Vintage 1974 Picasso “Portrait of a Lady” Art Plate

Vintage 1974 art plate of Picasso's Portrait of a Lady affixed to chipboard backing for maximum ease in styling, propping, or framing.

Image: 8” x 10.25”

The whole world knows that Picasso loves women. In his fancy he has loved the beauties found in history, legend, and myth, and he has represented them in many paintings and prints--but not more often than his own inamoratas, who appear in his work often accompanied by the children they bore him.

There were long periods when Picasso considered lithography the most congenial of all mediums and turned out stone after stone, at times developing his theme through many states (see fig. 35). He enjoyed experimenting with new methods and delighted the workmen at the press by his daring and his childlike enthusiasm. It is said that he was driven to renewed activity in the field of lithography by the excessively cold winter of 1945-46 in Paris; to keep warm he sought a comfortable corner in the busy lithograph atelier of F. Mourlot. So entranced did he become with lithography that, in spite of the cold, he took stones back to his studio and produced many works. This same enthusiasm was later transferred to ceramics and linoleum cuts. Mourlot, the master printer of lithographs, has thus far issued four illustrated catalogues of Picasso's works in the field of lithography alone. It is worth noting that for each catalogue issued by Mourlot, Picasso designed original lithographs for the back and front covers.

The great series of linoleum cuts was begun in 1958, and the example illustrated here, the first to be produced, is probably the finest in the series. Certainly it is the most sought-after by collectors. Whereas many of the impressions were made with two or three colors, Picasso in this case employed six-black, red, green, yellow, brown, and blue. He took his inspiration from a masterpiece by Cranach, but, as was his wont, used the work of the older artist only as the point of departure for a brilliant translation into his own inimitable vernacular.