Art and Photography

Fine Art, Wine & Spirits

[Picasso]
New York: Sherry Wine & Spirits Co., 1962.

Oblong 4to.; illustrated throughout with seven color linoleum prints; illustrated wrappers; general sunning to edges; order form inserted loosely; held in custom brown cloth box; spine stamped in gilt; near fine.

Oversized softcover catalogue of wines and spirits. A lively production, unusual for a series of Picasso linoleum prints, and an article of Picasso's graphic art by Dr. Albert Frankfurter. Picasso began his foray into linoleum-block prints around the age of eighty; these are among his first published efforts. As was his style, he transformed an essentially 'school-craft' into a serious, professional endeavor by introducing new refinements and techniques. He printed from only one black the two or three colors chosen for his prints. The major subject matter for this series is the corrida, or bullfight, a subject laden with intrinsic associations to Spanish culture. Throughout his career, Picasso used elements of the bullfight as a prism, through which to explore greater existential themes of love, loss, power, and the relationship between man and the sublime. Here, Picasso's matador is led on an existential quest for "The Eternal Feminine," or the Unknowable, a concept elaborated on n Goethe's peroration to Faust, and quoted in Frankfurter's accompanying essay.

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