Picasso, Dali and Miro: Master Impressions Brings 60+ Original Prints to New Delhi
New Delhi, Sep 26 (Guyana Herald) The 1955 lithograph Portrait de Femme II by Pablo Picasso, showing his later wife Jacqueline Roque with a long, straight nose and almond-shaped eye, is the centrepiece of a new exhibition that explores a lesser-known side of three of the twentieth century's most influential artists: printmaking.
CMYK's Master Impressions, which opened on September 24, brings together over 60 original graphic works by Picasso, Joan Miro and Salvador Dali. The show runs until November 22 at the gallery in New Delhi.
Why does printmaking matter for these artists?
For Picasso, lithography was not a secondary pursuit but an independent medium. He worked closely with master printer Fernand Mourlot and produced some of the most significant lithographs of his career. Portrait de Femme II, printed by Mourlot and published by Galerie Louise Leiris, was issued in an edition of only 50 signed and numbered impressions.
The exhibition also features six distinct etchings from 1968 based on the Belgian farcical play Le Cocu Magnifique. According to the exhibition catalogue, Picasso translates the play's emotional tensions into stark, theatrical images charged with eroticism and psychological intensity.
What does Dali's work in the exhibition show?
Dali's Tear of Time revisits his most enduring image: the melting watch, first made famous in The Persistence of Memory (1931). The soft watch draped over a barren tree branch became a surrealist symbol of the elasticity of time, memory and perception.
Colour lithographs from 1975, including Anti-Umbrella with Atomized Liquid and Breathing Pneumatic Armchair, come from his experimental project Imaginations and Objects of the Future. The series is technically adventurous, combining lithography, etching, screenprinting and collage to depict fantastical inventions.
Dali also engages directly with Francisco Goya's celebrated late-eighteenth-century series Los Caprichos. Nearly two centuries after Goya, Dali revisited all 80 images from the series, five of which appear here, through drypoint, etching, aquatint and colour.
How does Miro's contribution differ?
Fifteen works from Miro's Album 13 and Album 19 portfolios form part of the exhibition. The monochromatic works in Album 13, printed by Mourlot Frères in Paris, feature fluid black lines, abstract signs and biomorphic forms reflecting his interest in automatism.
Created more than a decade later, Album 19 shows Miro expanding the same personal language through colour. Vivid fields of red, blue, yellow and green interact with bold black lines and freely drawn shapes.
What is the significance of this exhibition for collectors?
Kapil and Priya Kapoor, Directors of Roli Books and CMYK, said in a statement that the exhibition introduces audiences and collectors in India to an important side of artists whose work is universally familiar. The original works were produced in limited editions, individually numbered and signed by the artists.
Presented together for the first time in India, Master Impressions offers an opportunity to encounter and acquire original lithographs and etchings by the three master modernists. The exhibition closes on November 22.