Pablo Picasso

Drypoint, 1905, from the Saltimbanques Suite, a very fine impression, printing with plate tone and inky plate edges, signed in pencil, an extremely rare proof before the plate was steel-faced, printed by Delâtre, Paris, on laid paper

Sotheby's, London, 26 June 1990, lot 536, £24,530

With full margins, in good condition apart from minor surface dirt and paper discoloration in margins, slight foxing, some backboard-staining verso, framed.
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When Stanley Seeger was just finishing his studies at Princeton University, he acquired an etching by Pablo Picasso, Le Couple (Amours féminines) (27 November 1951), which would spark his life-long interest in collecting works by the Spanish master. This striking image of two female lovers in bed had originally been made as the frontispiece for the poet Valentine Penrose’s Don des féminines, a collection of collages and ‘automatic’ texts. A further edition of 36 proofs was pulled, of which the present work is one. Over the years Seeger would add other etchings and some lithographs to his collection, most of which are linked closely to important stages in Picasso’s artistic development over his long career. Moreover, many of the prints that he selected are unusual or rare examples.

Among the earliest in the collection are two drypoints, Les Deux saltimbanques and Le Saltimbanque au repos (El Tío Pepe), which were pulled in 1905 by the celebrated Montmartre printer Eugène Delâtre. The subject of itinerant circus performers had been a special feature of Picasso’s exhibition in Paris at the Galeries Serrurier (25 February - 6 March 1905). This show met with critical success, and afterwards the artist turned his attention to a large oil on canvas, Family of Saltimbanques (National Gallery, Washington), which he completed later in the year. The boy acrobats in the first drypoint are related to the central figures in this composition, and the strong man, who stands next to the Harlequin at the left of the painting, is a variation on the seated El Tío Pepe in the related etching.

Picasso’s first known monotype, Portrait de femme à la mantille (late 1905), was originally made on glass, and Seeger’s version is the only known proof done on paper. This print, which was for many years in the collection of the dealer Ambroise Vollard, took pride of place in Seeger’s London apartment. The portrait depicts Benedetta Canals, whom Picasso painted in his Bateau Lavoir studio in 1905 (Museu Picasso, Barcelona), and whose husband, the Catalan painter Ricard Canals, had helped him with his first attempts at printmaking in Barcelona in 1899.

The 1930s represents a rich period of Picasso’s printmaking activity, and several works in the Seeger collection are outstanding for the expressive ways in which the delicacies and complexities of etched line convey the drama of his subjects, including the bullfight and personal mythologies that were the focus of much of his art of that period. Femme torero, I (Dernier baiser) (12 June 1934) demonstrates his extraordinary ability to create a dramatic juxtaposition of figures, featuring the woman bullfighter, her falling horse and the bull, whose large body frames the whole. Minotaure aveugle guidé par une fillette, II (23 October 1934), which shows a girl leading a pathetic, blind Minotaur, anticipates the artist’s great Minotauromachie print of 1935.

Finally, the latest Picasso etching in the Seeger collection, La Maison Tellier: la fête de la patronne (19 February 1970) was inspired by a monotype by Edgar Degas of a birthday party for the madam of Maupassant’s famous brothel, a print that Picasso himself owned (Musée Picasso, Paris).

Seeger’s interest in prints by other artists was also stimulated by his contact with the New York dealer Catherine Viviano, who was an important mentor when he first began to collect art. In 1955, she was instrumental in making a significant group of prints (formerly owned by Curt Valentin) by Max Beckmann and Fernand Léger available to him. In his later years, Seeger also added several outstanding old master prints to his collection.

Marilyn McCully