Buste sur Fond Etoilé. Bust with a Star Spangled Background. by Pablo Picasso, 1881-1973

Pablo Picasso, 1881-1973
Scroll down for information.
Click here to return to the list.

Buste sur Fond Etoilé. Bust with a Star Spangled Background.

Original lithograph in black ink. 1949. Signed in red chalk. Numbered 35 in red chalk from the edition of 50.(There were also 5 proofs). Dated in the stone (Mourlot notes that from the studio records the date should be 7th March 1949, not April). Drawn and printed at the Atelier
Mourlot. Drawn using gouache and wash on paper transferred to stone.
Ref:
Superb fresh impression. On pale cream wove Arches paper. Excellent condition. Printed virtually to the full sheet size, as issued. Sheet: 25 5/8 x 19 1/2ins (650x495mm).

This item is sold.
Click here to enquire about this item.

The importance to Picasso of lithography as a medium is demonstrated by the fact that only a month after the end of the War in 1945 he was in Paris and starting to work at the lithography studio of Fernand Mourlot. Over the following three years he spent very much of his time at the studio and drew some of his most inspired prints. In late 1948 and early 1949, after a period at Vallauris, Picasso was again back at Mourlot’s studio. At this period he was working on the series of studies of women’s heads, inspired by his love-affair with Françoise Gilot, which includes the greatest works in lithography that he ever drew.

The portraits of Françoise of this period are also marked by the extraordinary invention which Picasso brought to the use of the medium. Many of the techniques that he used were his own invention and flouted all the technical conventions. In ‘Buste sur Fond Etoilé’ he wanted to capture a special quality of light on Francoise’s face. Instead of using a combination of line and conventional shading he decided to work in reverse. To achieve this he covered a sheet of paper in a gouache wash and scraped away lines and shading so that they appeared white against the paper surface. This sheet of paper was then transferred onto stone and the resulting black areas further worked with scraper and wet brush to heighten the contrast between free line and tonal highlight. The combination of negative and positive, for example the manner in which the tone values on her cheeks seem to be both defined by a reversed ‘white on black’ contour yet also modelled in ‘positive’ tone values, is a wonderfully beautiful and evocative way of expressing his view of her beauty.

The finest of Picasso’s portraits of Françoise from this period are amongst the greatest masterworks of lithography from the whole 20th century.