Picasso, Pablo — Christian Zervos | Catalogue raisonné, 33 vols.

Picasso, Pablo — Christian Zervos

Pablo Picasso par Christian Zervos, catalogue raisonné. Paris: Editions Cahiers d'Art, 1942-1978

33 volumes (of 34, vol. 31 lacking), with vol. 2 in 2 parts as often issued (325 x 244 mm). French language set, titles printed in black and red, each containing photographic reproductions of Picasso's works; occasional spots, leaves overall clean. Uniformly bound in beige cloth over boards, original wrappers and spines bound in, vols. 1-10 with lettering to foot of spine reading "Pablo Picasso"; cloth slightly soiled, a few lettering pieces with loss, wrappers to earlier volumes lightly spotted, foxed, and dampstained but majority clean, though lacking original glassine.

Mixed set, a few volumes limited and numbered editions, of the most comprehensive record of Picasso's work.

In 1926, three years after he first met Pablo Picasso, Christian Zervos founded the influential publishing house and art journal Cahiers d'Art. Over the following decades, Picasso served as the subject of many of the publication's studies and exhibitions. But he would also go on to share a nearly 50-year friendship with Zervos—a creative collaboration epitomized in the present lot.

Zervos's monumental project, pursued in collaboration with Picasso himself, spanned over 46 years. The first volume was printed in 1942; the final in 1978, years after both Zervos and Picasso had died. Over 16,000 works are reproduced across 34 volumes, here an incomplete 33, comprising the definitive reference for Picasso's oeuvre.

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