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Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not.
-Pablo Picasso
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The Suite des Saltimbanques, a series of fifteen loosely-related etchings and drypoints created from late 1904 through 1905, was Picasso’s first major body of work in printmaking and is integrally connected to his paintings and drawings of the same period. These are the very first plates created by Picasso. His work from this phase is distinguished by an astonishing economy and elegance of line that reveal the artist’s immensely sophisticated eye even at this early stage in his career.
After creating the plates for the Suite des Saltimbanques, Picasso took them to the renowned printer Delâtre and commissioned a small edition of unknown size, some of which were shown in an exhibition in early 1905. Though he had gained some recognition at this point, Picasso was still quite poor and hoped to generate income from the prints. His dealer at the time, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler managed to sell some; however, most did not sell and were ultimately gifted to friends and supporters (most of these are signed and dedicated). In 1911, after Picasso had begun to achieve some renown for his Cubist work, the powerful dealer Ambroise Vollard purchased the plates. They were steelfaced to protect the delicate lines, printed by Louis Fort, and published in 1913 in an edition of 250 on Van Gelder Zonen paper and a deluxe edition of 27 or 29 impressions on Japon. Few of these impressions were signed, and if so, only at Picasso’s whim. While it is up for discussion as to the better printer, the earlier and much rarer impressions pulled by Delâtre are generally more appreciated by collectors. The quality of his impressions was excellent; unfortunately, Picasso did not enjoy working with Delâtre as he printed the plates as he interpreted them, while Fort, in contrast, carefully followed Picasso’s direction.
The French term saltimbanques refers to the itinerant acrobatic circus performers who had provided impromptu entertainment throughout Europe for centuries, at one point holding a special position at the French court performing commedia dell’arte. However, at the turn of the Twentieth Century they had long returned to their status as street performers, segregated from society and living from hand to mouth on the merits of their talents. When the Saltimbanques theme emerged in Picasso’s work, his life had recently improved after a long period of extreme poverty and relative isolation.
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Beginning in 1900, he frequently traveled to Paris from his native Spain and had a modestly successful exhibition in mid-1901, but after the suicide of Casagemas, a close friend to the artist, he retreated to Barcelona for several years and created what are now categorized as his Blue period paintings. When he permanently returned to Paris in the spring of 1904, he joined a group of young avant-garde artists and poets living together in a large apartment building, the Bateau Lavoir, in the Montmartre neighborhood. They spent much of their time together in salon style and often visited the nearby Cirque Médrano, where the saltimbanques performed. He eventually came to know many of the performers and they became his primary subject matter. As Picasso’s art invariably reflected his own life, it is generally agreed that he saw many similarities between himself and his circle of friends in the Saltimbanques—independent, creative, and dignified in spite of their economic circumstances.
While the saltimbanques and commedia dell’arte characters had inspired artwork throughout the centuries—and, particularly, as stand-ins for the performative and isolated role of the artist in society—Picasso’s treatment of this subject stands apart for its depth and breadth, as well as its profoundly human and timeless quality.* Appearing as single figures or in groups, the subjects range in age from infants to the elderly and span a wide range of roles, from clown to friend to mother to King. Set in minimal landscapes or backstage with occasional props, Picasso imbued his subjects with poise and a sense of aloofness that belies their apparent interconnectedness, each one maintaining a strong presence as an individual, playing his or her part in the grand theater of life.
*For further discussion see E.A. Carmean, Jr. Picasso: The Saltimbanques. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1980.
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PABLO PICASSO
Le Repas frugal (Bloch 1), 1904 (September, Paris)A twenty-two year old Picasso made Le Repas frugal in Paris, September of 1904. Never having received formal training, this was his first major attempt at printmaking. To make the etching, Picasso recycled a previously used zinc plate. He scraped the plate down, but the still-remaining tufts of grass from its previous etching help to texturize the blank background behind the woman subject’s head and shoulders.
In Le Repas frugal there is lack everywhere: the empty plate and emptying glasses, the shrunken loaf of bread, the otherwise barren table spread, the deficiency of flesh on the couple’s bony bodies. Despite the physical touch of the man’s hands on the woman’s shoulder and arm, there is no emotional connection between them – the man stares despondently out-of-frame, while the woman gazes down into the center of the composition, foggy but fixed. Their mutual distraction suggests the problem runs deeper than hunger; the frugality of their nourishing intake matches that of their spiritual. Bread and wine (wrought with associations of Catholic sacrament) are enough for life, but not satisfaction. The bleak imagery is accentuated by the absence of color and strong contrasts, as well as the finely cross-hatched lines.
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PABLO PICASSO
Tête de Femme: Madeleine (Bloch 2), 1905 Etching
19 1/8 x 13 1/8 inches -
PABLO PICASSO
Les Pauvres (Bloch 3), 1905 Etching
9 1/4 x 7 inches -
PABLO PICASSO
Buste d'homme (Bloch 4), 1905 (February, Paris)Buste d’homme depicts the pallid head and fleshless, narrow shoulders of a man in profile. There is heavy shadowing in his cheeks and the hollows of his eyes, giving the man an anemic presence similar to other subjects in the artist’s Blue Period. It is thought that the image on the plate started out as a woman – perhaps the same subject that appeared in a painting Picasso did that same year, Femme a la Chemise. The two share the same pointed nose, wobbly lips, and thin upper-body, but while she is depicted with a heavy head of hair, the man is starkly bald. The print does show some faint markings on the paper above the man’s head, which might indicate that in a previous state, the figure had hair. Taking his subject from woman to man would be a difficult transformation for even an experienced printmaker – that an untrained, fiddling novice took it up with such ease indicates Picasso’s deeply virtuosic instinct for print.
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PABLO PICASSO
Tête de Femme de Profil (Bloch 6), 1905 Etching
21 5/8 x 15 9/16 inches -
PABLO PICASSO
La Famille de Saltimbanques au Macaque (Bloch 11), 1905 Drypoint
17 3/4 x 11 5/8 inches -
PABLO PICASSO
Le Bain (Bloch 12), 1905 Drypoint
21 11/16 x 15 9/16 inches -
PABLO PICASSO
La Toilette de la Mère (Bloch 13), 1905 (Paris) 17 1/2 x 11 5/8 inches -
PABLO PICASSO
Salomé (Bloch 14), 1905 (between summer and the end of the year, Paris) Drypoint
25 3/8 x 19 3/8 inches -
PABLO PICASSO
La Danse Barbare (Devant Salomé et Hérode) (Bloch 15), 1905 Drypoint
11 5/8 x 17 1/2 inches
Back to the Beginning: Suite des Saltimbanques
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