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In order to relate Picasso’s lithographs to the history of lithography as a whole, it is essential to understand the similarity of methods and approaches that align him with one earlier lithographer: Francisco Goya (1746-1828). Both of these Spanish artists loved the vigor of expression found in the works of Velasquez and both found special inspiration in the etchings, drawings and paintings of Rembrandt. Goya and Picasso also shared a fascination with virtually every form of print-making and an interest in experimenting endlessly with all the technical possibilities and problems involved. In lithography, invented around 1798 and thus well after the deaths of Velasquez and Rembrandt, Goya and then later Picasso each combined aesthetic and technical mastery with extraordinary capacity for inventiveness. Similar to Rembrandt’s attitude towards the etching plate, Goya and Picasso had a common perception of the lithographic stone as an entity to be obsessively attacked and re-attacked, worked and re-worked until every possible iota of expression has been wrenched form its stony surface.
