Le Mystere Picasso

Vintage Silver Gelatin print, 4/5/1956. Verso is the agency stamp. The typed label reads : Le film de g h Clouzot, “Le Mystere Picasso” traiant de l’oeuvre du grand aitre, a ete presente hier au Festival de Cannes, et a remporte un tres vif success aupres du public. Npm: Picasso, en chapeau melon et smoking, assisait a la presentation du film. €
Size: 157 X 130 mms
Note: This photograph represents a most interesting episode in the life of the artist. His great friend the famous film maker Henri-George Clouzot made a film about Picasso assisted by Claude Renoir, the painters son. The film began in a darkened room with a white light directed at an empty translucent canvas. The artist then confronts the work dramatically as the camera records the progress from the other side of the canvas. In the course of the film some 20 different canvases are made. Our photograph was taken at the Cannes Film Festival when Picasso, wonderfully smart and well dressed, was receiving his accolades alongside Clouzot. This film won the Special Jury Prize and Picasso destroyed all the canvases so that it could only exist on film.