Artist: PABLO RUIZ PICASSO (Malaga, 1881-Mougins, 1973).
Title: "Portrait of Mrs Benedetta Canals", 1905
Medium: Offset poster.
Dimensions: 75,5 x 55 cm.
Condition Report: Slight damp marks on the outer areas.
Hand signed by the artist.

This work reproduces the painting made by Picasso in 1905, whose protagonist was Benedetta Bianco Coletta (Cervaro, 1870 - Barcelona, 1958), a habitual model of the Montmatre artists, who a year after this portrait was painted married the painter Ricard Canals. The piece belongs to a moment of artistic transition in Picasso's life, when he abandoned his blue period to begin the pink period. In fact, the harmony between the two shades can be appreciated in the work.

About the artist:
The creator of Cubism together with Braque, Picasso began his artistic studies in Barcelona, at the Provincial School of Fine Arts (1895). Only two years later, in 1897, Picasso held his first solo exhibition at the café "ElsQuatreGats". Paris was to become Pablo's great goal, and in 1900 he moved to the French capital for a short period of time. When he returned to Barcelona, he began to work on a series of works in which the influences of all the artists he had known or whose work he had seen could be seen. He is a sponge that absorbs everything but retains nothing; he is searching for a personal style. Between 1901 and 1907 he developed the Blue and Pink Stages, characterised by the use of these colours and by their subject matter with sordid, isolated figures, with gestures of grief and suffering. The painting of these early years of the 20th century was undergoing continuous changes and Picasso could not remain on the sidelines. He became interested in Cézanne, and based on his example he developed a new pictorial formula together with his friend Braque: Cubism. But Picasso did not stop there and in 1912 he practised collage in painting; from that moment on, anything goes, imagination became the master of art. Picasso was the great revolutionary, and when all the painters were interested in Cubism, he was preoccupied with the classicism of Ingres. The surrealist movement of 1925 did not catch him unawares and, although he did not participate openly, it served as an element of rupture with what had gone before, introducing into his work distorted figures with great force and not exempt from rage and fury. As with Goya, Picasso was also greatly influenced in his work by his personal and social situation. His often tumultuous relationships with women had a serious impact on his work. However, what had the greatest impact on Picasso was the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and the bombing of Guernica, which led to the creation of the most famous work of contemporary art. Paris was his refuge for a long time, but the last years of his life were spent in the south of France, working in a very personal style, with vivid colours and strange forms. Picasso is represented in the most important museums around the world, such as the Metropolitan, MOMA and the Guggenheim in New York, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the National Gallery in London and the Reina Sofia in Madrid.