Le repas frugal Pablo Picasso

• One of Picasso’s most significant early masterpieces in printmaking, marking the transition from the Blue to the Rose Period • An exceptionally rare, deep-black print made before the printing plate was steel-etched • A poignant depiction of human poverty and vulnerability from Picasso’s early years in Paris With ‘Le repas frugal’, Pablo Picasso, then just 22 years old, created one of the most poignant works of his early career. The etching was produced during a decisive period of upheaval in his life: after several stays in Paris, he left Barcelona in the spring of 1904 and moved into a modest studio in the so-called Bateau-Lavoir on Montmartre. The dilapidated building housed numerous young artists and writers, many of whom lived in precarious financial circumstances. Picasso himself had not yet established himself on the Paris art market and was living in difficult financial circumstances. It was in this environment, where artistic innovation and material hardship were closely intertwined, that he found key inspiration for his visual world. His interest in social outsiders had already begun in Barcelona. Within the local artistic avant-garde scene, he encountered an art form that deliberately turned its attention to the darker sides of modern city life. In particular, the socially critical depictions of the Catalan painter Isidre Nonell are regarded as a significant influence on his focus on the poor and the marginalised. In Paris, Picasso continued to engage with this world. Beggars, blind people, lonely women and, later, the performers of travelling circuses became central figures in his art. ‘Le repas frugal’ was created at the cusp between Picasso’s Blue and Rose periods. An emaciated couple sit at a sparsely laid table, on which there are merely a few pieces of bread, a plate, two glasses and a bottle of wine. Although the two figures are physically close, they appear isolated from one another in their melancholy and loneliness. Their elongated limbs, gaunt faces and the composition, reduced to just a few objects, lend the scene an almost timeless expressiveness. Picasso does not depict poverty and deprivation as an anecdotal scene from everyday life, but condenses them into a universally valid representation of human vulnerability. The figures’ physical emaciation and their silent despair tie in directly with the visual language of the Blue Period, whilst at the same time continuing that intense exploration of human relationships and marginalised social existences which also characterises his subsequent works. The two figures depicted can be linked to key motifs in Picasso’s immediate artistic development. The woman is identified in the Literature as Madeleine, Picasso’s lover in Paris at the time, about whose life very little is known. The blind man, on the other hand, is based on a figure with whom Picasso had already engaged intensively during his time in Barcelona. He appears in several studies and, in particular, in the 1903 painting ‘Le repas de l’aveugle’, which is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In the juxtaposition of these two figures, Picasso’s Spanish past and his new Parisian milieu converge. The technical mastery with which Picasso achieves this effect is remarkable. ‘Le repas frugal’ is, after the etching ‘El Zurdo’ created in 1899, only his second print and marks a decisive starting point for his extensive body of print work. During its creation, he was assisted by his artist friend Ricard Canals, who already had experience with etching techniques. Picasso used a zinc plate on which Joan González had previously begun a landscape. The earlier image was not completely removed, so that traces of the original composition can still be discerned in the upper right-hand corner of the picture. This unusual reuse of the plate lends the work an additional historical distinction. Picasso worked on the plate using, amongst other tools, a scraper, which allows existing lines to be softened or removed. Through finely graded hatching, dense line structures and pronounced light-dark contrasts, he achieves an extraordinary atmospheric density. Of particular significance here is the fact that the printing plate is printed with a tone, which arises when a thin film of ink remains on the surface of the inked printing plate after it has been wiped clean. This enables soft gradations and fluid transitions between light and shadow. In combination with the deep black areas, the image develops a powerful spatial and painterly effect. The fact that Picasso developed such a complex and nuanced visual language as early as his second etching underlines his extraordinary talent as a printmaker. The first prints of ‘Le repas frugal’ were produced in small numbers between September 1904 and March 1905 by the Parisian printer Auguste Delâtre. Picasso exhibited the etching in early 1905 at the Galeries Serrurier in Paris, alongside other graphic works that primarily depicted the lives of acrobats and street performers. These early prints were later grouped together by Ambroise Vollard under the title ‘Suite des Saltimbanques’. In 1913, the art dealer and publisher Ambroise Vollard had the printing plate, which he had acquired, steel-etched for a print run of 250 copies. This technical process increases the plate’s durability but can impair the reproduction of the finest lines and tonal values. The prints produced prior to this steel-lining process are therefore of particular interest from a printmaking perspective. This copy also belongs to this rare early group and is characterised by its deep blacks and nuanced tonal gradations. | 1881 Málaga - Mougins bei Cannes 1973 | Moderne Kunst | Druckgrafik | Nummer: 26x2480 | Provenance: Privatsammlung, Europa; Christie’s, New York 11.5.1982, Los 419; Privatsammlung, Norddeutschland, bei Vorgenannter erworben und durch Erbfolge an den heutigen Besitzer.

Schätzpreis:€480,000

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