Pablo Picasso, designer

Among the one hundred etchings Pablo Picasso created for the “Vollard Suite,” a series commissioned by the eminent art dealer Ambrose Vollard, a large portion focus on the interactions of a male sculptor and a female model within a studio space. This drypoint, dated March 15, 1933, is the earliest to treat this theme, featuring a nude male sculptor and a beautiful woman, who is presumably Marie-Thérèse Walter. Picasso met Walter when she was only seventeen years old, and she became his primary model and his secret mistress until 1935, throughout the creation of the majority of the “Vollard Suite” prints.