Lysistrata (Signed by Picasso)

New York: The Limited Editions Club, 1934. First edition thus. Fine. One of 1,500 copies signed by Picasso. Publisher’s patterned paper boards. Complete with the six etched plates. In the Fine publisher's slipcase and Near Fine chemise (lacking the original glassine; spine of chemise a bit sunned) with the Limited Editions Club publication announcement laid in. A Fine copy of the only American publication with original etchings by Picasso.

Limited Editions Club founder George Macy wrote, “To illustrate Lysistrata, Picasso has given us six etched copperplates and forty pencil drawings. Each plate, each drawing, bears witness to his mastery (truncated) of method and technique. His line is sure, confident; it cries out to the world that the man who drew it knows what he was about. And the line is pure, it is that sort of line of which even the Greeks used to say that this is ‘pure Grecian line.’”

The publication of this edition was somewhat troubled. Macy had intended to have the book printed in Paris, but was unable to do so after Picasso was six months late delivering the illustrations. The Limited Editions Club produced the volume at their own printing shop in Westport, Connecticut instead. The text faced a troubled route, too: Gilbert Seldes translated the text for a stage revival, which was met with controversy due to its bawdiness when it was performed in Philadelphia and New York. Members of the Limited Editions Club also criticized the book upon its publication, commenting that Picasso’s illustrations were “juvenile” and “unfinished” (University of Wisconsin Libraries). Nevertheless, Macy considered this edition to be one of the finest from the Limited Editions Club, and the illustrations are remembered as “among [Picasso’s] most important in the classical style” (Hofer, The Artist and the Book, 226). Fine. (Inventory #: 7310)