Picasso's Vollard Suite: the Sculptor's Studio September 4, 2011

In 1932, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) purchased the chateau Boisgeloup in Normandy, where he set himself up with a fully appointed studio for sculpture, a medium to which he would devote himself in the years to come. The excitement of working in the three-dimensional art form, which had always been subsidiary to pictorial art for Picasso, inspired one of the great series of modern prints, 'The Sculptor's Studio,' forty-six etchings made over the course of a year, from spring 1933 to spring 1934. Rendered in the purified linear style that he first began to exploit during the First World War, these extraordinary images bring the classical world of the artist-and-model, as Picasso imagined it, fully to life. This exhibition will feature key images of 'The Sculptor's Studio' etchings from the group of 100 prints he made for the legendary art dealer and publisher Ambroise Vollard. These superb works from the Vollard Suite demonstrate Picasso's ability to please and astonish with equal intensity.