Picasso

1947 · 48620 — Paris.: Latitud Curenta y Uno. Le Degré Quarante et Un / 41º. 1947 / 1948. . Oblong folio. 396 x 620 mm. Etching grattoir and burin on copper by Picasso printed on a full sheet of parchment pierced at edges for printing and with central fold by Roger Lacourière Paris; sheet size: 396 x 310 mm folded 396 x 620 mm unfolded. A very rare signed proof of the cover for 'Pis'mo: Escrito por Iliazd / Grabado por Picasso' Picasso's 1948 collaboration with Iliazd.Picasso's etching with grattoir and burin is for the vellum cover of the 1948 book 'Pis'mo' also known as 'Escrito por Iliazd / Grabado por Picasso'. The text of the book is a love poem in Russian by Iliazd one of the very few he wrote after leaving Georgia inspired by his meeting with Olga Djordjadze - Picasso too met her later - in Cannes in 1946. Picasso's print includes the title in Russian correctly at the top and incorrectly and effaced beneath as well as at right the figure of a woman seen from behind and turned away from the viewer; Picasso has dated the print '3 mars 47' in the copperplate which is printed in reverse.The present proof is printed on a sheet of vellum as for the published book although slightly whiter and slightly thinner than the published version and while it does have a central fold it is unfolded at the head and foot and is pierced around the outer edge of the sheet with small pinholes as part of the printing process. Signed at lower right by Picasso the sheet is annotated by Iliazd verso above and beneath the visible platemark 'haut' and 'bas' and 'Plier à l'envers'; Iliazd appears too to have drawn a pencil frame it differs from the engraved area to the verso beneath the 'haut' and 'bas'. A different hand has annotated the foot of the blank area adjacent to the printed section: 'Picasso P. Eau-forte pour la couverture du livre d'Iliazd 'ESCRITO' 1er Epreuve d'essai sur parchemin / le livre a été tiré à 66 exemplaires'.Proofs of the cover are very rare and examples signed by Picasso rarer still. Baer suggests that several trials and proofs were taken from Picasso's plate noting the 'bon à tirer' example on 'vélin sans filigrane' Georges Bloch's copy on parchment inscribed 'tirage d'essai' by Iliazd and signed at a later date by Picasso 'environ 7 épreuves sur parchemin avec annotations d'Iliazd sur la préparation du parchemin et le séchage' as well as a final signed example sold by Sotheby's in the 1970s.'In his poem 'Rogelio Lacourière pêcheur de cuivres' published in 'Hommage à Roger Lacourière 1968 Iliazd recalls in poetic terms the genesis of the book's title etching. The story goes that Lacourière had given Picasso a plate which was too large and which had a white mark to indicate where it should later be cut. Picasso - tempted by this extra space and the unexpected freedom it gave him - etched a nude on it. Lacourière therefore refrained from cutting the plate and Iliazd noticed that the asymmetry thus created in the title etching echoed his conception of the folded pages: the 'magnaminous' painter had 'transfigured' the book.' Patrick Cramer.Baer 785Ba; Bloch 462; see Cramer 48. Latitud Curenta y Uno. (Le Degré Quarante et Un / 41º). unknown