Pablo Picasso, Fernand Mourlot

First edition, first printing of the third volume of Mourlot’s catalogue, complete with the scarce original lithograph cover, frontispiece and glassine jacket.

• Fernand Mourlot (French).
• Pablo Picasso (Spanish).
• Monte Carlo: André Sauret, (1956).
• 159, [3] pages.
• Original lithograph frontispiece.
• Bound in original lithographed wrappers by Picasso, in original glassine jacket.

Third volume of Mourlot’s exceptional catalogue of Picasso’s lithographs, covering the years 1949 to 1956. Picasso’s long and fruitful association with Mourlot Frères would produce more than 400 lithographs in twenty years: “At the recommendation of Matisse and Georges Braque, Picasso worked with Mourlot for the first time in 1945. Before he even got to the shop, Picasso knew that Mourlot's lithography would become an important part of his oeuvre—“He came like he was going to battle,” Mourlot once said” (Greenberger). A scarcely complete copy.

Alex Greenberger, “The Extraordinary History of Mourlot, Picasso’s Printmaker”, ARTSPACE.