Erotica at 87

When summoned to Pablo Picasso's Riviera villa last March, Paris Printer Aldo Crommelynck packed only one clean shirt. There had been many previous summonses in the 20 years that Crommelynck, 37, and his brother Piero, 34, had been privileged to print the master's occasional engravings. The brothers even found it worthwhile to keep a small printing press in an atelier near Picasso's house, enabling the impatient artist to view proofs without delay. From those earlier calls, Crommelynck fully expected to run off proofs of one or possibly two new engravings--all Picasso ever seemed to produce at a time--and be on his way back to Paris in a day or two at most.

It never did pay to take Picasso for granted.

Crommelynck found that the 87-year-old Picasso had launched into a fury of sustained creativity, turning out etchings--and nothing else--at the astonishing rate of almost two a day. The printer resignedly settled into a state of semi-residence as the artist worked on and on, from March into early October. As remarkable as the demanding pace was the subject to which Picasso addressed himself. At a time of life when sex is little more than a dim memory for most men, he was lustily scratching out on copper one erotic scene after another, never hesitating to boldly gouge a representation of himself into the action. Not once did he summon a model--his incredible visual memory or imagination seemed capable of producing any variant of pose or coupled posture.

Two Kinds of Women. The engravings, as usual fully subscribed in advance in editions of 50 each, have been assembled into an exhibit titled simply "347 Gravures" and mounted simultaneously in Paris and Chicago; the show is just finishing a six-week run at the Galerie Louise Leiris, but by popular demand The Art Institute of Chicago has extended it for another month. The engravings represent what may well be the most exhaustive study of genitals, mainly female, ever seen in legitimate art galleries. Says his longtime dealer and friend, Daniel-Henry Kahn-weiler: "His work has always been profoundly autobiographical. Women play a big role in his life and imagination. The subject of this show is himself, his imagination, his dreams." As the artist once said, "for me, there are two kinds of women--goddesses and doormats." Both are clearly visible.

One of Picasso's themes, that of artist and model, is omnipresent. In one engraving after another, men representing painters--or voyeurs--stare at shamelessly naked women; occasionally they indulge in intercourse with their ever-compliant models, palette and brushes still in hand. Reflecting the artist's Spanish heritage, a whole series of moody prints shows grandees on horseback abducting maidens. Satyrs abound.

Stylistically, Picasso runs the gamut from the murky chiaroscuro of Rembrandt to a spidery line that Steinberg could be proud of. Technically, the prints are a virtuoso performance in which the artist often combines various techniques--etching, aquatint, drypoint--on the same plate.

The Art Institute, even though it withheld 25 prints as "unfit for public exhibition," has received phone calls complaining, in effect, that Picasso is a dirty old man and demanding that the exhibit be removed. But what matters about "347 Gravures" is that the old master proves he can still invest a female nude with classic grace by means of a single magical line. He doesn't do it every time--but then he never did.

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