PABLO PICASSO (Malaga, 1881 - Mougins, France, 1973).
"Colombe volant à l'Arc-en-ciel", 1952.
Colour lithograph, copy 129/200.
Signed and justified by hand. Signed and dated on plate.
Size: 54 x 77 cm; 68 x 96,5 cm (frame).
Original lithograph, signed by Picasso. It represents a dove flying in front of the rainbow, a motif from 1952 that would be used as a symbol of peace against the Franco regime. The dove of peace motif appeared in Picasso's work after the Second World War. Just as in another well-known Picasso image from 1961, the biblical symbol of the dove with an olive branch in its beak appears here flying over a rainbow sky. In Genesis we are told of the appearance of the dove with an olive branch to Noah to symbolise the return of universal peace, the end of the floods. Picasso took up this symbol in a series of drawings of doves. One of them was used for the poster announcing the World Congress of Partisans for Peace. In February 1949, Louis Aragon went to Picasso's Paris studio to select a drawing for the congress, which was to be held in Paris in April of the same year. "La colombe", a blue pencil drawing on paper, was the chosen motif and the image quickly became known as "The Dove of Peace". On 19 April 1949 his second daughter was born, on the opening day of the Peace Congress, and he decided to name her Dove after the symbol he created for the posters that appeared all over the streets of Paris.
The creator of Cubism together with Braque, Picasso's painting was a turning point in the history of art. He began his studies in 1895 at the Provincial School of Fine Arts in Barcelona, and only two years later he held his first solo exhibition at the café "Els Quatre Gats". After several short stays in Paris, Picasso settled permanently in the French capital in 1904. After his blue and pink periods in the early years of the century, the painter began his geometrical experiments in 1906, during a stay in Lérida. A year later he began to paint "Les Demoiselles de la Rue Avinyó", and in 1909 he came into contact with Braque and his Cubist period began. During the second decade he developed his classical period, and produced his famous sets for Diaghilev's Russian ballets. In 1936 he was appointed director of the Prado Museum by the Government of the Spanish Republic, and a year later he painted "Guernica". His definitive international recognition came in 1939, when he was given a retrospective at the MOMA in New York. During the following decades he was the subject of anthological exhibitions all over the world, in Rome, Milan, Paris, Cologne and New York, among many other cities. He is represented in the most important museums around the world, such as the Metropolitan, the MOMA and the Guggenheim in New York, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the National Gallery in London and the Reina Sofía in Madrid.