Femme au chapeau de paille bleue

Pablo Picasso
Femme au chapeau de paille bleue
linocut
January 16, 1962

An original Pablo Picasso linocut print.

(Woman in a Blue Straw Hat)

January 16, 1962

Original linocut printed in three colors (yellow, red, light blue) from two blocks on wove paper bearing the Arches block letter watermark.

A superb proof impression of Baer’s state “B.b” (the plate defining the face printed in two colors [red, yellow], the plate defining the hat printed in one color [light blue]), one of the 87 proofs printed in these three colors (Baer “B.b”). The intended edition was abandoned and the linocut went unpublished. The proofs were printed by Hidalgo Arnéra, Vallauris.

Catalog: Baer 1282.B.b; (not in Bloch)

13 ¾ x 10 5/8 inches

Sheet Size: 24 ¾ x 17 ½ inches

Early in his career, Picasso had mastered the traditional printmaking techniques of intaglio and lithography, integrating these techniques into his artistic output. While he remained based in Paris, the workshops of Fernand Mourlot and Roger Lacourière were close at hand for the proofing of lithographs and etchings respectively. However, in 1955, he moved with Jacqueline Roque to Cannes and in 1958 to Notre-Dame-de-Vie in Mougins. The distance from his Paris printers obviously detracted from the immediacy of his printmaking, and so Picasso returned to linocut. In this endeavor he was assisted by the master printer Hidalgo Arnéra who was living nearby in Vallauris. Until the Crommelynck brothers opened their intaglio press in Mougins in 1964, Picasso’s printmaking concentrated on linocut.