Artist: Pablo Picasso
Title: Vallauris
Medium: Original Lithograph, 1952
Dimensions: 25.5 x 18.25 in, 64.8 x 46.4 cm

Pablo Picasso designed one 'Exposition Vallauris' poster each year from 1951 to 1964; in 1955, unusually, he produced three such posters, Baer 1030 to 1032.

The first variant, Baer 1030, combines the outline of a vase with the traits of a face. The second poster, Baer 1031, represents the head of a satyr which appears as counterpart to a Roman faun. In the third variant, Baer 1032, the words 'Exposition' (exhibition) and 'Vallauris' are connected by a radiant sun, with the letters so arranged that they show the smiling face of the Goat - a highly integrated fusion of image and text.

From 1951 to 1964 Picasso designed and produced linocut posters, which were created for the southern French town of Vallauris where Picasso settled from 1948 to 1956. By 1952, Picasso created a more complex design for the poster Exposition 1952 Vallauris. Instead of portraying a child’s head, Picasso designed a large goat head seen in profile, which is reminiscent of the 1950 bronze goat sculpture in Vallauris. The forms of the goat’s head and blades of grass influenced Picasso’s use of typography. This experimental approach resulted in long blades of grass spelling out ‘Vallauris’ below the goat’s chin, while the word ‘Exposition’ extended from left to right above the goat. Another way of developing his style was through the use of different coloured paper and ink to achieve different effects.

Exposition 1952 Vallauris was printed on three different colours of paper, which include pink, white and yellow. He also used both black and green ink for this poster. Vallauris proved to be a fruitful ground for the development of Picasso’s style and technique for linocut.

Picasso started making prints early in his career and mastering the traditional techniques of intaglio and lithography which he integrated in his artistic repertoire. Then, while he was based in Paris he had access to the Ateltier Mourlot and worked closely with the master printers on etchings and lithographs. As with the painting and drawing his print making methods reflected the ease, and indeed the speed, with which he produced his imagery, reworking a theme until he had exhausted its possibilities.

Galerie Filali is pleased to collaborate with our personal friend Galerie Mourlot, New York, to present a collection of rare lithographs from legendary Parisian printing house Atelier Mourlot.

Founded in Paris in 1852, Atelier Mourlot has been synonymous with fine art lithography for over 150 years. From 1930, under the direction of the founder’s grandson, Fernand Mourlot, leading artists were invited to the studio to collaborate on traditional limestone lithography. For painters like Picasso, the medium provided an exciting new form of expression.

Picasso met Fernand Mourlot in October 1945 after much encouragement from Henri Matisse and Georges Braque. As they predicted, Picasso soon became obsessed with the possibilites of lithography and amazed the Mourlot team with his artistic audacity and talent. He proceeded to make many innovative experiments on the limestones. He would stay at the Mourlot print workshop for several months at a time, 12 hours a day, and over the course of 20 years he created nearly 400 lithographs

Each individual work of art comes with a Certificate of Provenance, signed, dated, stamped, and numbered by Eric Mourlot. Stored in a clear protective sleeve accompanying your piece, this Certificate of Provenance is recognized by all the major auction houses should you care to resell at any point. This ensures the validity of its origin and its being in the Mourlot archives since its production.