Buste de profil (Portrait of Jacqueline)

Picasso worked in close collaboration with Mourlot’s workshop of master printers, challenging their expertise at every turn. A member of the workshop recalled, “Picasso looked, listened, did the opposite of what he learnt, and it worked.” In this way, Picasso used the flexible and variable qualities of the stone to prove that lithography was an art form of its own. He did not employ lithographs as sketches for other works, but as outlets for pure creative energy giving us a direct insight into the artistic process.