Description

Neither this poster nor its subject have been reproduced in other posters. Picasso made a series of drawings of the gardener of “Notre-Dame-De-Vie”. This character fascinated him because of his clothes and because he always had a lit cigarette hanging from his mouth. This fascination with the subject led him to make a long series of drawings between 13 and 31 May, known as “The Smokers”, a subject that he would insist on, albeit intermittently, in the following months. The drawing reproduced in the poster is part of this series, and is the third version that, precisely with this same character, he made on 19 May. Picasso insisted on simplifying the forms in these versions and tried to obtain the true corporeality of a person, and, of the artist.

Referring to these “Smokers”, Georges Boudaille indicates that “they live for themselves, they exist in themselves”. She also notes that when examining these works, one is struck by the fact that “the outline, often blurred, soft and indistinct […] suggests an unkempt, poorly shaven man […]. Another constant is the application of thick, heavy strokes of colour on the face which cannot be confused with a tattoo and which therefore have a plastic value.”

According to Hélène Parmelin, whom Boudaille also cites, Picasso “hopes to have attained or achieved in these drawings such a truth of human presence, that they exist as characters, and not as simple strokes of ink or colour.”