Styles & Movements

Homage to Picasso

The Homage to Picasso portfolio represents a unique happening in the history of printmaking. In the early 1970s with the intent of honoring Picasso for his role as catalyst to many different styles of twentieth century art, and for the fertility of his own genius, German critic Wieland Schmied and a German publishing house, the Propylaen Verlag, initiated a call for prints. Over seventy artists were asked to take part. They came from seventeen different countries, from different generations, and worked in very different styles. The artists include Roy Lichtenstein, Enrico Baj, Pol Bury, Robert Motherwell, Andy Warhol, Louise Nevelson, David Hockney, Wifredo Lam, Jim Dine, Robert Indiana, Joan Miro, and many others. The entire portfolio contains seventy prints.

The Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University is one of the very few institutions that includes this entire print series in its collections.
There are many interesting anomalies connected with this portfolio. The Homage to Picasso portfolio was officially issued in 1973, but individual prints bear dates ranging from 1971 to 1976, depending on their actual completion date. The official catalog for the portfolio (out of print and unavailable except in some libraries) doesn't include many prints completed after the official date. When Armand Castellani purchased the portfolio in 1985, it contained all the prints made for it except those by Claes Oldenburg, Michaelangelo Pistoletto, and Alfred Hrdlika.

While many artists deliberately referenced Picasso in the prints they created--such as Richard Hamilton, Pol Bury, and David Hockney--others--like Jim Dine, Dan Flavin, and Frank Stella--made works in their own styles with no Picasso-related content.

The Castellani Art Museum acknowledges volunteers Lee Sandmeyer and Sylvia McCuaig, who researched most of the prints in the portfolio, and organized a touring exhibition of the prints throughout the libraries of the Niagara region. The Museum also acknowledges the research and writing done by art historian Jutta Rawcliffe.