Pablo Picasso (after) (1881 - 1973)
Title: Comédie Humaine 27/1/54.XIV
Medium: Lithograph printed in colours, 27/1/54.XIV , on Arches watermarked paper, outside the signed edition of 75, beneath the Publishers Blindstamp “ED VERVE”
Condition : In good condition
Note: The Verve Review, like its sister publications Derrier Le Miroir and Xxe Siecle, was a Parisian art journal seeking to bring the works of the emergent Modernist and Surrealist painters to a wider public. In 1954 Verve devoted it’s number 29/30 edition exclusively to the works by Pablo Picasso. This comprised a suite of illustrations for 180 drawings and a sub- series entitled “La Comedie Humaine” These were inc lauded within the book as bookplates. Besides these Verve published some of the works in a Limited Edition of 75 which were signed and numbered by the artist in pencil. These have the blidstamp of the Publisher and are of larger size then the book edition. It is from this series that our example comes.
The suite tackles the relationship between a painter and his model, which was one of the definitive themes for Picasso. There is a wonderfully free-flowing progression from one drawing to the next and through them Picasso explores the intimacies of the interactions between the two characters. Picasso was doubtless inspired by Balzac who made a series of 91 short stories with the same title. These cynical stories appealed to Picasso who, at one stage in his life, lived in the very house once owned by Balzac.
As with any moment of evolution in Picasso’s art, his objective reflection was stimulated by changes in his personal life. With her distinct ‘Greek’ profile and long hair swept back behind her head, the model we see in Dessinateur et modèle is a new arrival in Picasso’s imagery and her appearance coincides with Picasso’s first meeting with Jacqueline Roque in December 1953. Jacqueline, who would later become the artist’s wife and last muse, possessed what Picasso celebrated as a sphinx-like presence and physique. The strength of the rapport between Picasso and Jacqueline was immediately tangible and is translated by the artist in these drawings with a tenderness that is at the same time both chaste and seductive.
In 1954 the drawings were interpreted in lithographic form and were published with an introduction by Michel Leiris who noted: “Painter and model, man and woman - in the field of art as in that of love, there is always a duel going on between the subject and the object, adversaries forever facing each other and separated by a gap that no one, however great his genius, can hope to bridge”
Size: Paper size: 265 x 358 mms (11 x 14.5 inches); Image size 320 x 220 mms.
There was a book edition on smaller paper without the blindstamp of about 2000 copies.
Published by : Verve, Paris, France
Printed by: Mourlot Freres, Paris, France
