Etching, 1968

Edition : 38/50

Publisher : Galerie Louise Leiris (Paris)

Printer : Crommelynck (Paris)

Catalog : [Baer 175B, p. 538 ; Bloch 1699]

28.00 cm. x 36.50 cm. | 11.02 in. x 14.37 in. (paper)

14.50 cm. x 22.50 cm. | 5.71 in. x 8.86 in. (image)

BFK Rives Paper

In this striking etching, Pablo Picasso orchestrates a dramatic confrontation between three figures: a gentleman on horseback, a naked, headless woman and a warrior. The image, animated by a network of taut, spontaneous, almost convulsive lines, plunges the viewer into an atmosphere of turmoil and tension.

The presence of the headless woman upsets the balance of the scene: she embodies both vulnerability and effacement, as if desire or shame had consumed her very identity. The absence of her face accentuates the image's symbolic charge. She becomes an allegorical figure, the victim of a male gaze.
The deliberately exaggerated postures of the figures and the rough treatment of the contours evoke the expressive energy characteristic of Picasso's last works. Here, the artist blends narrative, satire and tragedy in a composition where the human figure, often dislocated or fragmented, becomes the theater of psychic, sexual and social tensions.

As with Suite 347 as a whole, this engraving condenses Picasso's obsessions with the body, power, the gaze and the theater of domination.

Certificate of authenticity
Excellent condition
Handsigned by the artist in pencil

Ref : LCD7320