Ambroise Vollard III c. 1937

This is a portrait of Ambroise Vollard by Pablo Picasso, done using etching. Look at these marks! It makes me think about what it was like for Picasso to make this print. I imagine him wiping and scraping, re-biting the plate, trying to catch the light on Vollard’s balding head. It's a dance with the material, a conversation between the artist and the metal. You can see it in the way he renders the shadows. There is an incredible push and pull, a tension between the light and dark, the seen and unseen. It almost feels like you could reach out and touch the stubble on Vollard's chin or feel the weight of his gaze. Picasso brings the whole history of portraiture into the mix but also blows it up, making it new. And the great thing is, he encourages us to make it new again, in our own way.