PABLO PICASSO (1881-1973)
Sculpteur, modèle et sculpture assise, from La Suite Vollard
drypoint, on Montval paper watermark Vollard, 1933, signed in pencil, from the edition of 260 (there was also an edition of 50 with wider margins), published by Ambroise Vollard, Paris, 1939
Image: 12¹⁄₂ x 7¹⁄₄ in. (318 x 185 mm.)
Sheet: 17⁵⁄₈ x 13³⁄₈ in. (448 x 340 mm.)

Bloch 146; Baer 297

Picasso, Braque and Léger: 20th Century Modern Masters: Exhibition of 100 Masterworks, The Forest Lawn Museum, Los Angeles, September 15, 2012 - January 1, 2013; The Oglethorpe Museum of Art, Atlanta, September 8 – December 8, 2013; Fort Wayne Museum of Art, September 24- November 27, 2016; The Hyde Collection, Glen Falls, New York, October 6, 2019 – January 5, 2020.

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Lot Essay

Marie-Thérèse's features and classical profile would dominate Picasso’s work for nearly a decade after their meeting in 1927, not least in the Suite Vollard, and she is ubiquitous in the largest coherent group in the series, known as the Sculptor’s Studio. These forty-six etchings, showing an artist and model working, relaxing or carousing in a studio, expand upon themes developed in two recent illustrated book projects; Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which includes the tale of a sculptor who falls in love with his creation, and Honoré de Balzac’s Le Chef d'Oeuvre Inconnu (commissioned and published by Vollard), which relates the tale of the doomed painter Frenhofer and his struggles to capture reality in paint. Ideas surrounding transformation and metamorphosis, the contrast between the created work and reality, particularly the impossibility of making any work of art so perfect it could compete with life itself, were of profound interest to Picasso and play a significant role in the Suite.