Artist: Pablo Picasso
Title: A Los Toros Portfolio: La Pique (6.3.61.I), Le Picador (6.3.69 II), Jeu de la Cape (6.3.69.III), & Les Banderilles (6.3.69.IV)
Year created: 1961
Medium: Book with 4 Original Lithographs on Arches Wove Paper, in Original Portfolio
Edition: Limited Edition
Height (inches): 9-7/8
Width (inches): 12-3/4
Includes a certificate of authenticity.
In 1961 there was published A Los Toros, an extraordinary collection of Pablo Picasso's work, beautifully presented in a hardcover bound book and contained in an accompanying slipcase portfolio.
Inside the book were bound 4 original Picasso lithographs, comprising his A Los Toros Suite, each created on Arches wove paper. The 4 works are titled: La Pique (6.3.61.I), Le Picador (6.3.69 II), Jeu de la Cape (6.3.69.III), and Les Banderilles (6.3.69.IV). The four artworks were printed by Mourlot Freres, Paris.
La Pique (6.3.61.I), Jeu de la Cape (6.3.69.III), and Les Banderilles (6.3.69.IV) are black and white artwork; Complementing those three artworks is the brightly colored Le Picador (6.3.69 II). Picasso had completed 4 black and white artworks for the portfolio, and was asked if he could add some color. He pulled out a set of 24 colored wax crayons, added color as he'd been requested, and Mourlot was able to reproduce all 24 colors when printing the lithograph for the collection. Le Picador (6.3.69 II) is the only 24-color Picasso lithograph ever created.
These works are so highly demanded, and so striking when framed, that many of the bound books have been disassembled, and the original lithographs individually framed. This rare A Los Toros Suite comes still bound in its book, within its original slipcase portfolio. The lithographs are in pristine, mint condition. Each full-paged lithograph measures 9-5/8” in height x 12-1/2” width.
The book also contains a substantial textual portion, written by Jaime Sabartes, with editor Andre Sauret, and which consists of full pages of text, as well as full page black & white illustrations and full page color illustrations. Text and typography by Les Presses de Draeger Freres, Paris. The book measures 9-7/8” height x 12-3/4” width, and the portfolio case is sized 10-1/4" x 13".
A Los Toros comes accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity.
Artist bio:
A prolific and tireless innovator of art forms, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) impacted the course of 20th-century art with unparalleled magnitude. Inspired by Primitivism and developments in the world around him, Picasso contributed significantly to a number of artistic movements, notably Cubism, Surrealism, Neoclassicism, and Expressionism. Along with Georges Braque, Picasso is best known for pioneering Cubism in an attempt to reconcile three-dimensional space with the two-dimensional picture plane. Picasso’s sizable oeuvre includes over 50,000 paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures, ceramics, theater sets, and costume designs.
Picasso's visual style and choice of subject matter developed dramatically over a short period of time. The time between 1901 and 1904 has come to be known as his 'Blue Period' (named for his color palette), 1905 his 'Rose Period' (which marked a brightening of his palette and subject matter), from 1908 to 1911 his Analytic Cubist phase, and from 1912 forward his Synthetic Cubist phase.
Picasso gradually combined his influences into a wholly original style, which fragmented three-dimensional forms into abstract geometric shapes that intertwined and overlapped each other. His first major Cubist work was the renowned Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, which he completed in 1907 but did not show to anyone until 1916.
By 1936, the Spanish Civil War affected Pablo Picasso immensely, and the following year he completed Guernica, which depicts the bombing of the Spanish city of the same name. Countless Picasso exhibitions have been held throughout the world. Of those held during the artist's lifetime, those at Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1939 and at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1955 were the most significant. Picasso was and continues to be a major sculpting force of what came to be known as Modern Art.