Pablo Picasso, After the Spade, Linocut, 1962

Description

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

Après la Pique (After the Pike)

Colour Linocut on Vellum paper

year 1962

sheet size: 317 x … more Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

Après la Pique (After the Pike)

Colour Linocut on Vellum paper

year 1962

sheet size: 317 x 383 mm
image size: 270 x 325 mm

plate number 7 from the collection of Linocut published by Cercle d'Art editions in 1962

Great Condition: negligible signs of ages, never framed - please see pictures!
Note on condition: our artwork is complete, neither cropped nor trimmed. We insist on that because some people used to crop linocuts from these series in order to cut the small numbers lower left, for aesthetic reason: this way, the artwork loses its integrity and even most of its economic value. We are selling a complete artwork, not crippled, and we show it all - one of the pictures includes the edges. Tip: if one does not like the small number, it is easy to hide it under a passepartout when matted - just don't trim the artwork!

This is a real linocut from the original edition dated 1962 (NOT from the lithograph/digital reprints published in 1988 and 2020)
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Picasso and Linogravure (Linocut)

Picasso's activity on linocut is late, and certainly due to the desire to give color, having in lithographs a secondary role, a leading one in graphic creation. Thus, the artist did not intend to discover a new series of contents and forms, but to adapt his figurative world to new technical possibilities. And so, as in all of Picasso's experiences - whether in plastic, lithography, ceramics, or aquatint - the results obtained can only be compared to Picasso's own previous creations.
We do not know what chance event brought Picasso into contact with the unusual medium of linoleum. Just as a year earlier he had finished painting "L'Arlésienne" with dove feathers collected from the courtyard of his house "La Californie" in Cannes, rather than with a brush, the linocuts may also have had an equally casual immediate inspiration. However, in comparing the aquatints of the "Tauromachia" with the brush drawings immediately preceding the linocuts, a fundamental difference is immediately spotted. The engravings are static and two-dimensional, so much so that they sometimes create a silhouette effect. The artist then used several very different expedients to adapt his motifs to the possibilities offered by printed linocut. Although he had previously only made woodcuts, Picasso soon found himself at ease in this new field where he ventured with rapid decision and treats the docile material according to methods of extreme ductility. Linear and two-dimensional schemes are used and exhibited by numerous superimpositions of the same colour, or by repeatedly reprinting the same matrix appropriately modified. Among the various colour agreements, the ideal type prevails in the combination of ochre, brown and black inspired by the color scheme of Greek vases and which inexplicably also responds perfectly to the needs of the most modern technique.
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Picasso and the Corrida (Spanish Bullfighting)

The recurring theme in the linocuts by Picasso is the bullfight (Corrida). The revival of the bullfight in Arles and Nimes after the war stimulated in him - who remained faithful to his oath not to return to Spain - the resurfacing of old yet wonderfully precise memories. Already in the years after 1940, in full maturity, bullfight motifs had resurfaced in lithographs and painted ceramics. When from 1954 in Vallauris, a type of bullfight without the final killing of the bull became customary, and even Jacqueline Roque, who was entering the painter's life to become Madame Picasso in 1961, showed a passion for, the dramatic events of the arena became increasingly predominant. Interest in the theme was further stimulated in the summer of 1957 by the assignment to illustrate a new edition of Pepe Illo's classic Tauromachia. The world of the bullring, to which Picasso had earned his entrance ticket as a child with his first drawings, had resurfaced and imposed itself on the painter for several years. The brush-tip drawings of bullfights from 1959 onward are closely related to contemporary engravings; in some of them, in fact, brown appears as a second color. As the years went by, Picasso's nostalgia for Spain became more and more intense. This was already demonstrated by his ever-increasing participation in bullfights and folk festivals, which the artist, as in his youth, jokingly enjoyed.
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On This Artwork

The theme is the picador on horseback attacking the bull with the lance (pica or vara). In the artwork the horse appears in a standing position, the contours remain clear, while the black, printed last, gives rise to a series of segments that constitute the skeleton of the figures, according to a principle already applied among others in the lithograph The Lobster of 1949. The bullfight merges with the artistic homogeneity of the figures and the background, which are in a relationship of reciprocal positive-negative. Even the yellow shapes possess an autonomous value and are not only valid as a plastic suggestion. Even the fanciful stylisation of bull, horse and picador depends on the desire to balance the spots of the two colours. When the third colour appears (in this case black, which is made to correspond to the carmine of the original composition) the decorative effect is reduced in favour of a plastic-cubist representation. This also applies to other artworks of the series. Having to depict the pursuit of the bull in a single direction puts the emphasis on the unity of the figures, whose contours appear similar to the feminine curves of Picasso's etchings or the paintings of ancient vases. One also thinks of Claude's rocking horse or the winged horse of Peace in the chapel of Vallauris. This artwork is a masterpiece of emotional intensity and graphic clarity. I have official proof of authenticity such as vintage catalogs,
designer records,
or other literature sources and take full responsibility for any authenticity issues arising
from
misattribution less