PARIS.- This 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). Picasso's work continues to exert a real fascination throughout the world, with universal recognition. The Picassomania sale returns to Bonhams this year in Paris on 28 June 2023 with prints, works on paper, ceramics and photographs along with works by contemporary artists influenced by Picasso. Estimates start at €700.

Lucia Tro Santafe, Bonhams Head of Sale and Senior specialist for Modern & Contemporary Art and Prints in Spain, said: "Picasso is an artist who needs no introduction. His work is instantly recognisable, and his reputation is well established. However, the scope of his work extends far beyond his paintings, and the Picassomania sale showcases the full breadth of his genius with ceramics, prints, works on paper and photographs. After a first sale on this theme in London in 2021, we hope the public will come to Paris, a city that Picasso knew well, for this important anniversary."

Between 1948 and 1955, Pablo Picasso lived in Vallauris with Françoise Gilot and their two children, Claude and Paloma, and later with Jacqueline Roque. During the Vallauris years, his artistic production was particularly fertile and renewed, through the assiduous practice of ceramics in the Madoura studio, sculpture and painting in his Fournas studio and the discovery of linocuts. Collaboration with experienced local artists and craftsmen, including Suzanne and Georges Ramié, Robert Picault and Hidalgo Arnéra, enabled Picasso to explore the new potential of these different media. A Portrait de Jeune Fille, after Cranach le Jeune is Picasso’s most accomplished linocut executed in 1958. Published by Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris, this rare, unrecorded proof came from Picasso's regular printer, Hidalgo Arnéra in Vallauris, and is estimated at €60,000- 80,000.

Tête de Femme au Chapeau is a linocut in colours on Arches paper, executed in 1962 in an edition of 50 copies. The present impression is an artist’s proof and is estimated at €30,000-50,000.

In 1930, Picasso received the commission for several etchings from the art dealer and publisher, Ambroise Vollard. Picasso worked hard on the series in the spring of 1933 and completed it in 1937. Le Minotaure aveugle guidé par une petite Fille au pigeon is one of the best known and most admired prints from La Suite Vollard, executed in 1934 in an edition of 260 (Estimate: €15,000-20,000). Finely engraved, the wild head of the Minotaur, believed to be Picasso’s alter-ego, asserts itself at the centre of the composition guided by a little girl, none other than Marie-Thérèse Walter, Picasso’s pregnant lover, to whom he had offered a dove, the bird of peace she is carrying here. Rather than the usual overt sexuality and virility associated with the creature, the Minotaur here appears blind and vulnerable, in a dramatic night setting reminiscent in design to a scene from a Greek tragedy.

Drawings

A number of works on paper by Picasso will be on offer, including Une Scène de tauromachie, a wax crayon drawing on the title page of the book, Toros y Toreros, by Luis Miguel Dominguín and Picasso. Signed, dated and dedicated "to René Pous Picasso on 1.12.62", Estimate: €40,000-60,000.

Another extraordinary early drawing entitled Apollinaire se bat en duel, 1907 depicts the poet as a strong fencer flanked by Max Jacob. When they met for the first time in Paris in 1905, in an English bar in the Saint-Lazare area, Picasso, was 23 and Guillaume Apollinaire, 24 years old. They became inseparable friends. Estimate: €60,000 - €80,000

Ceramics

At the end of July 1946, while on holiday with Françoise Gilot on the Côte d'Azur, Picasso visited the Madoura pottery in Vallauris, run by Suzanne and Georges Ramié. In this workshop, founded in 1938, utilitarian objects - dishes, vases and various containers - were mass-produced using traditional Provençal shapes and techniques. Le barbu is a white earthenware ceramic pitcher, partially engraved, with coloured engobe and glaze, engraved with a knife, designed in 1953 and produced in an edition of 500 (Estimate: €12,000-18,000).

A partially glazed white earthenware plate, Jacqueline au chevalet (front); Faunes aux visages carrés (back), with enamelled engobe decoration on the reverse is also included in the sale. Conceived in 1956 and executed in an edition of 100, it is estimated at €8,000 to €12,000.

Other lots included in the sale:

Well-known artists such as Cy Twombly, James Rosenquist and Andy Warhol will also be present, testifying to the Spanish master's influence on Contemporary art:

·Andy Warhol (1928-1987) Paloma Picasso, Hommage à Picasso, signed, dated and numbered XIV/XXX, screenprint in colours, Executed in 1974 from the edition of 30 reserved for museums (estimate: €7,000 - 10,000)

·Cy Twombly (1928-2011) Untitled, Tribute to Picasso, lithograph and collotype in colours, executed in 1974 (Estimate: €5,000 - €7,000)