Original lithographic poster printed by Mourlot and Henri Deschamps, for the exhibition of Picasso’s ceramics a Galerie Lucie Weill, Paris.

This lithographic poster is unusual and rare because it is a photo lithographic print of Picasso’s ceramic ‘Polychrome Bird’, made to reproduce the three-dimensional feeling of the ceramic. It has a photo-litho base that has been enhanced with straight lithographic colours added.

At this stage, Picasso was living in the French Riviera and increasingly focused on translating painterly and sculptural ideas into ceramics, using playful, gestural forms that defy conventional classification. This lithograph emphasises Picasso’s capacity to translate volumetric objects into a two-dimensional medium.