Incollect Magazine - Issue 4

Issue 4 114 www.incollect.com Left: Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), Picasso Editions Ceramic Dish, Madoura Bird Motif, circa 1952. Edition of 500. Diameter: 6¼ in. Right: Detail of signature. Images courtesy of Pavilion Antiques & 20th Century. with smaller margins. That’s a total of 30,000 prints plus proofs of each individual print. There are 4,500 auction records alone for the prints from the Vollard Suite in the Artnet price database, and thousands have been traded privately via art dealers making this a Picasso sub-market in and of itself. Not all of the prints are signed by the artist, but for Szoke accessing the authenticity and value of the print is not only about a signature: the quality of the print is the most important factor. Today more and more artworks are offered online, and as such Szoke offers a larger variety of images than before. These selections include unique works, small edition prints, and more expensive and rare works as well. Anything in a small edition usually commands from $100,000 and up, he says. Unique works come off a lithographic stone or copper plate like other prints, but just one or even just a few of them in a limited edition are printed, which makes them rarer, more valuable. Szoke is constantly approached to lend his Picasso prints to exhibitions at museums and art galleries — he has works going to several museums next year for anniversary exhibitions, and in 2011 Lewis and Sherri Wexler from Wexler Gallery in Philadelphia and New York worked with him on an exhibition pairing Picasso prints with the work of Wendel Castle. “We put together a selection of prints using different methods and styles and we matched them up with the furniture based on forms that Wendell was doing at the time,” Lewis Wexler says. “It was one of our more successful shows.” Picasso’s ceramics are less plentiful than the prints but equally popular. The market is also more straightforward: the forms are distinct and markings clear — questions of authenticity are rarely an issue, as each work is marked with an atelier stamp, edition number and frequently an additional mark such as ‘Edition Picasso’. The editions are usually in 200, 300 or 500, and each piece is hand painted by Picasso so tends to be slightly different, a quality prized among serious collectors of Picasso’s ceramics.