Pablo Picasso

Picasso composed this etching to illustrate a collection of poems by Paul Eluard, dedicated to the poet's second wife, Nusch. The composition is divided in four, with Nusch depicted at the top left, followed by three vignettes, a surrealist depiction of a woman in a seaside landscape, a sleeping woman in the artist's classical style, and an impression of Picasso's hand. His use of a variety of styles reflects the nature of the poems and what Patrick Cramer has described as Paul Eluard's shift in the mid-1930's from 'a strict surrealism to a language of concrete simplicity'. Only eighteen impressions were pulled of the complete plate before it was cut into four and printed separately for inclusion in the book. Of these eighteen only a few were printed on coloured paper, this possibly being the first to be offered at auction.