Women's composition - Pablo PICASSO (1881 - 1973)

Pablo PICASSO (1881 - 1973, Spain)
Composition with woman

Drypoint on paper
47 x 32 cm (image 18 x 17 cm)
Circa 1956
Signed lower right, numbered 1/11 and dedicated "Pour Louis Broder".

Provenance :
Genevieve and Jean Paul Kahn Collection

Original print hand-signed by the artist in red pencil lower right, dated in the plate 6-9-56, Artist's proof numbered 1/11 and dedicated "Pour Louis Broder". This work is an extra large-margin edition of illustration 10 from the Eluard tribute book "un poème dans chaque livre", published in 1956 in an edition of 120 copies. In the book, illustration 10 is positioned next to Paul Eluard's poem "Chose vue" from "La vie immédiate"(1932). The work shown here comes from the "Album A" album, a separate edition of the book (20 copies). Like the book, each album contains 16 prints (including this work by Pablo Picasso), but they were printed in wide margins and, unlike the prints in the book, all signed or monogrammed by the artists. The album in our possession was owned by the publisher Louis BRODER. It differs from the others in that, in addition to the 16 large-margin illustrations, it is enriched by numerous other prints collected by the publisher throughout his collaboration with the artists on this book.

Born in Malaga in 1881, Pablo Picasso was a true art prodigy. At the age of 15, he entered the Barcelona School of Art, and at just 19, he represented Spain at the Exposition Universelle in Paris. Known for his blue and pink periods, which invaded his canvases, it was his work "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon", a total break with the codes of the time, that shook people's minds and changed the rules of artistic creation in the 20th century. He abandoned Cubism in 1915 for more classical portraits, until the Spanish Civil War, when he painted his greatest work: "Guernica". He died in 1973, having left an indelible mark on art history. Today, his work is still omnipresent in the greatest collections of modern art.