Les Bleus de Barcelone, 1963

Picasso and the Catalonian Legacy: Les Bleus de Barcelone

Les Bleus de Barcelona suite, published in 1963, represents a watershed moment in the history of Pablo Picasso’s catalog of works. Far from a mere retrospective, this collection was conceived as a curated dialogue between Picasso and his formative years in Barcelona while retreating from his early struggles in Paris.

The portfolio was commissioned by the Museu Picasso, in Barcelona, to mark its official inauguration, an event of profound political and cultural weight, establishing itself as the first institution dedicated solely to the artist’s work during his lifetime. The simultaneous creation of the Museu Picasso and release of Les Bleus de Barcelona served as a defiant reclamation of his Spanish heritage. The selection of images underscores Picasso’s "Barcelona soul," tracing a visual lineage from the melancholic, monochromatic social realism of his formative Blue Period.

Central to the collection’s prestige is the mastery of the hand-layered, labor-intensive, pochoir technique used in its production. Supervised by the artist himself, this process allowed for a color density and textural fidelity that traditional lithography often lacks. These 12 pochoir lithographs were expertely executed by the famed print house, Au Vent d'Arles in 1963. Limited to just 500 copies, these rare images became instant collectors items.