Description
L’ HOMME & LA FEMME Picasso Sculpture
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All reasonable offers will be considered
$4,900.00
L’ HOMME & LA FEMME Picasso Sculpture (Man and Woman) are in solid polished bronze. Height 11 1/2″. These are gorgeous, high quality sculpture.
The original moulds were made from Terra-cotta clay sculpture by Picasso which now reside in the Picasso Museum of Antibes in the South of France.
These beautiful sculpture are in mint condition and are from the International Edition of 175. The American Edition of the same quantity sold out many years ago. I will provide the buyer with a Certificate of Authenticity, as pictured, with the shipment of the sculpture.
Many years ago these sculpture were sold by the CitiBank Diners Club through their catalog of ‘Collectable Rarities’. Other sets have been sold at numerous auctions over the past approximately fifty years since they came into the market.
Due to increased costs in producing these sculpture, it is doubtful more will be created and only those currently in the market, will be available other than secondary market sellers.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION – Click on any picture to enlarge it
These sculpture were not created as images ‘after Picasso’ and in homage to him in his style. The original images of “La Homme” and “La Femme” were created by Pablo Picasso in Terra-cotta clay. They reside in the Picasso Museum in the South of France where they have been on display for many years.
The background is many years ago, a group of about twelve New York area art dealers undertook purchasing the rights to publish sculpture editions by many of the world’s foremost artists. After a number of years, these rights were sold off and I ended up buying the exclusive rights to these two Picasso sculpture editions (that is the remaining pieces to complete the editions) plus a sculpture edition by Alvar, titled La Paloma.
However; at the time the NY dealer group acquired the rights to these sculpture, U.S. copyright law did not automatically protect the artist’s interest in their creations which had to be filed with the U.S. Copyright office. Thus these dealers purchased the Terra-cotta clay sculptures at auction in NYC from which they made moulds to produce the sculpture editions without authorization from Picasso who should have filed copyright papers in the U.S.A. before allowing the sale of the originals at auction.
At one time I owned galleries in Dallas, Minneapolis and Toronto and had been selling these sculpture with considerable success. When I had the opportunity to purchase the rights to the remaining pieces from the editions, I did so in 1989 and have since been the exclusive international publisher and distributor of these pieces.
The Picasso editions included an American edition of 175 and an International edition of 175 in polished bronze. The American edition sold out many years ago and I am up to I – 51/175 of the International edition. The tirage also provides for editions in silver and gold which I doubt will ever be created due to the cost. I did produce one edition in .999 fine silver for a dealer in Japan many years ago for $7,500.00. That is the only silver edition pieces made. In 18K gold (the int. std. for gold) with gold at $800.00 per oz., the cost of gold alone would be about $80,000.00 a set. Of course gold is considerably more costly than that amount today and would probably by closer to $200,000.00.
Between our galleries, and the many others that have sold these over about 50 years, everyone that has purchased a set of these Picasso sculpture from my company has been extremely well pleased as they are beautiful, high quality pieces.
Please let me know if I may be of further assistance.