Descripción
Picasso supplied painting No. 25 of the series “Pigeons at La Californie”, painted on 12 September 1957, simultaneously with the series on Velázquez’s “Las Meninas”. Deschamps, with Picasso’s agreement, made the lithograph on which the poster was based. The oil painting is in the Museu Picasso in Barcelona.
The motif of painting No. 25 of the series “Pigeons at La Californie” has been used twice. Once for this poster, when it was used to promote Cannes, and it bore the text “Cannes A.M.”. It was used again to promote the Côte d’Azur and bore the text “Côte d’Azur”.
Picasso set up his studio on the second floor of “La Californie”, in his Pigeon Studio, as Hélène Parmelin called it, to paint the works in that incredible and fascinating series. As Palau i Fabre points out in his apt and beautiful commentary, the struggle that Picasso experiences in ‘Las Meninas’ cannot be fully understood if we do not take into account that, while carrying out this sophisticated work, Picasso is simultaneously fulfilling an essential and vital function when painting doves, as the artist lets his eyes and mind rest and sober up while observing the spectacle unfolding around him.
