‘Between 19 August and 8 September 1964, Picasso produced a number of sketchlike portraits of men, most of whom are smoking. Many were first realized as colored chalk and crayon drawings before being interpreted into multicolored graphic work (Bloch 1164-1176). The series begins with the portrait of the man whose nose, mouth, and chin are crossing zigzags. Three days later, he is shown as a smoker, the cigarette and his hand delineated as bold straight lines. Both works are soft-ground etchings, inked à la poupée in which different colored inks were dabbed – generally with a tightly rolled cloth known as a poupée – into precise areas for printing.
For a number of years, Picasso worked closely with the Crommelynck brothers, who had moved their printing presses to Mougins in 1963 and printed his late Works, including the present etchings. Published for the Galerie Louise Leiris in Paris in 1965, they belong to the fifteen signed artist´s proofs executed in conjunction with a signed and numbered edition of fifty prints. The Museu Picasso in Barcelona dedicated to Jaime Sabartés (MPB 70.362; 70.375).The colored drawing on which the etching of the man with the green cigarette is based in the Musée Picasso in Paris (Bust of a Man with Cigarette, Mougins, 22 August 1964); both Works are dated 22 August 1964.
The theme of a man smoking recurs in 1968 in the pipe-smoking “musketeers” of the Suite 347, one of his most ambitious graphic endeavors, and in paintings from this period’.
Text: GIMÉNEZ, Carmen (ed). Collection Museo Picasso Málaga. Malaga: Museo Picasso Málaga, 2003, pp. 541-543.
