Saint Matorel (Saint Matthew)

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Saint Matorel (Saint Matthew)

Artist Pablo Picasso (Spanish (active France), 1881-1973)

Publisher (Daniel) Henry Kahnweiler, Paris, 1911

Printer etching: Eugène Delatre, Paris, text: Paul Birault, Paris

Author Max Jacob (French, 1876-1944)

Date1911

DimensionsBook: H: 10 1/2 in. (267 mm); W: 8 7/8 in. (225 mm); Depth: 1/2 in. (13 mm).
Page (untrimmed): H: 10 1/2 in. (267 mm); W: 8 13/16 in. (224 mm).

MediumOriginal prints: 4 etchings, incl. 1 with drypoint. Text: letterpress in black with red. Paper: Van Gelder cream laid paper.

ClassificationBooks

Credit LineGift of Molly and Walter Bareiss in honor of Barbara K. Sutherland

Object number

1984.873

Not on View

Label TextPicasso's first illustrated book, and the first with cubist illustrations, was Saint Matorel by Max Jacob, a poet who was one of Picasso's closest friends in Paris. The text, volume one of a trilogy, is a bizarre story about Victor Matorel, a worker in the Paris Metro who converts to Catholicism, becomes a monk, and ultimately attains the divine grace of sainthood. Mademoiselle Léonie, the main female character, was Matorel's mistress. The etching of her as a somewhat geometric nude is one of four full-page hors texte illustrations Picasso made during the summer of 1910 when he was in the Catalan village of Cadaquès. Henry Kahnweiler, a German who had opened an art gallery in Paris in 1907, was one of the first to commission, publish, and thus support the work of avant-garde writers and artists of his day. At the time this first edition of Saint Matorel was issued, there were only a handful of collectors interested in cubisn.. Now this book is regarded as a landmark work in the evolution of analytical cubism. Saint Matorel is the first book with illustrations in the revolutionary style recently developed by Picasso and Braque, Cubism. Max Jacob, the author, was a close friend of Picasso. Saint Matorel is the first volume of a semi-autobiographical trilogy recounting the conversion of Victor Matorel, an employee of the Paris Métro, “a sort of Hamlet who dies in a monastery in a state of divine grace,” as Jacob wrote. Matorel’s great love, Mademoiselle Léonie, who at one point becomes an exotic dancer, was depicted in two of Picasso’s four etchings. Picasso’s illustrations do not refer to specific scenes, instead providing a loose counterpoint to Jacob’s parodic and perplexing prose-poem. Picasso’s Cubist image-making paralleled the text’s inscrutability and disjunctive structure. As Kahnweiler later wrote, when Picasso made these etchings in the summer of 1910, he began “to blow up coherent form.” Pablo Picasso, Saint Matorel. Text by Max Jacob (1911) One of Picasso’s closest friends in Paris was the poet Max Jacob. When the German publisher Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler called Jacob and asked him for a text that could be published as a livre d’artiste, Jacob wrote Saint Matorel in only a few days. André Derain was originally expected to provide the prints for the book, but he found the text disturbing and withdrew from the project. Picasso agreed to step in because of his friendship with Jacob and created four Cubist etchings. Picasso was not making many prints at the time. These early etchings offer rare insight into his Cubist period. It was also the first of many collaborations he would have with writers and publishers. There are a total of 76 books with illustrations by Picasso in the Bareiss collection, more than any other single artist. Picasso contributed prints to over 100 books in his lifetime. The text comes from a vision Jacob had in 1909, which led to his conversion to Catholicism. Two more books by Jacob followed along the same theme: Les oeuvres burlesques et mystiques de Frère Matorel (The Burlesque and Mystic Works of Friar Matorel), 1912, with woodcuts by André Derain, and Le siège de Jérusalem (The Siege of Jerusalem), 1914, with etchings by Picasso.Published Referencescf. Castleman, Riva, A Century of Artists Books, New York, 1994, p. 91, repr.

cf. Garvey, Eleanor M., The Artist & the Book, 1860--1960, Boston, 1961, no. 222, repr.

cf. Ray, Gordon N., The Art of the French Illustrated Book, 1700 to 1914, vol. II, New York, 1982, no. 390, repr.

cf. Goeppert, Sebastian, et al., Pablo Picasso: The Illustrated Books, Catalogue Raisonné, Geneva, 1983, no. 2.

cf. Strachan, W. J., The Artist and the Book in France; The 20th Century livre d'artiste, New York, 1969, p. 46

cf. Wheeler, Monroe, Modern Painters and Sculptors as Illustrators, New York, 1946, p. 108

cf. The Frank Crowninshield Collection of Modern French Illustrated Books, New York: Parke-Bernet Galleries, 1943, no. 596

cf. Johnson, Robert Flynn, Artists' Books in the Modern Era 1870--2000: The Reva and David Logan Collection of Illustrated Books, San Francisco, 2001, no. 16.

Exhibition HistoryToledo Museum of Art, The Bareiss Collection of Illustrated Books from Toulouse-Lautrec to Kiefer, 1985, no. 55

Toledo Museum of Art, Picasso as an Illustrator, 1988, no. 1

Toledo Museum of Art, in conjunction with the Norton Simon Museum, Picasso: Graphic Magician, November 7, 1999 - January 16, 2000

Toledo Museum of Art, Splendid Pages: The Molly and Walter Bareiss Collection of Modern Illustrated Books, Feb. 14--May 11, 2003

Toledo Museum of Art, Being Modern: Fashion, Art & Identity, Sept. 2 - Nov. 27 2005

Toledo Museum of Art, European Expressionist and Cubist Works on Paper: 1900-1930, December 2, 2011-March 11, 2012 (University of Toledo Student Exhibition).