This exhibition comprises thirteen original etchings by Picasso regarding the text of Honoré de Balzac (Tours, 1799-Paris, 1850) Le Chef d'oeuvre inconnu (The Unknown Masterpiece) in 1931 on behalf of his art dealer Ambroise Vollard .
Pablo Picasso (Malaga, 1881 - Mougins, 1973) is considered one of the great masters of the art of engraving. Although he used this technique throughout his life, in the thirties he made several series of etchings, considered one of the most important examples of the history of printing. Among them is the one shown now in the Museu Fundación Juan March.
Balzac's story is set in the seventeenth century and is staged in the Paris studio of an elderly artist named Frenhofer. Its subject is the painter's obsession who is secretly working on a painting he has spent years trying to finish. When two artists admirers of the painter finally get to see the artist's work, they just find a mass of intricate brushstrokes and layers of paint, which barely stand a foot,
The story fascinated Picasso, who felt identified with Frenhofer-the frustrated genius who creates masterpieces so ahead of their time that no one understands them, and used the commission of Vollard to honor the act of creation. The works, therefore, are not strictly accurate illustrations Balzac's tale, but the result of Picasso's ramblings on the subject of the creative artist and the intimate relationship between the artist and his model.
