Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

The present drawing was executed by Picasso for Verve, the French art periodical founded by publisher Estafros Tériade in 1937. The magazine, a quarterly review of arts and letters, was lavish in design and challenging in content. Thirty-eight issues were published in total between 1939 and 1960. Tériade featured covers and interiors art by well-known modern artists of the twentieth century.
In 1954, Tériade illustrated one hundred and eighty drawings by Picasso, the present work included, which were drawn in Vallauris that winter. The rich publication reproduced each work in the exact size and chronological order of the original drawings, so as to preserve the integrity of the suite. Tériade remarked that this collection of drawings were Picasso's "finest, boldest, [and] most poignantly human of all he has produced in the course of his long and brilliant career."