Portrait de Jacqueline au chapeau de paille fleuri. 1962.
Linocut in colours.
Baer 1322 B a (of B b). Bloch 1075. Signed and numbered 6/50. A fine impression of the second state on Arches (with watermark). 34,8 : 27 cm (13,7 : 10,6 in). Sheet: 57,5 x 44,1 cm (22,6 x 17,4 in). In 1958 Pablo Picasso started working with coloured linocuts, a medium he learnt at the Arnéra studio in Vallauris. He lost no time in perfecting his treatment of the medium and enlarging its technical possibilities. A year later he did more than forty colour linocuts. After quite a long break, the year 1962 was once again an extraordinarily productive one for Picasso as a printmaker, when he did nearly fifty colour linocuts, most of them heads. Working with and for Arnéra so fascinated the artist that he kept at it to the point of exhaustion. Typical of his late work, including the present one, is a reversion to Cubist design elements, which he has, however, linked with the beauty of line and the regular proportions associated with his Classical period. As so often in works from this period, the subject is Jaqueline Roque, the artist’s mistress and muse from 1954.

Published by Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris 1963
Slightly and irregularly discoloured, mount staining. Wide margins with a few pale fox marks and some minor handling creases. With some rubbings in the lower left part of the image. Fractionally with slight ripples at the image. Remains of old tape to the upper sheet edge on the reverse, otherwise in good condition. [KR]