Picasso's meninas, from Hommage à Picasso portfolio
Richard Hamilton British
the artist and Aldo Crommelynck French, born Monaco
Publisher Propyläen Verlag German
Not on view
In 1972, the year he first saw Velázquez’s masterpiece Las Meninas (1656) in Madrid’s Prado museum, Hamilton was asked to contribute to the print portfolio Hommage à Picasso. His solution, this tour de force of intaglio printmaking, is a tribute to both Spanish painters: each of Velázquez’s characters is reimagined in a different Picasso style. Picasso had his own obsessions with Las Meninas; in fall 1957 he composed more than forty variations. Here, in Velázquez’s stead, Hamilton depicts Picasso at work on the enormous canvas, the hammer and sickle a sign of the Spaniard’s political affiliation.
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