Aquatint
13 works
Pablo Picasso Le Peintre For Sale
Pablo Picasso
Le Peintre, 1963
Collotype with pochoir in colors, on Arches- cadastre paper(with Watermark) Hand signed and dedicated in blue crayon
38 5/8 x 29 3/8 in 98.1 x 74.6 cm
Edition
Edition of 350 and 12 H.C
About this work
Le Peintre is a luminous example of Pablo Picasso’s mature synthesis of portraiture, abstraction, and self-referential commentary. Created in 1964 and dedicated to the French bookbinder and bibliophile Henri Creuzevault, this collotype fuses painterly gesture with conceptual play. Though executed in a printed medium, Le Peintre retains the fluidity, spontaneity, and textural subtlety characteristic of Picasso’s hand-drawn works, revealing his deep engagement with the printed image as a site of both technical mastery and expressive freedom.Rendered in a restrained palette of cool blues, greys, and blacks, the composition features a semi-abstracted figure of an artist at work—his head bowed in concentration, palette and brush in hand, gazing into a mirror or possibly a canvas. The facial features, softly modeled yet angular, shift between figuration and abstraction. The light and shadow split the form nearly in half, with the right side dominated by an ethereal, near-ghostly glow and the left emerging from a dense black backdrop.This duality of light and dark, presence and absence, is central to the work. The artist figure—likely a surrogate for Picasso himself—appears to dissolve into his surroundings, evoking the act of artistic creation as a merging of self and subject. The hand and arm are especially striking: fluid, ghostlike, almost transparent, as though painted in water or smoke, contrasting with the solidity of the easel or mirror structure to the right.The flat planes, faceted geometry, and ambiguous spatial depth echo Cubist principles, but without the rigid analytical fragmentation of Picasso’s early 1910s Cubism. Instead, there is a lyrical, almost surreal quality here—soft, intuitive, and emotionally charged. This is Picasso the elder magician, painting the act of painting, caught in a moment of quiet introspection.Le Peintre is executed in collotype, a high-fidelity photomechanical process used primarily for reproducing paintings and drawings with great accuracy. While not an original lithograph or etching in the traditional sense, the collotype process allowed Picasso to translate his painterly effects—his brushstrokes, tonal gradations, and layered pigment—into a printed form without losing the visual integrity of the original image.Unlike the more graphic, linear print techniques he often employed in the 1930s and 1940s (etching, aquatint, lithography), this work emphasizes his painterly maturity and reflects a desire to merge traditional studio painting with the reproducibility of modern media. Picasso embraced the possibilities of printmaking not just as a reproductive tool but as an experimental platform, where he could test out ideas, embrace spontaneity, and reach wider audiences.By the 1960s, Picasso had entered what some critics call his “late style,” characterized by expressive freedom, autobiographical references, and a return to themes of the artist and his studio. This piece fits within that narrative. The image of the artist—alone, focused, and surrounded by the tools of his craft—recalls earlier depictions of himself and others in the act of creation, from his Blue Period portraits of bohemian life to his Atelier series and final self-representations.There is also a sense of circularity. At this stage of his life, Picasso was increasingly reflecting on his own legacy, his image, and his relationship to the history of painting. Le Peintre is both intimate and monumental—less about spectacle, more about the internal, meditative state of making art.Le Peintre is a refined, contemplative tribute to the creative process, filtered through the eyes of one of the 20th century’s most prolific and inventive artists. It exemplifies Picasso’s lifelong commitment to redefining artistic language, not only through painting and sculpture, but also through his deep and nuanced engagement with printmaking. In this work, he merges medium and meaning, capturing the solitude and sublimity of the painter at work—a timeless archetype, yet unmistakably Picasso.For more information, contact our galleries via the inquiry form below.
Price on Application
Auction History
Le Peintre et Sa Toile · Pablo Picasso · Sotheby's · 2014-05 · $43,750
Le Peintre sur la Plage · Pablo Picasso · Sotheby's · 2009-05 · $27,500
Le peintre et son modèle · Pablo Picasso · Kornfeld · 2024-09 · $26,604
Le peintre à la palette · Pablo Picasso · Christie's · 2019-03 · $24,640
Le Peintre sur la Plage (Bloch 769; Baer 919) · Pablo Picasso · Sotheby's · 2022-04 · $23,940
More series by Pablo Picasso
About the Collotype Series
Pablo Picasso Collotype Prints For Sale
Market Authority in Picasso's Printed Works
Pablo Picasso remains the definitive force in twentieth-century art markets, with auction results that consistently demonstrate unprecedented collector demand. Christie's achieved $179.4 million for Les Femmes d'Alger (Version O) in 2015, while Nude, Green Leaves and Bust realized $106.5 million at Christie's in 2010—records that underscore Picasso's unmatched position at the apex of global collecting. According to the Art Basel & UBS Global Art Market Report 2025, the worldwide art market reached $57.5 billion in 2024, with subsequent data from the Art Basel & UBS 2026 report confirming the market's return to growth through 2025. Within this robust environment, Picasso's printed editions—particularly his innovative collotype works—represent a sophisticated entry point for collectors seeking museum-caliber works by history's most influential modern master.
From our New York location, we provide collectors worldwide with access to rigorously vetted Picasso editions backed by comprehensive provenance research and market expertise.
The Collotype Series: Context and Significance
The collotype process represents one of the most technically demanding and visually refined printing methods ever developed, and Picasso's engagement with this medium during the early 1960s produced works of extraordinary subtlety and chromatic richness. Unlike lithography or etching, collotype printing utilizes a photomechanical process involving light-sensitive gelatin plates that can reproduce continuous tones without the visible dot patterns characteristic of other reproduction techniques. The result achieves a painterly quality that approaches the luminosity of original works on paper.
Picasso's collaboration with master printers during this period coincided with his prolific exploration of multiple printmaking techniques, including the revolutionary linocuts he produced between 1958 and 1963. The collotype editions emerged from this same spirit of technical experimentation, representing the artist's desire to disseminate his imagery through methods that preserved the gestural immediacy of his painted and drawn works. These editions occupy a distinct position within Picasso's vast printed oeuvre—documented across the comprehensive thirty-three volumes of the Zervos catalogue raisonné—offering collectors works that combine reproductive fidelity with the artist's direct creative involvement.
The series demonstrates Picasso's lifelong commitment to making his art accessible through multiple formats while maintaining uncompromising quality standards. Having produced approximately 3,500 ceramic pieces at the Madoura pottery in Vallauris between 1947 and 1971, Picasso understood the importance of editioned works in extending his artistic reach. The collotype editions represent a parallel achievement in printed media, allowing his imagery to exist in forms both intimate and technically accomplished.
Technical Specifications: Le Peintre (1963)
Le Peintre from 1963 exemplifies the sophisticated production values that distinguish Picasso's collotype editions. Executed as a collotype with pochoir in colors on Arches-cadastre paper bearing the distinctive watermark, this work demonstrates the careful material considerations that characterized Picasso's printed projects. The pochoir technique—hand-applied color through cut stencils—adds dimensionality and chromatic intensity that purely mechanical processes cannot achieve, creating a hybrid work that bridges industrial reproduction and artisanal craftsmanship.
The Arches-cadastre paper specification indicates premium French papermaking traditions, with the watermark serving as authentication of the substrate's quality and origin. This attention to material permanence reflects Picasso's understanding that works on paper require archival foundations to survive across generations. The combination of collotype base imagery with pochoir color application creates visual effects of remarkable depth, with colors appearing to float within the composition rather than sitting flatly on the surface.
The 1963 date places this work within Picasso's extraordinarily productive later period, when the artist—then in his early eighties—maintained creative output that would constitute a lifetime achievement for lesser figures. His continued engagement with printmaking processes during these years produced some of his most inventive graphic works, as he pushed each medium toward new expressive possibilities.
Notable Works and Thematic Content
Le Peintre addresses one of Picasso's most enduring subjects: the artist at work. Throughout his career spanning from his 1881 birth in Málaga to his death in 1973, Picasso returned repeatedly to images of painters, their studios, and the act of creation itself. This reflexive examination of artistic practice connects to his foundational role in co-founding Cubism, a movement that fundamentally questioned how representation functions and what painting can reveal about perception and reality.
The painter theme carries particular resonance within Picasso's late work, functioning as both autobiography and meditation on creativity's nature. These images often feature simplified, almost archetypal figures engaged in the transformative act of making marks—a subject Picasso addressed with increasing frequency as he contemplated his own legacy and the meaning of a life devoted to visual invention.
Investment Considerations
Picasso's market demonstrates remarkable consistency across economic cycles, with major auction houses including Christie's, Sotheby's, Phillips, and Bonhams regularly achieving strong results for works spanning all media and periods. The collotype editions offer collectors entry into Picasso ownership at accessible price points while maintaining the authentication standards and material quality that ensure long-term value retention. As the Art Basel & UBS reports confirm continued market growth, works by blue-chip modern masters with established auction histories remain foundational holdings for serious collections.
Acquisition Through Guy Hepner
Guy Hepner in New York provides comprehensive acquisition services for Picasso's collotype editions, including authentication verification, condition assessment, and provenance documentation. Contact our specialists to discuss available works from this distinguished series.
About Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973, born Málaga, Spain) is the most productive and formally transformative artist in the history of Western art — a figure whose influence on twentieth-century painting, sculpture, printmaking, and ceramics is so pervasive that it remains, more than fifty years after his death, genuinely difficult to assess. Born in Málaga to an art teacher father who recognised and encouraged his prodigious talent, Picasso studied in Barcelona and Madrid before arriving in Paris in the early years of the twentieth century, where the encounter with Cézanne, African art, and his own restless intelligence produced Cubism — perhaps the most radical rupture in the history of representation since the Renaissance.
Pablo Picasso prints for sale at Guy Hepner represent one of the most significant collecting opportunities in the modern art market. Our gallery offers original Picasso lithographs, linocuts, etchings, and aquatints — each accompanied by full provenance documentation and catalogue raisonné references. Whether you are seeking a signed Mourlot lithograph, a Vollard Suite etching, a Vallauris linocut, or a late aquatint, Guy Hepner has the expertise and inventory to assist collectors at every level.
Pablo Picasso Prints For Sale
Picasso's print output is among the richest and most varied in art history, spanning etchings, lithographs, linocuts, and aquatints produced across seven decades. Understanding the categories is essential to collecting intelligently.
Lithographs were produced primarily through Fernand Mourlot's atelier in Paris, where Picasso worked from 1945 onwards. Mourlot documented over 400 lithographs bearing Picasso's hand, ranging from abstract heads and Cubist still lifes to the monumental Toros y Toreros bull-fighting series. Editions typically run from 50 to 275 copies. Unsigned Mourlot lithographs trade between $3,000 and $40,000; signed examples command $15,000 to $150,000 or more depending on subject and condition.
Linocuts, produced primarily at Vallauris between 1958 and 1963 using Picasso's own colour-reduction technique, are among the most technically revolutionary of all his prints. By cutting progressively deeper into a single block, Picasso achieved complex colour sequences impossible by conventional means. Edition sizes are small — typically 50 copies — and signed linocuts frequently exceed $80,000 at auction.
Etchings span Picasso's entire career, from his earliest Parisian years through to the late suites of the 1960s and early 1970s. The medium suited his restless line perfectly, and his etched output includes some of the finest prints of the twentieth century. Edition sizes vary widely, from the 50 impressions of the Vollard Suite to smaller later editions. Prices range from $5,000 for minor early works to well over $500,000 for Vollard Suite masterpieces.
Aquatints combine etching's linear precision with tonal washes of extraordinary subtlety. Picasso's aquatint work, often produced in collaboration with master printer Roger Lacourière, includes some of his most formally sophisticated printed images. These prints are rarer than his lithographs and command significant premiums accordingly.
Authentication for all Picasso prints relies on the Bloch catalogue raisonné — the definitive scholarly record of his print output — supplemented by Mourlot's lithograph catalogue where applicable.
Pablo Picasso Paintings For Sale
Picasso's paintings represent the summit of the twentieth-century market. Understanding his periods is essential for collectors.
The Blue Period (1901–1904) produced austere, emotionally charged paintings on themes of poverty, isolation, and melancholy — elongated figures rendered in blue-grey tones that echo El Greco and carry an extraordinary psychological weight. Works from this period are among the most sought-after in the history of art.
The Rose Period (1904–1906) brought warmer hues and more tender subjects — circus performers, saltimbanques, and acrobats rendered with a new formal assurance. The transitional works that followed, leading to Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), represent the hinge on which the entire history of modern painting pivots.
The Cubist period (1907–1921), co-developed with Georges Braque, produced the most intellectually radical body of painting in the twentieth century. Analytic Cubism (1909–1912) fragmented forms into near-monochromatic facets; Synthetic Cubism (from 1912) introduced collage, typography, and bolder colour. Major Cubist paintings are virtually never available on the primary market; they appear at auction rarely and achieve extraordinary prices.
Picasso's auction record stands at $179,365,000 — achieved at Christie's New York in May 2015 for Les Femmes d'Alger (Version O), a 1955 work from his series responding to Delacroix. Nude, Green Leaves and Bust (1932) reached $106,482,500 at Christie's in May 2010. These are benchmark figures for a career that produced well over 16,000 works catalogued by Zervos.
Collecting Picasso: What to Look For
The most desirable areas of the Picasso print market for serious collectors are well-defined.
The Vollard Suite (1930–1937): ninety-seven etchings (and three aquatints with Roger Lacourière) commissioned by dealer Ambroise Vollard. The suite is considered Picasso's greatest print achievement — 100 plates encompassing the Sculptor's Studio sequence, the Minotaur series, and intimate portraits of Marie-Thérèse Walter. Published posthumously by Vollard's estate, the complete suite is extraordinarily rare. Individual plates now trade from $80,000 to over $500,000.
Suite 347 (1968): three hundred and forty-seven etchings completed in seven months when Picasso was eighty-six years old — an astonishing demonstration of creative energy in extreme old age. Themes include Degas's brothel scenes, Spanish picadors, Rembrandt, and Ingres. Published by Galerie Louise Leiris. These prints represent exceptional value relative to their historical importance.
Mourlot lithographs: Fernando Mourlot's catalogue documents Picasso's lithographic output with scholarly precision. The Bloch numbers (B.1 through B.2042 for the complete print oeuvre) and Mourlot numbers together form the authentication framework used by every major auction house.
Crommelynck etchings: Piero and Aldo Crommelynck's Paris workshop produced Picasso's late etchings with extraordinary technical refinement. The 347 Suite plates were printed here, as were the 156 Series etchings (1970–1972) — Picasso's final major print campaign.
Condition criteria for print collecting: look for clean, wide margins with no trimming; avoid foxing (rust-coloured spots from paper acidity) or tide lines; fading affects lithographs most severely — examine under strong light. Impressions on Japan paper or with remarques command significant premiums.
Picasso Authentication
Authentication for Picasso works operates through established institutional channels.
For prints: the Bloch catalogue raisonné (Picasso: His Graphic Work, Volumes I–IV) provides reference numbers for all known prints. Mourlot's catalogue covers lithographs specifically. The Succession Picasso estate stamp appears on many posthumously published editions. Any print without clear catalogue raisonné reference and provenance chain should be examined by a specialist before purchase.
For paintings and works on paper: the Comité Picasso (now dissolved) was the primary authentication body; the Succession Picasso now handles estate matters. The Zervos catalogue raisonné (33 volumes) is the authoritative scholarly record for paintings, drawings, and sculpture. Expert authentication by a recognised Picasso specialist is essential for any major purchase.
Guy Hepner Gallery, 177 Tenth Avenue, New York, offers full provenance verification and catalogue raisonné consultation for all Picasso works. We provide free, confidential valuations for collectors looking to sell, and access to a global network of qualified buyers. Our expertise spans ceramics, prints, linocuts, drawings, and paintings across all periods of the artist's work.