Picasso, Pablo

"No Picasso here!"  To my surprise, I recently found this unmistakable and seemingly frustrated note on one of the shelves in the depths of my favourite antiquaria shop, where I was looking for catalogues raisonnés. "Almost everybody wants to buy original prints by Picasso, but there is just more about him than by him", the shop owner growled. "I have nothing left that I could sell as genuine with a clear conscience."

This dilemma mirrors the reality of all famous painters’ works of printmaking. Original prints by Picasso (lithographs, woodcuts) are now so rare to find that a parallel universe has developed where revamped modern reprints (offset lithographs etc.) are correspondingly popular. Unlike American students at the Oberlin Collge of Arts & Sciences in Ohio, who have the opportunity to lend original graphic works by artists such as Picasso at $5 per semester for hanging them up in their hostels, mere mortals have to invest good money for the purchase of an original Picasso lithograph.

We cannot tell you anything about the exceptional artist Picasso here that you could not read anywhere else. So we focus on what we are really good at: offering you rare original(!) prints by Picasso, or at least old, authentic prints after Picasso (especially lithographic exhibition posters made by Mourlot) that were produced during his lifetime. Hence we can say: "No later reproductions here!"