Les Dentelles de Montmirail
One of 50 copies on Arches paper. This unnumbered copy is Picasso’s own, justified in ink by René Char:
“Exemplaire de Picasso. R. C.”
The stones and pieces of iron used for the impressions were found in the Dentelles de Montmirail by René Char, PAB and Jacques Polge. The landscape is therefore not illustrated in the usual sense: it is physically printed into the book.
Published in the summer of 1960, this rare PAB booklet belongs to the renewed friendship between Char and Picasso, largely encouraged by Pierre André Benoit. Picasso had been collaborating with PAB since the mid-1950s, attracted by the freedom of his small-format artist’s books and by experimental techniques such as celluloid engraving and cartalégraphie.
An exceptional association copy: Char’s book on the Dentelles de Montmirail, naturally printed by PAB, and personally marked as Picasso’s own copy by the poet.