Pablo Ruiz Picasso

PABLO RUIZ PICASSO (Malaga, 1881 - Mougins, France, 1973).
Untitled, from "Suite 156".
Signed and dated on plate.
Numbered in pencil.
It shows wear and some stains and wrinkles.
Measurements: 41 x 47,5 cm.

This series consists of a set of one hundred and fifty-six prints from as many copperplates that Picasso engraved when he was over ninety years old. The works show his old age through an iconography that does not fail to show an elderly Picasso. The prints do not have an overall view, but they all have in common a retrospective look at the artist's life and work, and a nod to his visual memory. Thus we can glimpse the theme of the circus, to which Picasso was assiduous in his youth; the female nude, with images of brothels, or his debt to painters for whom he felt admiration.
The creation of Suite 156 was structured in three moments. From January to May 25, 1970, Picasso engraved more than fifty copper plates. In the second stage, between February 25 and June 16 of the following year, he made nearly a hundred plates, including thirty-eight dedicated to the image of Degas. Finally, in March 1972, he produced three more copperplates, two of them for Suite 156. Fifty numbered copies of this series, printed in its entirety by the brothers Piero and Aldo Crommelynck, were printed. The only three complete series that exist of Suite 156 are in the Picasso Museum in Paris, in a private collection and in the Bancaixa Foundation.