De mémoire d’homme (In Living Memory)

In 1949 the founder of the Dada movement, Tristan Tzara, asked Picasso to contribute illustrations to his recently completed book-length poem “De mémoire d’homme.” To create his images, Picasso experimented with a new technique, using his finger rather than a lithographic brush as the painting instrument. He also limited himself to three types of mark making: the fingerprint or spot, the line “painted” with the finger, and the line drawn in lithographic chalk. By doing so, he draws a direct analogy between the written and pictorial mark: just as words are created from a finite repertoire of letters, his illustrations are created from a finite repertoire of marks.