Le Chef D'oeuvre Inconnu (The Unknown Masterpiece) Early

Year1931

Not SignedNone of These Impressions Are Signed. 

Condition Mint 

Not Framed 

Purchased fromPrivate Collector 1998 

Provenance / HistoryPrivate Collector.This is called "Table of Etchings from Le Chef-d'oeuvre inconnu" or "Table des Eaux-Fortes" This particular centenary edition of Le Chef D'Oeuvre Inconnu by Honore Balzac was published by Ambroise Vollard in 1931. This print is the frontispiece and presents a summary of the prints in the book. The illustrated book has 13 etchings (including a table of etchings); 67 wood engravings (cut by George Aubert after Picasso drawings) and 16 pages reproducing (lineblock) dot and line drawings. 

Story / Additional InfoPlate size 10.7/8" x 7 3/4" page size 13" x 9 15/16" . Cramer CR of the Picasso Illustrated Books #20 

Certificate of AuthenticityArt Brokerage 

LID76597

Pablo Picasso - Spain

Art Brokerage: Park West Artist: Pablo Picasso Blue Chip Spanish Artist: Pablo Picasso was one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. His ingenious use of form, color, and perspective profoundly impacted later generations of painters, including Willem de Kooning and David Hockney. “There are artists who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, thanks to their art and intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun,” he once said. Born Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Crispín Crispiniano María de los Remedios de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz Picasso on October 25, 1881 in Málaga, Spain, his prodigious talent was cultivated early on by his father the painter Jose Ruíz Blasco. Picasso went on to attend the Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid, and lived for a time in Barcelona before settling in Paris in 1904. Immersed in the avant-garde circles of Gertrude Stein, he rapidly transitioned from Neo-Impressionism through the Blue Period and Rose Period, before reaching a culmination in his masterpiece Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907). Constantly in search of pictorial solutions and in dialogue with his friend Georges Braque, Picasso melded forms he saw in African sculpture with the multiple perspectives he gleaned from Paul Cézanne, to produce Cubism. Not limited to painting, the artist also expressed himself through collage, sculpture, and ceramics. Having been deeply affected by the ongoing Spanish Civil War, Picasso created what is arguably his most overtly political work Guernica (1937), a mural-sized painting depicting carnage with jagged shapes and contrasting grayscale. The artist was prolific up until his death on April 8, 1973 in Mougins, France. Today, his works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Gallery in London, the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, as well as institutions devoted solely to his life work, such as the Museo Picasso Málaga, the Museu Picasso in Barcelona, and the Musée National Picasso in Paris. Listings wanted.