ᐅ À la mémoire de Julius et Ethel Rosenberg by Pablo Picasso (1953) | Print

Artwork information

Technique

Lithograph

Date

1953

Dimensions

38.5 cm x 57 cm

Signature

Signed

State of conservation

Very good

Framing

Location

Corrèze, France

Description

"In Memory of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Executed on June 19, 1953" is a black lithograph on paper created by Pablo Picasso in 1953. The work bears two signatures in the plate and is numbered "1/500" in pencil in the lower left.

Picasso created this composition as a tribute to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, an American couple sentenced to death for espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union and executed on June 19, 1953, at Sing Sing Prison in the United States.

Their death sentences sparked widespread international protests and significant mobilization, particularly among European intellectual and artistic circles. Deeply affected by the case, Picasso paid tribute to the couple through this commemorative double portrait, created in the same year as their execution.

Provenance

French private collection

The artist

Painter

Drawer

Sculptor

Pablo Picasso

Famous artist

Painter

Drawer

Sculptor

Born in 1881

Spain

Bio

Pablo Picasso was born in Málaga on 25 October 1881. His father was a drawing teacher, and he encouraged his son to follow an artistic education.

At the age of 11, Picasso enrolled at the A Coruña School of Arts. In 1895, he continued his training at the Fine Arts School in Barcelona.

In 1898, he abandoned his studies to launch his career as an artist. He was influenced by the great painters of the time: Paul Gauguin, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Vincent Van Gogh...

Between 1901 and 1904, Pablo Picasso entered his "blue period". Affected by the suicide of one of his friends, he worked mainly with blue. This period is marked by anguish and nostalgia.

In June 1901, Pablo Picasso was only 19 years old and the gallery owner Ambroise Vollard exhibited 64 of his impressionist-inspired paintings in Paris.

Between 1904 and 1906, the Spanish artist was in his "pink period". He lived at the Bateau-Lavoir with several artists of his generation and produced a more sentimental painting.

From 1907 onwards, he turned to cubism. With Georges Braque, he developed synthetic cubism and introduced various materials into his canvases: sand, newspaper, metal sheet, wood...

Between 1916 and 1924, he returned to a more figurative art. In 1925, a new period began with the Surrealists, with a painting: "La Danse". The bodies are dislocated, deformed and the colours screaming.

In 1937, Pablo Picasso painted the famous "Guernica".

During his life, Pablo Picasso became friends with Guillaume Apollinaire, Amedeo Modigliani, Gertrude and Leo Stein, Jean Cocteau, Serge de Diaghilev, Henri Matisse and many others. Moreover, the painter did not hesitate to become politically involved on several occasions, notably for pacifism during the two world wars, then for communism in 1944.

The artist died on April 8, 1973 in his property of Mougins in the Maritime Alps. Endowed with an exceptional thirst for creativity, he touched all the pictorial currents of the 20th century. He is one of the undisputed masters of modern art.