265 Fautrier, Jean, 157 3 158, 159, 163, 164, 165, 167, 168, 169, 172, 182, 185, 189, 191, 192, 193, 198, 208, 209, 219, 220, 224, 238, 248, 260, 274, 277, 283, 288, 297, 310, 404 Girod de l'Ain, Hélène, 364 Gleizes, Albert, 93 Goeppert, Sebastian, 12, 168, 223, 404 Goering, Hermann, 87 Goll, Yvan, 232 Gómez de la Serna, Ramón, 82 Góngora y Argote, Luis de, 140, 168 Feld, Charles, 261, 377, 400, 401 Fenosa, Apeles, 66, 82, 97, 263, 349 Fernández-Anchorena, Juan Antonio & Rosa, 82 Ferry, Blanchette, 216 Fidler, Eugene, 322 Fitzgerald, Michael, 77 Flores García, Pedro, 97, 263, 369 Fort, Louis, 157, 353 Fougeron, André, 152, 155, 254, 364 Fraga Iribarne, Manuel, 261 France, Anatole, 34 Franco, Francisco, 21, 96, 261, 263, González ‘El Campesino’, Valentín, 353 González, Felipe, 99 González, Julio, 162, 250 Gorki, Máxim, 34 Gottlieb, Adolph, 159 Goya, Francisco de, 17, 188, 227 Grau Sala, Emilio, 97, 251, 369 Grenier, Jean, 89, 406 Gromaire, Marcel, 364 Gsell, Paul, 30 Guillaume, Paul, 280 Guinovart, Josep, 262 Güse, Ernst-Gerhard, 10 Guttuso, Renato, 175, 177 Hanki, Leila, 328 Hartmann, Paul, 34 Hartung, Hans, 250, 401 Hattendorf, Richard L., 164, 167 Hauteclocque, Count Philippe de, 264, 350, 352 Frélaut, Jacques, 140, 168, 401 Frénaud, André, 346 Freundlich, Otto, 93 Fry, John Hemming, 85 Gagarin, Yuri, 270 Gallard, Michel de, 364 Gallimard, Gaston, 34, 85 Garaudy, Roger, 151, 152, 154, 155 García Condoy, Honorio, 263 Garcia Fons, Pierre, 364 Gary Powers, Francis, 269 Gaspar, Joan, 251, 364 Gaspar, Miguel, 364, 366, 368 Gauss, Ulrike, 10, 50, 403 Gautier, Théophile, 34 Geiser, Bernhard, 8, 9, 15, 48, 50, 169, 403 George, Waldemar, 28, 99 Gerassimov, Alexander Michailov, 156 Gerhardsen, Einar, 322 Giacometti, Alberto, 355, 374, 393, 98 Hearst, William Randolph, 37 Heller, Gerhardt, 89 Hemingway, Ernest, 35 Herranz de Arias, Nicolasa, 363 Hervé, Pierre, 154, 155, 158 Hessel, Stephane, 158 Himmler, Heinrich, 84 Hockney, David, 401 Hofer, Walter Andreas, 86 394, 397, 401 Gide, André, 37, 85 Gieure, Maurice, 64, 404 Gili, Gustavo, 251, 322, 376 Gilot, Françoise, 36, 42, 49, 50, 56, 65, 66, 67, 68, 71, 72, 73, 89, 91, 102, 109, 110, 111, 114, 116, 135, 137, 139, 141, 142, 143, 149, 150, 4 Lagunero, Teodulfo, 352, 354, 404 Huffington, Arianna Stassinopoulos, 52, 71, 91, 100, Lake, Carlton, 36, 404 Lamartine, Alphonse de, 34 Lamotte, Angèle, 37 Laporte, Geneviève, 96, 353, 404 Laurencin, Marie, 21, 33, 185 Lavin, Irving, 123, 124, 408 Lawrence, D. H.,, 34 Le Pen, Jean-Marie, 256 Léal, Brigitte, 53, 182, 405 Léger, Fernand, 87, 93, 251, 364, 404 Hugé, Manolo, 322 Hugnet, Georges, 46, 82, 83 Hugnet, Germaine, 82 Hugo, Valentine, 82, 374 Hugo, Victor, 34 Huidobro, Vicente, 36 Huizinga, Gert, 10, 147, 287 Hutin-Blay, Catherine, 252 Ibarruri, la Pasionaria, Dolores, 401 Leiris, Louise (Zette), 45, 82, 275, 353 305, 310, 316, 325, 361 Leiris, Michel, 45, 46, 82, 158, 275, 281, 310, 321, 346, 361 Lenin, Vladimir Ilich, 152 Leonhard, Kurt, 9, 42, 47, 48, 51, 54, 404 Level, André, 29, 341 Levy, Michel & Kalmus, 34 Levy, Simon, 34 Lhote, André, 62, 87 Lipchitz, Jacques, 93 List, Herbert, 189, 191, 196 Llorens Artigas, Josep, 263 Lobo, Baltasar, 263 Loti, Pierre, 34 Lurçat, Catherine, 364 Maar, Dora, 39, 42, 66, 68, 71, 82, 83, 84, 96, 118, 164, 264, 288 Mac Orlan, Pierre, 391 Macmillan, Harold, 269 Maeght, Aimée, 21, 22, 23, 68, 103, 104, 105, 397, 406 Magnelli, Alberto, 105 Maguy, Alex (Alexandre Glass), 386 Mahn, Berthold, 33 Maillol, Aristide, 94 Mallén, Enrique, 11, 12, 53, 189, 356 Malraux, André, 33, 35, 37, 83, 85, 106, 265 Iliazd (Ilia Zdanevitch), 234 Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique, 389 Jacob, Max, 46, 69, 80, 81, 82, 93, 187, 280, 281, 395, 405, 406 Jacomet, Daniel, 375 Jakovsky, Anatole, 44 Jakulov, Georgi, 162 Johns, Jasper, 401 Jonquières, Henri, 33 Jrushchev, Nikita, 269 Juncosa, Pilar, 21 Jünger, Ernst, 49, 89 Kahnweiler, Daniel-Henry, 26 Kahnweiler, Daniel-Henry, 9, 13, 27, 36, 42, 43, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 76, 90, 100, 101, 109, 118, 119, 120, 212, 250, 266, 268, 272, 274, 275, 277, 305, 309, 310, 311, 313, 317, 318, 319, 320, 344, 347, 354, 364, 366, 376, 380, 381, 387, 398, 399 Kandinsky, Vassily, 93 Kochno, Boris, 297 Kootz, Samuel M., 51, 101, 310, 319 Kravchenko, Victor, 256, 257 Kuhn, Hans, 89 La Rocque, François de, 93 Laborde, Chas, 33 Lacan, Jacques, 82, 83 Lachaud, Mariette, 70, 72 Lachenal, François, 64 Lacourière, Roger, 401 Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitzky), 16, 37, 188 5 Mourlot, Eric, 395 Mourlot, Fernand, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Mañach, Pedro, 309 Mandiargues, Pieyre de, 346 Manet, Édouard, 386 Mano, Guy Lévis, 379 Marcenac, Jean, 376 Marquet, Albert, 364 Martin Artajo, Alberto, 264 Martin, Henri, 249 Martin-Luna Lersundi, Antonio, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 43, 45, 48, 49, 52, 53, 55, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61, 62, 64, 65, 102, 103, 108, 109, 124, 134, 147, 209, 219, 272, 302, 379, 383, 391, 393, 405, 407 Mourlot, Jacques, 395 Mourlot, Maurice, 35 Müller, Heinrich, 84 Müller, Melissa, 403 Mundy, Jennifer, 63, 405 Napoleon, 36 Napoleon III, 369 Nenni, Pietro, 352 Neruda, Pablo, 352, 375, 380 Nesjar, Carl, 322 Neumann, Heinz, 257 Ocaña, María Teresa, 190, 405 Orsel, Victor, 116, 277 Ortega Muñoz, Godofredo, 262 Ortiz, Manuel Ángeles, 96, 97 Oteiza, Jorge, 262 Otero, Blas de, 349 Ottaviano, Jack, 364 Palau i Fabre, Josep, 161, 364, 406 Palencia, Benjamín, 262 Palme, Olof, 352 Palmeiro, José, 263 Panero, Leopoldo, 262 Parmelin, Hélène, 91, 115, 123, 282, 283, 346, 405 Parra, Ginés, 262, 263 Pascal, Blaise, 176 Pascin, Jules, 86 Paulhan, Jean, 61, 62, 63, 64, 66, 67, 70, 77, 78, 85, 88, 89, 91, 94, 100, 102, 103, 105, 106, 257, 406 Pawlowski, Gaston de, 85 Peinado, Joaquín, 97, 262, 263 Pelayo, Orlando, 262 Penrose, Ronald, 53, 66, 68, 188, 320, 406 Perls, Frank, 387, 388, 389 Permeke, Constant, 62 265 Maspero, François, 346 Masson, André, 34, 35, 37, 346, 391, 398, 401 Matarasso, Henri, 311, 315, 316, 374 Matarasso, Jacques, 311 Mauriac, François, 33, 82, 99 Maurois, André, 33 Mendès France, Pierre, 265 Menkes. Sigmund, 86 Mentor, Blasco, 364 Mérimée, Prosper, 301, 368, 373 Miailhe, Mireille, 364 Michaux, Henri, 82, 325 Michelangelo, 88 Miguel Montañés, Mariano, 55, 97, 98, 173, 284, 405 Miguel, Alberto, 55 Milhau, Jean, 364 Millares, Manolo, 262 Miller, Lee, 188, 191 Minaux, André, 35, 364, 393, 394 Miró, Dolors, 21 Miró, Joan, 5, 16, 20, 21, 22, 23, 39, 59, 61, 102, 103, 109, 170, 251, 253, 262, 322, 355, 374, 375, 393, 397, 401, 405 Mitterrand, François, 93, 99, 153, 256, 265 Moch, Jules, 265 Mollet, Guy, 265 Mondrian, Piet, 123 Monet, Claude, 88 Morin, Edgar, 158, 407 Morris, George L. K., 159 6 Resnais, Alain, 346 Reuße, Felix, 10, 11, 12, 15, 120, Pfimlin, Pierre, 265 Picasso, Claude, 8, 147, 150, 158, 128, 144, 166, 208, 210, 215, 229, 230, 237, 239, 241, 245, 264, 285, 286, 291, 303, 305, 329, 341, 355, 356, 358, 362, 373, 378, 382 Revel, Jean-François, 346 Reventós, Ramón, 168 Reverdy, Pierre, 15, 18, 20, 36, 46, 66, 82, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 150, 163, 164, 167, 169, 170, 180, 406 Richardson, John, 66, 92, 139, 406 Rimbaud, Arthur, 374, 375 Rockefeller III, John D., 216 Rodrigo, Luis Carlos, 272, 317 Rodríguez Martínez, Pilar, 370, 406 Rosenberg, Julius & Ethel, 249 Rosenberg, Leonce, 123 Rosenberg, Paul, 24, 51, 53, 76, 100, 101, 124, 309, 310, 319 Rosengart, Angela, 396, 397 Rosengart, Siegfried, 396 Rouault, Georges, 89, 401 Roy, Claude, 158, 281, 287, 290 Royère, Jean, 30 Rubens, Peter Paul, 187 Ruiz Giménez, Joaquín, 261 Rupf, Hermann, 9 Sabartés, Jaime, 6, 23, 43, 48, 50, 51, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 67, 77, 82, 90, 96, 98, 158, 300, 302, 307, 354, 364, 380 Sagan, Françoise, 346 Salmon, André, 46, 82 San Lazzaro, Gualtieri di, 325, 371 Sánchez-Albornoz, Claudio, 349 Sargent, John Singer, 280 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 35, 37, 78, 82, 99, 281, 346 Sassier, Inés, 138, 300 Sauret, André, 8, 9, 34, 103, 274, 308, 379, 380, 381, 391, 401, 405 Scheler, Lucien, 164 Schiffrin, Jacques, 63 Schuman, Robert, 264, 265 231, 235, 274 Picasso, Jacqueline Roque, 98, 99, 185, 252, 253, 266, 280, 284, 297, 298, 301, 303, 306, 308, 311, 328, 330, 331, 335, 354, 371, 381, 401 Picasso, Marina, 8, 219, 243, 289, 402 Picasso, Maya, 49 Picasso, Olga Khokhlova, 160 Picasso, Paloma, 8, 171, 192, 235, 274, 276, 383 Pignon, Edouard, 91, 92, 105, 282, 346, 364 Pillement, Georges, 157 Pinault, François, 248 Piot, Christine, 53 Pirandello, Luigi, 34 Plaut, James, 77 Pléven, René, 265 Poliakoff, Serge, 325 Politzer, Georges, 80 Ponç, Joan, 262 Ponge, Francis, 61, 62, 113, 158, 408 Popineau (printer), 62 Pourrat, Henri, 88 Prade, Georges, 81 Prats, Joan, 21 Prévert, Jacques, 46, 105, 281 Prietman, Albert P., 17 Proust, Marcel, 33, 34 Queneau, Raymond, 82 Queuille, Henri, 264, 265 Quinn, Edward, 16, 282, 362 Radiguet, Raymond, 24, 33 Ramadier, Paul, 256 Ramié, Suzanne & Georges, 165, 353 Rau, Bernd, 9, 10, 11, 15, 48, 147, 242, 270 Read, Peter, 163, 182, 192, 408 Rebeyrolle, Paul, 364 Rebull, Joan, 97, 262 Rejano, Juan, 349 7 Thorez, Maurice, 80, 151, 154, 155, Seghers, Pierre, 88 Seheur, Marcel, 33 Seibel, Castor, 44, 198, 209, 225, 156, 158, 180, 197, 248, 282, 283, 407 Tillon, Charles, 95, 257 Tolstoi, Léon, 308 Torra, Ana María, 251, 253 Triolet, Elsa, 153, 283 Truffaut, François, 346 Truman, Harry S., 264, 265 Tuñón de Lara, Manuel, 349 227, 395, 407 Semprún, Jorge, 99, 158, 266, 349 Senefelder, Aloys, 16 Serna, Ismael de la, 263 Servin, Marcel, 158 Shakespeare, William, 398, 399 Signac, Paul, 88 Signoret, Simone, 70, 283 Skira, Albert, 36 Smart, David, 36 Smet, Gustave de, 62 Snegaroff, Dimitri, 63 Sorlier, Charles, 16, 22, 23, 40, 84, Turner, Joseph Mallord William, 88 Tutin, Gaston, 31, 40, 41, 43, 108, 109, 115, 116, 123, 217 Tzara, Tristan, 21, 170, 235, 236 Ubac, Raoul, 325, 397 Úbeda, Agustín, 349 Ulmann, André, 257 Utley, Gertje R., 87, 94, 250, 267, 273, 407 Utrillo, Maurice, 33 Vadim, Roger, 295 Vailland, Roger, 158 Vairel, Edmond, 19 Valéry, Paul, 25, 37, 99 Van Doesburg, Theo, 123 Van Dongen, Kees, 35, 79, 391 Vanderpyl, Fritz René, 86, 407 Vasarely, Victor, 325 Vázquez de Sola, Andrés, 364 Velázquez, Diego, 140, 141 Verezhensky, Arik, 122, 212 Vertès, Marcel, 33 Vilató Ruiz, José, 353 Vilató, Javier, 172, 353, 379 Villers, André, 16, 105, 280, 282 Villon, Jacques, 8, 34, 157, 355, 374, 391, 393, 401 Viñes Soto, Hernando, 97 Vlaminck, Maurice de, 33, 35, 79, 85, 86, 87, 88, 91, 94 Vollard, Ambroise, 160, 280, 281, 309, 401 Von Shilling, Claudia, 212 Walter, Marie-Thérèse, 29, 30, 49, 341 115, 407 Soulié, Eugène, 309 Soutine, Chaïm, 82 Spies, Werner, 192, 398 Spitzer, Guy, 8 Stalin (Jossif Vissariónovich Dzhugashvili), 256, 283 Stanislas, Marcel, 8 Stein, Gertrude, 46 Steinhauslin, Jean-Léon, 378 Strauss-Kahn, Dominique, 24 Stravinsky, Igor, 264 Subirachs, Josep Maria, 263 Sweeney, James Johnson, 159 Szczupak-Thomas, Yvette, 68, 77, 90, 94, 407 Tabaraud, Georges, 272, 273, 283, 346, 407 Tanguy, Yves, 157 Tàpies, Antoni, 251, 253, 263 Tartas, Pierre de, 379 Tauber-Arp, Sophie, 93 Tazlitsky, Boris, 154 Tériade, Efstathios Eleftheriades, 18, 19, 20, 35, 36, 37, 38, 56, 60, 102, 150, 170, 171, 193, 407 Tharrats, Juan José, 262 8 Walther, Ingo F., 52, 407 Warncke, Carsten-Peter, 47, 52, Zayas, Marius de, 26, 162 Zervos, Christian, 12, 36, 42, 66, 181, 407 68, 71, 76, 77, 78, 90, 94, 96, 97, 139, 152, 153, 161, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 189 Zervos, Yvonne, 78, 80, 90, 179 Zhdánov, Andréi, 156, 157, 174 Ziegler, Adolf, 84 Watteau, Antoine, 88 Weill, Berthe, 309 Wildenstein, Georges, 309 Wofsy, Alan, 11, 139, 407 Wou-ki, Zao, 325, 401 Zabaleta, Rafael, 262 9