PABLO PICASSO. Opening on Thursday, January 30, 2014, 7 pm Maximilianstrasse 25, Munich

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1 DRAWINGS, PRINTS AND CERAMICS January 31 March 29, 2014 Opening on Thursday, January 30, 2014, 7 pm Maximilianstrasse 25, Munich Femme au Fauteuil No Januar 1949 Tête de femme (Portrait de Jacqueline de face II) 15. Januar 1962 Enfant et nu à la grappe 1969 Visage de profil 1953 Picasso is indisputably the artistic genius of the 20th century. Galerie Thomas is underscoring this fact with an exhibition covering the range from a pen-and-ink drawing by the 21-year-old artist through to a dry-point engraving created when he was 88 years old. It is less well known that he was also an audacious experimenter in the field of graphics and ceramics. For example, in the 1940s, instead of using unwieldy stones, he began drawing lithographs on zinc plates, which were easier to carry and permitted him to create his prints twice the usual size. And he was able to combine lithography and etching by first drawing on the plates with lithographic ink and then engraving with the stylus and working with other tools as can be seen by the prints of the Femme au fauteuil series, which are an example of how Picasso often created ten or more states of one and the same graphic work by repeatedly reworking the plate until he was satisfied with the result. Three of at least 31 versions from this series can be seen in the exhibition. Picasso also invented reduction in the linocut, so that he no longer had to engrave a plate for each colour, but reworked the plate further after printing each colour, as can be seen in Tête de femme, a portrait of Jacqueline Roque, the last muse and woman in the artist s life. To illustrate the graphic techniques that Picasso used, there are some impressive works in the exhibition: drawing, etching, lithograph, linocut, aquatint and monotype. For his ceramics, he often took traditional, turned vessels such as bottles and jugs and shaped them into animals, or took clay impressions of linocut plates, which he painted, as he did plain floor or wall tiles, plates and dishes. This variety of techniques, experiments and subjects was only possible because he mastered his art with a facility that still makes artists turn pale with envy and awe. For further information, please contact Barbara Zmeck at: / b.zmeck@galerie-thomas.de

2 Femme au fauteuil No. 1 lithograph on Arches Velin paper January 13, ,5 x 54,2 cm image / 75,8 x 56,5 cm sheet / 27 3/8 x 21 3/8 in. image / 29 7/8 x 22 1/4 in. sheet verso inscribed 'FM 134 / 2 etat du report' and numbered '6/6' by Fernand Mourlot 2nd state of transfer, overall 8th of 10 states; one of 6 prints, 5 for the artist, 1 for the printer; no edition Mourlot 134 Printed by Mourlot in PABLO PICASSO Femme au Fauteuil No. 1 lithograph on Arches paper December 23, ,5 x 54,5 cm image / 27 3/8 x 21 1/2 in. image verso inscribed 'FM 134, 1e état du report' and numbered '6/6' by Fernand Mourlot 1st state of transfer, overall 7th of 11 states; one of 6 prints, 5 for the artist, 1 for the printer; no edition Mourlot 134 PABLO PICASSO Femme au Fauteuil (d'apres le noir) Lithograph on Arches paper December 4, ,8 x 54,7 cm image / 76,3 x 56,5 cm sheet / 27 1/2 x 21 1/2 in. image / 30 x 22 1/4 in. sheet verso inscribed by Fernand Mourlot 'FM 138, 4e état' and numbered 6/6' 4th of 6 states; one of 6 prints, 5 for the artist, 1 for the printer; there was no edition of this state Bloch 1353; Mourlot 138 Picasso was most intensively immersed in the lithographic technique in the period from November 1945 to spring During this period, he created 185 lithographs. Many of these prints are different states of one motif, re-affirming the artist s love of experimentation. On August 25, 1948, Picasso flew to Poland to take part in a peace congress in Warsaw organised by the Communists. He had promised to write to the pregnant Françoise every day and not to stay away longer than four days. He stayed for three weeks. As an apology, he presented her with an embroidered lambskin coat that he had brought back for her. At the end of October, he painted a portrait of her in oils, wearing this coat and sitting in an armchair, and later created the Femme au Fauteuil graphic series, one of his most famous and at the same time most complicated series of lithographs. To be able to print larger formats, Picasso had abandoned the unwieldy lithographic stones for zinc plates twice the size in First he drew a motif for five plates, one for each colour. However, he was dissatisfied with the test prints and began to alter each of the plates with black lithographic ink. He continued working on them with pens and quills, sandpaper and a needle, by sanding and polishing. In some cases, when the plates had reached a state that Picasso wanted to keep, they were transferred to a new plate and then reworked further. Thus there are at least 31 versions of Femme au Fauteuil in total (Mourlot ). The addition d après le rouge or d après le noir means that for that particular print Picasso had reworked the original plate for the red colour (first) or for the black colour (last). Of the total of four states after the red had been transferred onto a different plate, the exhibition shows the first and the second state, and the fourth state of the black plate.

3 Tête de femme (Portrait de Jacqueline de face II) linocut on Arches Velin paper January 15, x 53 cm image / 75,2 x 59,3 cm sheet / 25 x 20 3/4 in. image / 29 5/8 x 23 3/8 in. sheet signed lower right, numbered '3/50' lower left fourth and final state edition of EA with Arches watermark Bloch 1063; Baer 1280 IV.B.a In 1953, at the age of 72, Picasso started taking an interest in the technique of linocut, which had been neglected by artists for decades. His starting point, in 1953, was a series of posters for the Toros of Vallauris and the temporary Exposition de Vallauris, annual exhibitions of ceramics by local potters. Stimulated by a postcard from the art dealer Kahnweiler from Vienna, of Cranach s Bildnis einer Edelfrau, a painting from 1564 (owned by the Kunsthistorisches Museum), Picasso created a first version of the theme Portrait de jeune Fille d après Cranach le Jeune (Bloch 859) on July 4, 1958, a linocut in 6 colours, now one of the artist s most famous graphic works. Between autumn 1958 and spring 1962, working together with the printer Hidalgo Arnéra of Vallauris, he created 45 large-format linocuts with hitherto unrivalled linear, surface and colour effects. The high-pressure linocut technique is a complicated process in which a separate plate must be prepared for each colour using a gouge. Picasso took to the new medium with his characteristic pleasure in experimentation and variation, and created particularly striking coloured prints. He produced this portrait of his wife Jacqueline in January 1962 in Mougins. It shows a magnificent linocut in four colours (three different brown tones and black), with clearly delimited colour fields accentuating her severe, classically beautiful countenance.

4 Enfant et nu à la grappe pencil on paper ,3 x 65 cm / 19 7/8 x 25 5/8 in. signed, dated and inscribed ' II' upper left Zervos XXXI / 401 In 1969, the creative energy of the 87-year-old Picasso continued unbroken; he ignored the inadequacies of his ageing body. His works from this year in Mougins are characterised by two main themes. One is the self-portrait. He created over 300 works, in which he represented himself as Homme, Peintre or Mousquetaire", alone or with naked women. But all these male figures assume a passive role, only looking at the women. In summer, he shifted the focus to a different motif, which had already attracted his attention in previous years Jacqueline lying down in a seductive pose. Until autumn, he varied this motif in pencil, crayon, ink, watercolour, oil and as a graphic work. To those who found his art too erotic, even pornographic, such as Gertrude Stein, he riposted, Art is never chaste, it ought to be forbidden to ignorant innocents, never allowed into contact with those not sufficiently prepared. Yes, art is dangerous. Where it is chaste, it is not art.

5 Visage de profil earthenware, partially glazed and painted December 19, x 28 cm / 9 1/2 x 11 in. dated, stamped 'Madoure Plein feu' and 'Edition Picasso', incised 'Edition Picasso 81/150 R 154 Madoura' Ramié 209 In summer 1946, Pablo Picasso was invited by Romuald Dor de la Souchere, director of the Grimaldi Museum in the medieval Château Grimaldi in Antibes, to live and work in the château for a few months. He took the opportunity to visit the annual ceramic exhibition in Vallauris, and got to know Suzanne and George Ramié, who ran the Madoura pottery workshop there. He visited the workshop and modelled three ceramic pieces, the head of a faun and two small bulls and his interest in ceramics as a material and painting surface was awakened. When Picasso returned a year later, the pieces had been fired and saved for him. He had an entire folder of drafts with him, which he now wanted to realise. He was given his own workplace in the Ramié's workshop, and soon became a friend, indeed a member of the family. Picasso liked to say C'est ici que je suis chez moi. He modelled his own sculptures or used plates, vases or jugs prepared for him by the master potter Jules Asgard, which he often formed by hand, and scratched and painted with his typical motifs, such as female nude, fauns and bullfighting scenes, owls, goats and fish. In 1948, together with Françoise Gilot, he moved into the villa La Galloise in the hills of Vallauris. Later, his art dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler was to write: Picasso abandoned himself to ceramics with the same passion as for painting, sculpture and graphics". While willing to learn about the minutest details of the techniques and rules of the craft from the experienced potters, he still as always performed his own experiments and gained experience with the material, as he was used to do with graphics. He cast the clay like bronze, or used it to make imprints of his linocuts. From the blocks of dried clay that the potters threw away, he cut sculptures, which were then fired. In return for having access at all times to the workshop, the material, the kiln and the masters expertise, Picasso reached an agreement with the Ramiés that they should produce and sell certain of his original works as an edition. In the beginning, Suzanne Ramié personally painted the ceramics editions from Picasso s originals.