id: 152009 accession number: 1984.61 share license status: Copyrighted url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1984.61 updated: 2022-06-24 09:01:00.379000 Still Life under a Lamp, 1962. Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973). Linoleum cut; image: 53.1 x 64 cm (20 7/8 x 25 3/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund 1984.61 © Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York title: Still Life under a Lamp title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1962 creation date earliest: 1962 creation date latest: 1962 current location: creditline: John L. Severance Fund copyright: © Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York --- culture: Spain, 20th century technique: linoleum cut department: Prints collection: PR - Linocut type: Print find spot: catalogue raisonne: Bloch I.231.1101 --- CREATORS * Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973) - artist Pablo Ruiz Picasso (1881-1973), the most prolific and influential artist of the 20th century, shifted the emphasis of art from its traditional concern with beauty toward radical innovation. The son of an art teacher, Picasso demonstrated remarkable talents as a child and entered the royal art academy in Madrid at age sixteen. Less than a year later, he abandoned his studies and soon joined several avant-garde artist and anarchist groups in Barcelona and Paris. After passing through a succession of stylistic periods, most notably the Blue (1901-1904) and Rose (1904-1906) Periods, he collaborated with Georges Braque (1882-1963) in 1908 to invent Cubism, a revolutionary method of restructuring pictorial space. Picasso remained active until his death in 1973. Although his art still appears radical, many of his works are over one hundred years old. Cubism, perhaps the most important development in 20th-century art, was invented around 1908 by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) and Georges Braque (1882-1963). The most revolutionary aspect of the style was not its obvious emphasis on geometric form; rather, it was the introduction of a radically new approach to configuring pictorial space. Since the Renaissance, artists had used various methods to create the illusion of distant space receding behind the canvas surface. The Cubists rejected that idea and collapsed space by compressing foreground, middle ground, and background into a continuous web of overlapping, intersecting planes. During the 1910s, other painters and sculptors embraced or adapted Cubism to their own ends. This revolutionary approach inspired a host of related movements and continues to influence the visual language of artists, architects, and designers throughout the world. --- measurements: Image: 53.1 x 64 cm (20 7/8 x 25 3/16 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Year in Review for 1984 opening date: 1985-04-03T04:00:00 Year in Review for 1984. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 3-May 5, 1985). title: Printing in Color opening date: 1985-09-10T04:00:00 Printing in Color. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 10-November 17, 1985). title: Object in Focus: Picasso, Still Life Under a Lamp, 1962 [linoleum cut 1984.61] opening date: 2001-10-30T00:00:00 Object in Focus: Picasso, Still Life Under a Lamp, 1962 [linoleum cut 1984.61]. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (October 30-November 25, 2001). title: Against the Grain: Woodcuts from the Collection opening date: 2003-08-17T00:00:00 Against the Grain: Woodcuts from the Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 17-November 9, 2003). title: Monet to Dalí: Modern Masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art opening date: 2006-05-27T00:00:00 Monet to Dalí: Modern Masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 21, 2007-January 13, 2008). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: In 1958 at the age of 77, Picasso executed his first great multicolored linocut, Portrait of a Lady, after Cranach the Younger, for which he cut six linoleum blocks, one for each color. Each block had to be carefully aligned in succession. Finding this a laborious process, Picasso devised an entirely new method that he used for 147 linocuts executed by 1968. Picasso's innovation was to use a single block to print all of the colors, cutting out more of the design from the block for each color. To create Still Life Under a Lamp, he first printed the uncut block in white on 80 sheets of paper (the edition was 50 but some sheets would be ruined in the printing process) because the other colors print better over a layer of clear ink. Then the few areas that were to remain white were cut away, the surface of the block was inked in yellow, and the block was printed. Next, the areas to remain yellow were cut away, and the block, inked with red, was printed over the yellow. Proceeding in this manner, the green and black were also added in succession. This is a daring method: if a mistake is made at the end of the process, the entire edition is ruined. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Planas, Clausstre Rafart. "Materials and Techniques." In Picasso and Paper. William H. Robinson, et al., 292-313. London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2020. page number: Reproduced: P. 301, cat. no. 316 url: --- IMAGES