PICASSO LES LIVRES d’ARTISTE The collection of Mr. A*** collection ofThe Mr. d’artiste livres Les PICASSO PICASSO Les livres d’artiste The collection of Mr. A*** Author’s note Years ago, at the University of Washington, I had the opportunity to teach a class on the ”Late Picasso.” For a specialist in nineteenth-century art, this was a particularly exciting and daunting opportunity, and one that would prove formative to my thinking about art’s history. Picasso does not allow for temporalization the way many other artists do: his late works harken back to old masterpieces just as his early works are themselves masterpieces before their time, and the many years of his long career comprise a host of “periods” overlapping and quoting one another in a form of historico-cubist play that is particularly Picassian itself. Picasso’s ability to engage the art-historical canon in new and complex ways was in no small part influenced by his collaborative projects. It is thus with great joy that I return to the varied treasures that constitute the artist’s immense creative output, this time from the perspective of his livres d’artiste, works singularly able to point up his transcendence across time, media, and culture. It is a joy and a privilege to be able to work with such an incredible collection, and I am very grateful to Mr. A***, and to Umberto Pregliasco and Filippo Rotundo for the opportunity to contribute to this fascinating project. The writing of this catalogue is indebted to the work of Sebastian Goeppert, Herma Goeppert-Frank, and Patrick Cramer, whose Pablo Picasso. The Illustrated Books: Catalogue Raisonné (Geneva: Patrick Cramer, 1983) informs many of the entries included here as well as all edition information. Julia Stimac, MA, PhD Candidate Gallery Director, PrPh Books PrPh Books LLC Libreria Pregliasco Philobiblon 26E 64th Street Via Accademia Albertina 3 bis Largo della Fontanella di Borghese 19 New York, NY 10065 10123 Torino (Italy) 00186 Roma (Italy) +1 (646) 370 4657 +39 011 8177114 +39 06 45 55 59 70 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] www.prphbooks.com www.preliber.com www.philobiblion.org 5 Preface The first quarter of the twentieth century saw the birth of Modern art as we know it, Other notable rarities include the collaborative books published by PAB (Pierre André Benoît). and it was during this period that the concept of the livre d’artiste became a phenomenon. It These wonderful volumes came about as a result of Benoît sending Picasso a small piece of was in France, and in particular Paris, where the vast majority of the greatest illustrated celluloid as a suggested material support for an engraving. Picasso duly sent back the tiny plate books of the century were published, and where the publishers Ambroise Vollard and with a miniature engraving of a face upon it and within a matter of weeks Benoît had produced Henry Kahnweiler were the driving forces behind many of the finest books. The language of an edition of 30 books, each virtually the same format as the printing matrix. From this small art was changing so rapidly that to stay “modern” meant to constantly adapt, so perhaps it was engraving and resulting book, a firm friendship was born, and between 1956 and 1967 the natural that the artist Vollard, Kahnweiler, and the majority of publishers turned to on many two collaborated on 17 further books; with the exception of Si large mon image (1958), which occasions was Picasso. Picasso had cemented his position as the most innovative and, it would exists in only two copies (one for the artist and one for the publisher), the collection contains be fair to say, important artist of his generation early in his career. He was at the forefront of an example of every book they produced together. virtually every major art movement in the first half of the twentieth century, and his ability Like those with PAB, many of Picasso’s books were highly collaborative affairs, perhaps none to effortlessly turn his hand to multiple media meant his style never stagnated. Yet despite more so than that of Pismo/Escrito by Iliazd (Ilia Zdanevitch) (1948). The work is a love letter to his constantly evolving style, Picasso was not afraid of revisiting earlier themes if the project the Russian Olga Djordjadze, whom Iliazd met in Cannes in 1946, and is an ode to his muse. demanded it, as in such notable works as Les Métamorphoses (1931), Lysistrata (1934), and Six Picasso had been given a plate by the printer Lacourier that was too large, and instead of cutting Contes Fantasques (1953), which are all presented in the neoclassical style despite his having it down the artist etched a tall thin nude onto the plate. Upon seeing it, Iliazd immediately moved on from the form already many times over. For Picasso, illustrating books was not a applauded the work’s asymmetry, which reaffirmed his idea of the book existing in three side-line: his livres d’artiste form a highly important aspect of his creative output. Much parts: the work itself thus came to inform the book’s design, which is highly unique. Escrito is like his printmaking and unlike many artists, Picasso’s graphic works are not mere presented folded into thirds with the etchings taking up one third of each folded page and the reproductions of pre-existing images; rather, they exist alongside his works in other media, text the remainder, giving a silted yet somehow very coherent effect that complements the text and both inform and are informed by them. perfectly. As is sometimes the case, the subject matter of the etchings is not necessarily that of The present collection is particularly rich in deluxe and unique presentation copies; these the protagonist of the book, as the etchings in Escrito are all very clearly portraits of Picasso’s coupled with the incredible rarity of many of the other books, makes special editions, lover Françoise Gilot, but the message is clear nonetheless. assembling a similar collection today virtually, if not certainly, impossible. Fine copies of Assembling the collection was an enormous undertaking, a true labour of love, and the the early books are particularly well covered. A number of the books published by the examples of the books within it are some of the finest known. PRPH Books is honoured to be author Max Jacob are of particular note, including a magnificent copy of Picasso’s third able to present this remarkable collection to a wider audience. illustrated book, Le Siège de Jérusalem (1914), housed in a fine Pierre Legrain binding and containing drawings and a manuscript dedication by Jacob. Le Cornet à dés (1917) Alexander Hayter contains one of Picasso’s rarest early engravings, and the only time he produced an Forum Auctions Ltd International Head of Modern & Contemporary Art and editions engraved Cubist Harlequin; the fine copy included here is one of only 14 on delicate Japan paper. Of equal rarity is the wonderful copy of Le Phanérogame (1918) from the edition of only 20 in a superb Bonnet binding. The magnificent copy of Picasso’s first illustrated book, André Salmon’s Poémes (1905), is one of only ten copies containing the Rose Period drypoint Les Deux Saltimbanques (1905), included in a fine velvety impression printed on japan paper before the plate was steel-faced. 6 7 Picasso and friends In the history of art, Picasso’s printmaking activities are as significant as his paintings, and perhaps represent the most intimate side of his artistic evolution. Right from the Blue and Pink Periods, his graphic contributions to illustrated books formed a significant aspect of his artistic practice. An extraordinary experimenter, his graphic oeuvre ranges from engraving, etching, and drypoint to lithography, aquatint, and linoleum cut; each of these techniques found their way into his livres d’artiste, which made the fortunes of the most important art publishers of the early twentieth century, such as Vollard, Tériade and Skira. He used to self-define a “peintre-graveur”, and his book illustrations manage to give life to works that, while integrating with the texts, become autonomous. He was also deeply into the French literary milieu and much of his production owes to his involvement with these writers and poets: in such experiments, literature and painting merge inseparably. For these reasons, Mr. A***, who started building his collection in the early 1990s, opted to limit himself to books for which Picasso created illustrations strictly merged with text. He didn’t consider individual plates or portfolios, multi-artist catalogues or anthologies, or editions not strictly limited in size. This stunning collection of Picasso’s livres d’artiste—on display, for the first time ever, at PrPh—is one of just two comparable collections in private hands and includes numerous presentation copies, bindings by Bonnet, Martin, Gras, Cretté, drawings by Picasso or by the writers, and rare examples from extremely limited editions. Many of the books were written by the Spanish genius’s own friends, such as Max Jacob, Tristan Tzara, Paul Eluard, and Jean Cocteau, and top designers of the time, such as Iliazd (Ilia Zdanevich) and PAB (Pierre-André Benoît), feature prominently among the many masterpieces. From doves to bullfighters, the visitor will find Pi- casso’s great range of iconography well represented: often the engravings, in many ways more flexible than larger works on canvas, anticipate the pictorial path carried out in his paintings, or they offered a separate forum for the artist to explore a given theme in greater depth. At the same time, the opportunity to experience over 120 of these works — to view, touch, and “breathe” them, all in a single space — will likely lead to some surprising discoveries about the master artist whose long career crosses numerous epochal events of the twentieth century.