Vollard Suite
Prints from the Vollard Suite | |
---|---|
Artist | Pablo Picasso |
Year | 1930-1937 |
The Vollard Suite is a set of 100 etchings in the neoclassical style by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, produced from 1930-1937. Named after the art dealer who commissioned them, Ambroise Vollard (1866-1939), the suite is in a number of museums, and individual etchings from the suite are collectible. More than 300 sets were created, but many were broken up and the prints sold separately.[1]
An earlier Vollard Suite was commissioned from
History
In 1930 Picasso was commissioned to produce the etchings by the art dealer and publisher Ambroise Vollard in exchange for paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Paul Cézanne.[2]
Picasso worked extensively on the set in the spring of 1933, and completed the suite in 1937.[2] It took a further two years for the printmaker Roger Lacourière to finish printing the 230 full sets, but the death of Vollard in 1939 and the Second World War meant that the sets only started coming onto the art market in the 1950s.[2]
A 1971 exhibition of the suite in Madrid was attacked by a paramilitary group, the Guerrilleros de Cristo Rey (Warriors of Christ the King) who tore the pictures and poured acid over the prints. The group attacked things associated with Spanish exiles like Picasso who aligned themselves with the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War.[3]
A spinning residential building in Brazil was named Suite Vollard after the suite.[4]
A complete set is owned by the National Gallery of Australia[5] and a complete set was acquired by the British Museum in 2011 after a donation of £1 million from financier Hamish Parker, a director of Mondrian Investment Partners. The donation was in memory of Parker's father, Major Horace Parker.[1] It had been the British Museum's ambition to own the set and the acquisition was described by the museum's director, Neil MacGregor, as "one of the institution's most important acquisitions of the past 50 years".[1]
The series
The works are not based on a literary source, and are not titled, although according to the
The suite begins with prints exploring the theme of the sculptor's studio, Picasso's mistress, Marie-Thérèse Walter, is portrayed as a model lying in the arms of a bearded sculptor. Picasso had recently been inspired by Marie-Thérèse to create a series of monumental bronze heads in the neoclassical style.[2] Picasso had also recently been commissioned by the publisher Albert Skira in 1928 to create original intaglio prints for his translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, which appeared in 1931.[5]
Dorment comments that a minotaur appears, joining in scenes of bacchic excess, but the minotaur is transformed from a gentle lover and bon vivant into a rapist and devourer of women, reflecting Picasso's turbulent relationships with Marie-Thérèse and his wife Olga.[2] In a third transformation, the minotaur becomes pathetic, blind and impotent, he wanders by night, led by a little girl with the features of Marie-Thérèse.[2] The final three prints from the suite are portraits of Vollard.[7]
Picasso learned new techniques of etching during the suite, from relatively simple line etchings, through
Collections with complete sets
- Bibliothèque nationale de France, département des Estampes
- British Museum
- Colby College Museum of Art[9]
- Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid[10]
- Harry Ransom Center
- Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, New Hampshire[11]
- Kunstmuseum Pablo Picasso Münster[12]
- Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth[13]
- Museum Ludwig, Cologne[14]
- Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracascitation needed] (MACC)[
- National Gallery of Australia[15][16]
- National Gallery of Canada
- Philadelphia Museum of Art[17]
References
- ^ a b c Anita Singh (2011-11-29). "City fund manager in £1m Picasso giveaway". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 2012-05-19.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Richard Dormant (2012-05-08). "Picasso, The Vollard Suite, British Museum, review". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 2012-05-19.
- ISBN 978-0-7475-6873-5. Retrieved 19 May 2012.
- ^ Jane Kinsman (2009-03-07). "Monitor:Revolutionary Buildings". The Economist. Retrieved 2012-05-19.
- ^ a b Gilmour, Pat. "Vollard Suite". National Gallery of Australia. Retrieved 2 March 2023.
- ^ Vollard Suite, Museo de Arte Abstracto Español (Fundación Juan March)
- ^ "Vollard Suite". Tate. Retrieved 2012-05-19.
- ^ "Atelier Lacourière & Frélaut". mchampetier.com (in French). 2014. Archived from the original on 2014-06-08. Retrieved 2014-06-08..
- ^ "Wayback Machine has not archived that URL". www.colby.edu. Retrieved 2023-04-04.[dead link]
- ^ Metropolitan Museum of Manila, accessed May 19, 2012
- ^ Prints, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, accessed May 19, 2012
- ^ "Picasso-Museum: Pablo Picasso - The Suite Vollard". www.kunstmuseum-picasso-muenster.de. Archived from the original on 2013-08-24.
- ^ Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth web page
- ^ The Graphic Collection at Museum Ludwig, accessed May 19, 2012
- ^ Picasso, Pablo. "Vollard Suite". National Gallery of Australia. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
- ^ Kinsman, Jane. "Picasso". National Gallery of Australia. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
- ^ "Philadelphia Museum of Art - Exhibitions - Picasso: The Vollard Suite".
Further reading
- Bolliger, Hans (1977). Picasso's Vollard Suite. New York: Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 9780810920767.
- Coppel, Stephen (2012). Picasso Prints: The Vollard Suite. British Museum Press. ISBN 9780714126838.