PICASSO COMO PRETEXTO: Manolo Valdés | Pablo Picasso, Lucien Clergue, Anselm Kiefer

For this year's TEFAF New York, Spanish artist Manolo Valdés has created a new group of works in response to Pablo Picasso's lithographic series 'Femme au fauteil'. In addition to sheets from this unique series, we are showing other highlights from Picasso's printmaking oeuvre and ceramics by the Modern master. Photographs by French photographer (and close friend of Picasso) Lucien Clergue complete the presentation. Outside our booth, in the mezzanine of Park Avenue Armory, we will be showing the large-scale work 'Himmelspaläste' by Anselm Kiefer.

We look forward to seeing you at booth 201.

Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Avenue
New York, USA

For us as gallery owners it is always a more than fulfilling experience not only to enable special projects, but to become an actual part in the process of artistic creation, let it be the inspirational spark which ignites a creative output of new works. For this year’s presentation at TEFAF New York we invited our long-time collaborator and friend, renowned Spanish artist Manolo Valdés, to dedicate himself to the unique series of lithographs 'Femme au fauteuil' (Woman in an armchair) by Pablo Picasso and to create a new group of works for our booth at the fair. Manolo was immediately enthusiastic. 
 
The recourse to motifs from the history of art determines his work since he started his career in the 1960s as part of the artists collaboration 'Equipo Chrónica' in Spain. Since then he has established an inimitable style, characterized by a great sensitivity to material and colour, composition and form, creating works of immense visual and almost tactile sensation, in which he explores the iconic inventory of art history from the Old Masters to twentieth-century painting. By taking details of well known motifs out of their original contexts, he examines the basic patterns of styles and the iconic force of imagery, transposing them into a new contemporaneity.
 
It is with great pleasure we present the brand new works by Manolo Valdés to the public for the first time at TEFAF New York and to bring together these two Spanish masters in a thrilling encounter.Alongside sheets...

For us as gallery owners it is always a more than fulfilling experience not only to enable special projects, but to become an actual part in the process of artistic creation, let it be the inspirational spark which ignites a creative output of new works. For this year’s presentation at TEFAF New York we invited our long-time collaborator and friend, renowned Spanish artist Manolo Valdés, to dedicate himself to the unique series of lithographs 'Femme au fauteuil' (Woman in an armchair) by Pablo Picasso and to create a new group of works for our booth at the fair. Manolo was immediately enthusiastic. 
 
The recourse to motifs from the history of art determines his work since he started his career in the 1960s as part of the artists collaboration 'Equipo Chrónica' in Spain. Since then he has established an inimitable style, characterized by a great sensitivity to material and colour, composition and form, creating works of immense visual and almost tactile sensation, in which he explores the iconic inventory of art history from the Old Masters to twentieth-century painting. By taking details of well known motifs out of their original contexts, he examines the basic patterns of styles and the iconic force of imagery, transposing them into a new contemporaneity.
 
It is with great pleasure we present the brand new works by Manolo Valdés to the public for the first time at TEFAF New York and to bring together these two Spanish masters in a thrilling encounter. Alongside sheets from the 'Femme au fauteuil' series we will show other notable prints and ceramics by Picasso.
 
The subject of the woman in an armchair is a recurring motif in paintings, drawings and prints throughout Picasso’s career. All his partners and spouses, to avoid the rather diminishing term 'muse', have been portrayed in this setting. The particular series 'Femme au fauteuil‘, which was created from 1948-49, is showing artist Françoise Gilot, the artist’s partner at that time and famously the only woman who loved Picasso and left Picasso. She is depicted sitting in an antique armchair, wearing an embroidered sheepskin coat, which Picasso brought her from a trip to Poland in 1948, where he attended the World Congress of Intellectuals in Defense of Peace in Wroclaw. The series comprises 30 lithographs of the theme in manifold variations and states and is widely regarded as the climax in Picasso’s graphic work of that period. It was only three years before that he had met Fernand Mourlot, whose studio in Paris would publish over 400 prints by Picasso over the three decades to come. After a 15 years hiatus from working in printing he reimmersed himself in the medium during an initial visit to Mourlot’s studio, which eventually ended in a 4 months work stay. Soon after recapturing the basic working methods, Picasso began experimenting with new techniques, ignoring concerns and advice of the studio staff, who remained sceptical towards this outburst of ideas. In short time, Picasso found new techniques in treating the surface of the printing plates by the use of previously unusual tools and substances, which significantly broadened the expressive possibilities of the medium. In fact, Picasso’s contribution to printmaking in the 20th century cannot be overestimated. 
 
All this cumulated in the series 'Femme au fauteuil', which remarkably displays the full range of his technical skills and artistic inventiveness and imagination. It is no wonder the series is also referred to as 'The Polish coat', because with the ever-changing elaborations of the coat and its embroideries, the way its contours coordinates the composition and how it forms the axis of the figure’s stature, it is the coat that the whole image seems to evolve from.
 
In her memoires 'Life with Picasso', Gilot recounts the events around Picasso’s journey to Poland. Here the coat becomes the evidence of the stormy relationship of the pair. Picasso, who hated traveling – especially by plane, initially wanted to decline the invitation to the peace congress in Wroclaw. When he eventually decided to attend, he was accompanied by his friend, surrealist poet Paul Éluard, who was also invited to the congress, and his chauffeur, Marcel Boudin, who provided a helping hand for both men past their 60s respectively. It was the first time the couple would be separated and Gilot, pregnant with their second child, took Picasso’s promise that he would write her at least once every day. Things turned out much differently: the men, who initially planned to stay in Poland for a couple of days, enjoyed their travels and extended their stay to more than three weeks, visiting Krakow and Warsaw. Instead of a letter, Gilot received taciturn telegrams, often even misspelling her name and signed with 'Picasso' instead of 'Pablo'. It soon dawned to her that not only Picasso was too busy to write her letters, but also he must have instructed Boudin to pen and send the telegrams, ending each with 'Bons baisers', a term which, as she states, janitors or street sweepers would use. Gilot was furious and Picasso, who returned to their residence in the South of France after weeks, grinningly asking whether Gilot was happy that he’s back, was greeted with a slap in the face after which Gilot locked herself up for the rest of the day. The next morning Picasso hammered against her door until she would eventually unlock it and presented her the coat that would soon make art history.