VOLLARD SUITE - THREE NUDE MEN STANDING

Artist: Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

Medium: Lithograph Plate Signed 23/150 

23.25" x 20.5"

Pablo Picasso was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet and playwright who spent most of his adult life in France. As one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore.  

Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in his early years, painting in a naturalistic manner through his childhood and adolescence. During the first decade of the 20th century, his style changed as he experimented with different theories, techniques, and ideas. His work is often categorized into periods. While the names of many of his later periods are debated, the most commonly accepted periods in his work are the Blue Period (1901–1904), the Rose Period (1904–1906), the African-influenced Period (1907–1909), Analytic Cubism (1909–1912), and Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919). 

Although his art career spanned over a 7-decade period, Pablo Picasso is most known for his introduction of cubism, and modern approach to painting, which set forth the movements to follow in to the twentieth century. Not only was his art form well ahead of his time, but the works he created went on to influence artists and painters down the line, for a period of more than 50 years, and still influences the styles of many artists today.  

When Picasso died at age 91 in April 1973, he had become one of the most famous and successful artists throughout history. He is also undeniably the most prolific genius in the history of art. His career spanned over a 78 year period, in which he created: 13,500 paintings, 100,000 prints and engravings, and 34,000 illustrations. Picasso was, and still is, seen as a magician by writers and critics, a metaphor that captures both the sense of an artist who is able to transform everything around him at a touch and a man who can also transform himself, elude us, fascinate and mesmerise us.  

Picasso's free spirit, his eccentric style, and his complete disregard for what others thought of his work and creative style, made him a catalyst for artists to follow. Picasso's originality touched every major artist and art movement that followed in his wake.  

Even as of today, his life and works continue to invite countless scholarly interpretation and attract thousands of followers around the world. No one has achieved the same degree of widespread fame or displayed such incredible versatility as Pablo Picasso has in the art history.  

“Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth." - Pablo Picasso 

The Vollard Suite, comprises 100 etchings produced by Picasso between 1930 and 1937. The prints were made when Picasso was involved in a passionate affair with his muse and model, Marie-Thérèse Walter, whose classical features are a recurrent presence in the series. They offer an ongoing process of change and metamorphosis that eludes any final resolution. Picasso gave no order to the plates nor did he assign any titles to them. Picasso kept the plates open-ended to allow connections to be freely made among them, yet certain thematic groupings can also be identified.  

The predominant theme of the Vollard Suite is the Sculptor’s Studio (46 etchings), which deals with Picasso’s engagement with classical sculpture.  

The Vollard Suite takes its name from Ambroise Vollard (1866-1939), the greatest avant-garde Paris art dealer and print publisher of his day, who gave Picasso his first Paris exhibition in 1901. In exchange for some pictures, Picasso produced for Vollard a group of 100 etchings between 1930 and 1937. The mammoth task of printing some 310 sets, plus three further sets on vellum, was completed by the Paris printer Roger Lacourière in 1939. Vollard’s unexpected death in a car accident that year, followed by the outbreak of the Second World War, delayed the distribution of the Vollard Suite until the 1950s by the dealer Henri Petiet who had purchased most of the prints from the Vollard estate. The set acquired by the British Museum comes directly from the heirs of Henri Petiet and so has an impeccable provenance, having never been shown in public before, and is in pristine condition. 

This is a plate signed reprint of this series.