PABLO RUIZ PICASSO (Malaga, 1881-Mougins, 1973). "Suite... Lot 1

PABLO RUIZ PICASSO (Malaga, 1881-Mougins, 1973). "Suite 156". Engraving, copy 24/50. Signed in plate, justified by hand. Belonging to the series "Suite 156". Work published in "Picasso Suit 156". Kosme Baraño Letamendia, Ed. BBV, Bilbao 1998. Measurements: 50 x 65 cm; 75 x 88 cm (frame). This series is made up of a set of one hundred and fifty-six prints from as many copperplates that Picasso engraved when he was over ninety years old. The works reveal his old age through an iconography that never fails to show an elderly Picasso. The prints do not provide an overall view, but they all have in common a retrospective look at the artist's life and work, and a nod to his visual memory. Thus we can glimpse the theme of the circus, to which Picasso was a regular in his youth, the female nude, with images of brothels, or his debt to painters for whom he felt admiration. The creation of Suite 156 was structured in three stages. From January to 25 May 1970, Picasso engraved more than fifty copper plates. In the second stage, between 25 February and 16 June of the following year, he made nearly a hundred plates, including thirty-eight dedicated to the image of Degas. Finally, in March 1972, he produced three more copperplates, two of them for Suite 156. Of this series, printed in its entirety by the brothers Piero and Aldo Crommelynck, fifty numbered copies were printed. The only three complete series of Suite 156 in existence are in the Musée Picasso in Paris, in a private collection and in the Bancaixa Foundation. The creator of Cubism together with Braque, Picasso's painting marked a turning point in the history of art. He began his studies in 1895 at the Provincial School of Fine Arts in Barcelona, and only two years later he held his first solo exhibition at the café "Els Quatre Gats". After several short stays in Paris, Picasso settled permanently in the French capital in 1904. After his blue and pink periods in the early years of the century, the painter began his geometrical experiments in 1906, during a stay in Lérida. A year later he began to paint "Les Demoiselles de la Rue Avinyó", and in 1909 he came into contact with Braque and his Cubist period began. During the second decade he developed his classical period, and produced his famous sets for Diaghilev's Russian ballets. In 1936 he was appointed director of the Prado Museum by the Government of the Spanish Republic, and a year later he painted "Guernica". His definitive international recognition came in 1939, when he was given a retrospective at the MOMA in New York. During the following decades he was the subject of anthological exhibitions all over the world, in Rome, Milan, Paris, Cologne and New York, among many other cities. He is represented in the most important museums around the world, such as the Metropolitan, the MOMA and the Guggenheim in New York, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the National Gallery in London and the Reina Sofía in Madrid.