Edward Quinn

Pablo Picasso with a wicker mask originally intended for bullfighters' training. La Californie, Cannes 1959

Silver Gelatin Baryta Print, manually printed 2023
Sheet Size 22.00 x 31.50 cm
Image Size 20.00 x 30.00 cm
Authorized, numbered by Wolfgang Frei, Edward Quinn Archive, Switzerland Edition of 15 Prints


This edition is a highlight from the archive of photographer and chronicler Edward Quinn and offered here in only 15 copies. The charming photo from 1959 shows Pablo Picasso at the age of 78 and obviously in a playing mood: with the braided mask of a bull in front of his face, as used by toreros for practice purposes, he poses for the photographer, holding his cigarette with the other hand and gesticulating. We can't see his face, but of course we know immediately which person is making an appearance here...

Edward Quinn did not use a tripod with his camera, did not illuminate the room artificially, he was primarily concerned with taking credible pictures. As a viewer, you see yourself at eye level with the artist of the century in an unusually informal, familiar situation. The photo was printed by hand on baryte under the supervision of the Edward Quinn Archive.

From 1949, EDWARD QUINN (1920, Dublin–1997, Altendorf/Switzerland) lived and worked on the Côte d’Azur as a press photographer for international magazines such as Life and Paris Match. During his 20-year friendship with Picasso, he took more than 12,000 photographs of the artist. From the 1960s onwards, Quinn concentrated his work entirely on the art scene, portraying the likes of Max Ernst, Alexander Calder, Francis Bacon, Salvador Dalí, Graham Sutherland, David Hockney and Georg Baselitz.