GENIUS ON PAPER
PABLO PICASSO
EDVARD MUNCH
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Picasso and Munch Genius on Paper: Important Prints of Picasso and Munch
DECEMBER 30.16 - FEBRUARY 12.17
LewAllenGalleries 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | tel 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | info@lewallengalleries.com cover: Pablo Picasso, Les Trois Femmes, 1924-25, Bloch 51, drypoint and etching on Arches wove paper, signed by the artist, 7 x 5 1/8 in Edvard Munch, Inheritance, 1916, Woll 603, lithograph printed in black, 17 x 12 in
Genius on Paper Important Prints of Picasso and Munch Rarely in the art world is there an opportunity to experience side by side foundational imagery of two of the most pivotal figures of 20th century art. That opportunity is presented in “Genius on Paper: Important Prints of Picasso and Munch,” a carefully curated exhibition of etchings, aquatints, drypoints, lithographs, and linoleum cuts by Pablo Picasso and Edvard Munch on view at LewAllen Galleries, opening on Friday, December 30, 2016. Of exceptional importance, nearly all the works in this exhibition are from a prominent private collection and enjoy pristine provenance. All are original prints, many are signed, and include many iconic images that rarely come to market. Roland Penrose, the biographer of Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), aptly notes: “The name which predominates in the development of art during this century, and to which the most revolutionary changes are inevitably ascribed, is that of Pablo Picasso.” Among the 26 works on paper included in the LewAllen show are extraordinary and rare examples of many of Picasso’s most important stylistic innovations. These include his use of Cubism, classical imagery and allegorical references to amplify the emotional impact of modern art. Other works illustrate Picasso’s masterful reduction of form and use of line, fantasy and distorted figuration in order to explore personal visions of the world and ideas. The works in this exhibition exemplify much that was foundational to the monumental and iconic paintings and sculptures for which Picasso has been immortalized and which are now housed mainly in museums or collections of the super-rich. In these works on paper, there are embodied artistic and historical antecedents of Picasso’s inventiveness and his claim to greatness. They also represent powerful and accessible aesthetic connections to art history that are affordable for the private collector. Many of the Picasso works in the show were originally acquired directly from the artist or his estate. The exhibition is unusual in that it provides a kind of survey of Picasso’s printmaking career – with the earliest having been made by Picasso in 1908-1909. Entitled “Nature morte au Compotier,” it is an exquisite example of Picasso’s early analytical Cubism. Works created by Picasso during each decade, from the 1920s to the 1960s, are represented in this exhibition, including such iconic works as “Les Trois Femmes” from 1924-1925, “Face of Marie-Therese” from 1928 (a beautiful portrait of his mistress, model and “great muse,” Marie-Therese Walter who was the subject of some of the artist’s most famous paintings and also mother of Picasso’s daughter Maya), and the masterful Cubist portrait “L’Egyptienne (Torso of a Woman)” from 1953, among others. 2
Pioneering Symbolist and Modernist Edvard Munch (1863-1944) is renowned for his powerful artistic expression of the universal human experiences of intense emotion, passion, anxiety, alienation and anguish. Within a single painting or a series of drawings Munch was able to resonantly capture the panoply of recurring themes common to people during the course of their lives. He wrote that he strongly believed that it was necessary for his art to depict “living people who breathe and feel, suffer and love.” Perhaps the most famous example of this is “The Scream,” created in 1895 and one of the most recognizable images in art history. A pastel version of this iconic work sold in 2012 for nearly $120 million, a then-record price ever paid for an artwork at auction. Munch’s graphic works frequently distill the expressive power of his fundamental Symbolist allegories in a manner that is just as compelling as that of his paintings and, of course, are accessible at fractions of the prices of those paintings. As works included in the LewAllen exhibition attest, the artist’s intaglio prints, etchings, lithographs and drypoints often recall a similar sense of the unsettling atmosphere of “The Scream.” In 1894, Munch created the earliest of the works on view, “The Girl at the Window,” a haunting image of a spectral child peering tentatively through curtains of a window. The latest work in the show is from 1916, entitled “Inheritance,” an arresting portrait of a mother with a dying child – evocative, some writers have noted, of the Pietà image of Mary cradling the dead body of Christ – and the same subject of an important and controversial painting by Munch of the same title. Both Picasso and Munch are distinguished by the particular fervor, relentless variation and manifold talent with which they approached printmaking. Each produced some of the medium’s most striking images in the history of art. They both believed that printmaking offered unique and protean possibilities for experimentation and diverse emotional articulations. Both brought superb technical dexterity and remarkably imaginative approaches to material and image and delighted in the expressive effects they could coax from the diverse techniques and materials of this art form. The LewAllen exhibition illustrates the variety of those techniques and approaches to line, texture, papers, inks and composition that allowed each artist to achieve extraordinary and continual invention so fundamental to the creative genius and oeuvre of each. Kenneth R. Marvel 3
Glossary Aquatint: A process for making an etching that can produce tonal modulations by varying the etching time of different areas of a copper plate so that the resulting print resembles an ink or wash drawing. Burin: A tool made from steel or flint used to engrave copper or wood. Drypoint: The method of printmaking in which a sharp instrument is used to scratch a groove directly into a metal plate that is subsequently inked and pressed with paper. The resulting line has a lush, velvety quality. Etching: The process of incising into metal plates that are first covered with acid resistant ground. The plate is then dipped into an acid solution that bites into the incised areas. When inked, the lines capture the pigment and are pressed onto paper. Intaglio: A category of printmaking that includes etchings and aquatints, in which an image is made by printing information that has been cut or etched into the surface of a plate. In contrast to relief printing, the ink in this method lies below the surface of the plate and is transferred to the paper under pressure. Linocut: A method of relief printmaking where the design is carved into a block of linoleum. The carved-away, recessed areas are ink free, and the raised, untouched areas of the linoleum carry the ink and print. Lithograph: The method of printing from a stone surface on which the printing areas are not raised or engraved, but made ink-receptive while the non-image areas are made ink-repellent, typically through the usage of oil and water. Sugarlift aquatint: A specific method of aquatint printmaking using a paint brush and a sugar solution to create an etching with the end product having painterly qualities that recall a brush drawing. 4
Pablo Picasso, L’Égyptienne, 1953, Bloch 746, sugarlift aquatint printed on Arches wove paper, 32 3/4 x 18 3/8 in 5
Pablo Picasso, Nature morte au compotier, 1908-1909, Bloch 18, drypoint and scraper on laid paper, signed by the artist, 5 3/16 x 4 3/8 in 6
Pablo Picasso, La Taberna. Jeune Pêcheur catalan racontant sa Vie á un Vieux Pêcheur barbu, 1934, Bloch 228, etching printed on Montval laid paper, 9 1/4 x 11 5/8 in 7
Pablo Picasso, TĂŞte de femme (de profil), 1959, Bloch 905, linocut printed on color on Arches paper, 25 1/4 x 21 in 8
Pablo Picasso, Jacqueline au Mouchoir noir, 1958, Bloch 873, lithograph printed on Arches wove paper, signed by the artist, 26 x 19 3/4 in 9
Pablo Picasso, David et BethsabĂŠe, 1949, Bloch 442, lithograph on Arches wove paper, 25 5/8 x 18 3/4 in 10
Pablo Picasso, En La Taberna. PĂŞcheurs catalans en bordĂŠe, 1934, Bloch 286, etching printed in brown-black on Montval laid paper, 9 1/4 x 11 3/4 in 11
Pablo Picasso, Jacqueline au chapeau Ă fleurs. I, 1962, Bloch 1076 linocut printed in colors on Arches wove paper, signed by the artist, 13 3/4 x 10 5/8 in 12
Pablo Picasso, Visage de Marie-ThÊrèse, 1928, Bloch 159, lithograph, signed by the artist, 10 1/2 x 7 1/4 in 13
Pablo Picasso, Femmes entre Elles avec Voyeur sculptĂŠ, 1934, Bloch 219, etching with scraper printed on Montval laid paper, signed by the artist, 8 3/4 x 12 1/2 in 14
Pablo Picasso, Sculpteur et Modèle se regardant dans un Miroir cale sur un Autoportrait sculptÊ, 1933, Bloch 178, etching printed on Montval laid paper, signed by the artist, 14 1/2 x 11 3/8 in 15
Pablo Picasso, Le Repos du Minotaure: Champagne et Amante, 1933, Bloch 190, etching printed on Montval laid paper, signed by the artist, 7 5/8 x 10 1/2 in 16
Pablo Picasso, Flรปtiste et Jeune Fille au Tambourin, 1934, Bloch 213, etching printed on Montval laid paper, 10 7/8 x 7 3/4 in 17
Pablo Picasso, La SĂŠrĂŠnade, 1968, Bloch 1599, sugarlift aquatint printed on Auvergne Richard de Bas laid paper, 4 3/4 x 2 3/8 in 18
Pablo Picasso, Une maja posant sur un piedĂŠstal, 1968, Bloch 1598, sugarlift aquatint printed on Rives paper, signed by the artist, 4 1/4 x 2 3/8 in
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Pablo Picasso, Profil sculptural de Marie-ThÊrèse, 1933, Bloch 255, etching and drypoint printed on Montval laid paper, 12 1/2 x 9 in 20
Pablo Picasso, Baigneuses sur La Plage, III, 1932, Bloch 240, etching printed on Arches paper, stamped signature, 6 1/16 x 4 9/16 in 21
Pablo Picasso, Les Trois Amies, 1923, Bloch 76, etching printed on ancient Japon, signed by the artist, 16 3/8 x 11 3/4 in 22
Pablo Picasso, Sculpteur au Repos avec Modèle démasqué et sa Représentation sculptée, 1933, Bloch 159, etching printed on Montval laid paper, 10 1/2 x 7 5/8 in 23
Edvard Munch, The Girl at the Window, 1894, Woll 5, drypoint printed in brown ink, signed by the artist, 8 3/8 x 6 1/4 in 24
Edvard Munch, Study of a Model, 1894, Woll.8, drypoint printed in black ink, signed by the artist, 11 x 8 1/4 in 25
Edvard Munch, The Sick Child I, 1896, Woll 72, lithograph, signed by the artist, 16 5/8 x 22 1/2 in 26
Edvard Munch, Life and Death, 1902, Woll 194, etching printed in brown, signed by the artist, 7 x 5 in 27
Edvard Munch, Puberty, 1902, Woll 186, etching printed in black, signed by the artist, 7 3/8 x 5 7/8 in 28
Edvard Munch, TĂŞte-a-TĂŞte (In the Digs), 1894, Woll 9, drypoint and aquatint, signed by the artist, 8 5/8 x 12 7/8 in 29
PABLO PICASSO
Born on October 25, 1881, in Málaga, Spain, Pablo Picasso displayed a prodigious talent for drawing at a very young age. In 1895, when Picasso was 14 years old, he began his education in the arts, attending the prestigious School of Fine Arts in Barcelona, and then the Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid. However, he repeatedly became frustrated with these schools’ singular focus on classical subjects and techniques. Picasso moved back to Barcelona and fell in with a crowd of artists, intellectuals and radicals, inspiring him to make a decisive break from the classical methods in which he had been trained to embark on a lifelong process of artistic experimentation and innovation. Among the different stylistic periods for which Picasso is known include the Blue Period, Rose Period, Classical Period, Cubism, Surrealism and more. Living and working in Paris beginning at the turn of the century, Picasso experimented with nearly every printmaking technique throughout his career, in the studios of the finest printmakers across France: with Hidalgo Arnera, Roger Lacourière (who produced the famed Vollard Suite), and at the Studio Delâtre, but creating the bulk of his work at the Atelier Mourlot in Paris. Pablo Picasso continued to create art and maintain an ambitious schedule in his later years, until his death in 1973, at the age of 91, in Mougins, France.
EDVARD MUNCH
Edvard Munch was born on December 12, 1863, in Löten, Norway, the second of five children. In 1864, his family moved to the city of Kristiania (now known as Oslo), where a series of tragedies befell them: Munch’s mother and sister died from tuberculosis, his only brother died of pneumonia, and another of his sisters was committed and spent most of her life institutionalized. After briefly studying engineering, his passion for art led him in 1881 to enroll at the Royal School of Art and Design in Kristiania, Munch then spent the end of the decade in France and began the most productive—and troubled—period of his artistic life. In the 1890s, Munch’s fragile psychological state was reflected in emotionally evocative paintings and prints. During this time, he created some of his most well-known etchings and drypoints in the studios of master printmakers L. Angerer in Berlin and Auguste Clot in Paris. His paintings and prints found Munch substantial artistic and commercial success within the art world, and cemented his legacy and profound influence on the history of printmaking. In 1908, however, due to a worsening mental state, he checked himself into a sanitarium. Upon his release a year later, Munch moved to a country house outside of Kristiania, Norway, where he lived in isolation and painted until his death in 1944.
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Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | tel 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | info@lewallengalleries.com Š 2016 LewAllen Contemporary LLC