拍品专文
Picasso’s Femme au Fauteuil lithographs depict Françoise Gilot, his partner at the time, shown seated frontally in the distinctive embroidered Polish coat he brought back from his trip to Wrocław in 1948. Her poised silhouette offered Picasso a stable framework through which to explore the expressive possibilities of lithography during his most intensive period of working at the Atelier Mourlot. Although the motif remains constant, he continued to make changes to the key- and colour stones from one state to another, reflecting different graphic schemes ranging from descriptive modelling to increasingly abstract and symbolic forms.
The two impressions presented here illustrate the boldness with which Picasso re-worked the composition from one state to the next. In the earlier state, Gilot’s features and the basic structure of the armchair remain legible, while the later state shows the figure distilled into sharper, more geometric forms. This dramatic shift exemplifies Picasso’s experimental approach in 1949, treating each state not as a modification of the last but as a new piece of art. Together, they offer a concise insight into the speed, variety and ambition of his post-war lithographic practice.
The two impressions presented here illustrate the boldness with which Picasso re-worked the composition from one state to the next. In the earlier state, Gilot’s features and the basic structure of the armchair remain legible, while the later state shows the figure distilled into sharper, more geometric forms. This dramatic shift exemplifies Picasso’s experimental approach in 1949, treating each state not as a modification of the last but as a new piece of art. Together, they offer a concise insight into the speed, variety and ambition of his post-war lithographic practice.
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