Danse du Centaur - Centaur and Faun Dancing. by Pablo Picasso, 1881-1973

Pablo Picasso, 1881-1973
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Danse du Centaur - Centaur and Faun Dancing.

Original lithograph drawn with the brush and scraper in black ink. 1948. Signed in pencil. Inscribed in pencil (by the printer) as 'épreuve d'artiste - artist's proof.' One of 5 proofs reserved for the artist before the edition of 50 impressions. Printed at the Atelier Mourlot, October 1948. Issued by Galerie Leiris. Provenance: Galerie Leiris.
Ref: Mourlot - Picasso Lithographs no 121

Superb rich impression. On pale cream wove Arches paper. Excellent condition. Worked to the full sheet size, as issued. Sheet: 19 6/8 x 25 7/8ins. (500 x 658mm)

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Throughout the last years of the 1940's Picasso was passionately interested in working in lithography, and he spent long periods without interruption working at the Mourlot Studio. In the autumn of 1947 he left Paris to go to Golfe Juan on the south coast, but in mid 1948 he returned to Paris and again immersed himself in lithography. 'Danse du Centaur' was drawn in October 1948, when he was again at a peak of inspiration in lithography.

During this period Picasso was greatly interested by the way that the lithographic stone could be used with a 'reverse-drawing' technique. That is to say that the main area of the surface could be covered with a dense black wash, and the forms then created either by blocking out areas so as to appear white or by making a scraper drawn line. This treatment could also be varied within an overall form which has been created as 'white out of black' so that parts within that form appear in positive, with normal linear description and shading.

'Danse du Centaur' shows how mixing both negative and positive drawing within a single image can give it a new quality of immediacy and vibrancy. It was the first of the 'negative-positive' compositions that Picasso drew in late 1948, and it is one of the most visually arresting compositions in Picasso's lithography of that period. Particularly effective is the way that the black background is stopped-off at the foot of the image so that it suddenly becomes a description of a suggested landscape rather than a mere backdrop.

The theme of 'Danse du Centaur' is typical of Picasso's celebration of the bacchanalian enjoyment of life - piping fauns, a dancing centaur, the wild goat all cavorting by moonlight, and it is expressive of the underlying emotional fever in Picasso's character at this date.