“Jacqueline aux arbres” collaborative work by Pablo Picasso and André Villers at Modern Now Gallery.
In 1953, Pablo Picasso (Málaga, 1881- Mougins, 1973) went to live in the French city of Vallauris, near the Côte d’Azur, in order to experiment at its ceramics workshops. During his long stay there he came across the photographer André Villers (Beaucourt, France, 1930). A close relationship then began between the 72-year old artist and the young 23-year old photographer, which was to go beyond a working relationship and become a deep friendship.
Picasso and Villers, fascinated by the richness of their place of residence, Provence, embarked on an intense creative process which would lead to the suite Diurnes – from the Latin “diurnus”, of the day – made in 1962 and published with texts by the poet Jacques Prévert. The portfolio, which brings together photographic and lithographic techniques, is one of the few works in which Picasso used photography as a means of expression. Through superimposing and applying découpages – paper cuts – of figures, the artist recreates his mythical imaginary over the evocative black and white landscapes captured by Villers’ camera.
Influenced by the games and experiments begun by the Surrealists and Dadaists in the ‘twenties such as the cadavre exquis and Surrealist dialogues, Picasso developed works filled with uncommon forms and textures that hold the experimental force of these art currents and the poetic weight of his work. “Diurnes, then, has all the experimental force of the Surrealists’ adventures in painting and, at the same time, the poetic weight of Mediterranean sensibility, the exaltation of the sources of its sources of aesthetic memory, the magic of its most visionary roots. It’s like the encounter between a shepherd and a siren on the boot of a Buick considered as a ready-made”, writes art expert Rosalynd Kroll on Diurnes. The result is a set of unreal images captured by the enthusiastic gaze of the young André Villers and transformed by the restless hand of the experienced Pablo Picasso.
“Jacqueline aux arbres”
Pablo Picasso Limited Edition Lithograph from Pochoir, Gallery Exhibited in 2011, originally exhibited Galerie Madoura in Cannes and at Galerie Berggruen in Paris. 40x30cm. Sur les presses de l’Imprimerie Union a Paris. January 29, 1962. This is a collaboration of the works of Pablo Picasso and Andre Villers, they are overlayed, Picasso employed this technique originally in 1943 (cf. Z. XIII, 197 198 and Spies 247-270); Villar’s photograph and Picasso’s pochoir or stencil. Catalogue Referenced: Cramer 115.
Employing a technique he started using in 1943, Picasso made some cut-outs of heads and silhouettes of men, women and animals. Villers mounted the cut-outs on different photographs – 30 in all – thus varying their effect and quality.
For more information, contact the gallery at info@modernnow.com.
