In the mid-1950s, Pablo Picasso embarked on a new artistic form of expression: linocut. With his usual enthusiasm for experimentation, he devoted himself intensively to this relief printing technique, which was not yet widely used in the art world at that time, developing an exact working method in collaboration with the printer Hidalgo Arnéra in Vallauris. Unlike etching or lithography, linocut enabled him to use intense, vibrant colors and produce complex multicolor prints. Although the technique accounts for only a small percentage of his overall graphic oeuvre, his linocuts are among the most popular prints by the artist and are considered masterpieces of modern printmaking, including the present “Portrait de jeune fille, d´après Cranach le jeune II” from 1958.

The inspiration for this early linocut, printed in five colors and from five plates, was a painting by Lucas Cranach the Younger—"Weibliches Bildnis (Female Portrait, 1564), today on display at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Inspired by a postcard depicting Cranach's portrait, which he had received from his publisher and gallerist Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, he used the linocut technique to develop a radical reinterpretation of the Renaissance painting. Through a substantial reduction of the motif, expressive areas of color, and the stylization of the subjects, a kind of paraphrase of the historical portrait emerges, in which the original motif remains recognizable but speaks an entirely new artistic language. It is Picasso's first color linocut. He continued to work with this printing technique until the late 1960s, helping restore its reputation through his technical innovations and incredible artistic inventiveness. [AR]