Picasso, sculptures and series in mixed artistic techniques in Vallauris (1951-1954)

Abstract

One of the most original sculptural methods invented by Picasso was the mixed technique that Werner Spies called encyclopedic, based on his explanations and the testimony of Françoise Gilot, with which he started from the assemblage technique and endowed it with a new character with which technical creativity proceeded with unusual freedom, once again generating a new space or foundation for representation. He used this method for
two decades in successive stages in Boisgeloup, Paris and Vallauris, between 1933 and 1954. The article presents the catalog and detailed analysis of all the sculptures that Picasso made in this last locality between 1951 and 1954, taking into account that they are the last of a singular procedure; and that in that brief stage he made the only series that respond to it, in
contrast to the individual character of all previous encyclopedic production. Both the study of all the works individually and in detail, and not with the generic and selective approaches with which it has always been treated; like the consideration of the series themselves, they have an unpublished  character that will contribute to the knowledge of Picasso´s sculpture from new points of view.