Picasso's Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings and Sculpture: The Final Years, 1970-1973. Second Edition.

The first edition of this catalogue was published ten years ago, in 2004. This new edition adds works that have come to light since 2004, as well as references to subsequent public sales and exhibitions. This new edition has 404 pages, twenty more than the first edition as well as eight new color plates. Fifty-five of the new works in this edition originated in two sketchbooks from 1970-1971. The first of these is sometimes referred to as the Birthday Sketchbook, since the first work is dated on the master?s 89th birthday, October 25, 1970. The last is dated April 26, 1971. The sketchbook contains 27 drawings and was acquired by Fran?ois Lachenal in Paris. A subsequent owner consigned the whole sketchbook of Christie?s, who sold the individual pages in London on June 23, 2005. The second sketchbook is referred to as the Berggruen Album, since it was acquired by the prominent dealer Heinz Berggruen, whose legacy is the Berggruen Museum in Berlin. This sketchbook contained 26 drawings and manuscript dates on the two covers. The whole sketchbook was first published as a facsimile by Berggruen?s son John, a dealer in San Francisco, in 2004. An exhibition was held at John Berggruen?s gallery in early 2004 on the occasion the publication of the facsimile. The Berggruen heirs then put the sketchbook up for sale at Sotheby?s in London, where the individual pages were sold on February 9, 2005. The main exhibition since 2004 focusing on the Picasso?s final years was held at the Gagosian Gallery in New York, in the spring of 2009. The catalogue and show were entitled Picasso Mosqueteros and included 52 paintings from 1964-1972 and a selection of etchings from the late 1960s. The last image in the first edition of this catalogue was dated Feb. 21, 1973. A later image, of a musketeer, is now the last known work by Picasso before his death on April 8, 1973, at age 91. This drawing is dated March 10, 1973 (73-0003).