"3 Le corrigan du littoral"

collotype

portfolio-number stamped on verso

Part of a portfolio of works with text and 30 works in envelope.

After suffering from tuberculosis of the bone, Andre Villers, then only 17 years old, was admitted to a sanatorium in Vallauris in the south of France, where he stayed for eight years. It was during this time that he became acquainted with photography, and in 1952 he made his first experiments in the darkroom as well as pictures of Vallauris and its inhabitants.
In March 1953, he also met Pablo Picasso there, who gave him his first camera, a Rolleiflex. Villers made numerous portraits of the painter, and their relationship developed into a collaboration that produced hundreds of images based on photographic experiments. In 1961 Picasso had cut out numerous heads and figures of people and animals from paper, developing a technique he had used as early as 1943. Villers mounted these cut-up figures on thirty different photographs, placing them in realistic contexts and situations. Finally, Jacques Prévert told the amusing story of these short-lived creatures from sunrise to sunset. In 1962, Heinz Berggruen published the book Diurnes (Day Butterflies), based on 30 of these paintings.
(S. Goeppert)

As a basis for the revision of Picasso served photograms which were produced by putting on for example leaves, rice, flowers, feathers or fabric. In addition, there are also photographic images of two-dimensional structures that can be found, for example, on tree bark, glass panes or walls. Landscape details with trees, bushes and water are also the source material for Picasso's silhouettes, which were then placed on the pre-exposed photographic paper and exposed again. There is also a pure silhouette (No. 16). These wonderful works are convincing in their playful lightness and bear witness to an extraordinary collaboration between photographer and visual artist.
(Fritz Simak)