Profil de Femme - Portrait de Françoise. by Pablo Picasso, 1881-1973

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

Profil de Femme - Portrait de Françoise.

Original chalk and pen-drawn lithograph in black ink. 1947. Signed in pencil. Numbered (26) in pencil from the edition of 50. Dated March '47 in the stone. Drawn and printed at the Atelier Mourlot. Issued by Galerie Leiris, Paris 1947.
Ref: Mourlot - Picasso Lithographs no 82

Excellent impression with strong inking. On pale cream wove Rives-type paper. Excellent condition. Full margins. Worked virtually to the full sheet size, as issued. Sheet: 22 1/4 x 15 1/8ins (565x385mm).

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

In the early months of 1947 Picasso made a number of studies of Françoise in profile working in lithography. The version above, drawn in March, illustrates one of the elements of lithography that Picasso found increasingly fascinating - the ability to pare drawing down to essential core, heightening the intensity of the remaining lines. In the famous study of ‘The Bull’ the image was reduced from a fully modelled form to a stylised single line.

In this study close attention to the image reveals faint traces of an earlier more tonally worked stage which Picasso then burnished out on the stone leaving just the simple bold flowing line of the structure of the head and the profile. The resulting vibrant tension in the line gives the study its strong but poetic beauty.