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Andre Level (1863-1947)
Picasso. Paris, Les Editions G. Crès & Cie, "Cahiers d'aujourd'hui" collection, 1928. In-octo, stitched with tucked and printed editor's cover.
First edition of this monograph on Picasso, with 80 illustrations
One of 120 first prints bearing the Visage de Marie-Therese lithograph on the frontispice, on Japan paper, signed and justified HC 11/25
Double autograph dedication :
from the author :
à Monsieur Max Pellequer
véritable auteur responsable (tant pis !)
de cet ouvrage qui sans lui n'aurait été
ni écrit ni imprimé
bien affectueusement
A. Level
And the artist :
Pour mon
Ami Pellequer
Picasso
PARIS 20 October 1941
Picasso also added a beautiful drawing of a Faun head in India ink and watercolor on the book cover, a still life in watercolor on the dedication page, and a watercolor bunch of grapes on the half-title page.
Important collector, Andre Level founded in 1904 the "La Peau de l'Ours" club which had the goal of buying paintings, enjoying them for ten years, and reselling them. In 1908, when he bought Picasso's 1905 canvas, "Les Saltimbanques" he met "A man who became my friend and a painter to whom I owe my greatest pleasures as an amateur ".
André Level introduced Picasso to his nephew, Max Pellequer, in 1914, who would go on to become one of his main collectors and his financial advisor for over 30 years. To illustrate this monograph, Picasso drew the face of Marie-Thérèse Walter whom he had met the previous year and of whom this is one of the first portraits.
(Goeppert & Cramer, Pablo Picasso, catalogue raisonné des livres illustrés, no. 16)
