Printing is a collaborative process and throughout Picasso’s life he worked with, and took instruction from several Master Printmakers. With each printing medium he learnt, he adapted and built his own stylistic vocabulary into the process. In 1963, entering what was to be the last working decade of his life, he worked with the printmaking brothers Aldo and Piero Crommelynck producing hundreds of etchings in the village of Mougin in the South of France – these were most notably the finest of his career. Aged 86, the vibrancy of this present work depicts the fantastical vision of a man that holds the vigor that Picasso now believed he lacked. Holding a lit cigarette, this charming caricature with his arresting gaze and puckered lips, has a personality to reflect Picasso’s cheerful use of colour.

Etching and aquatint in colours, 1964, on Richard de Bas wove paper, signed in pencil and numbered from the edition of 50, printed by Pennequin for Atelier Crommelynck, published by Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris, 56 x 40.5 cm. (22 x 16 in.)