In the late 1950s Picasso was spending most of his time in the south of France. From here, the business of sending his etching and lithographic plates back to Paris for printing became onerous. This is partly why he was attracted to linocuts, which could be printed locally by Hidalgo Arnéra.
The time-consuming production of Picasso’s first independent linocut prompted him to develop a new, simpler approach to the technique. Rather than using a separate linoleum block for each colour, he began re-cutting the same block. He would progressively cut and re-print, depending on the number of colours he wanted in each linocut. Between 1959 and 1962 Picasso made about 100 linocuts using this new approach, including Still Life with a Glass under Lamplight.
In 1963, Picasso briefly experimented with another unconventional linocut technique, typified by Embrace I. This technique involved printing a linocut in cream ink onto white paper, and then painting the same sheet of paper with black China ink. The paper is then rinsed in a shower, something Picasso enjoyed doing himself. The black ink is absorbed into the unprinted areas, but it is otherwise repelled by the greasy cream ink. This technique produces an image which looks as if it has been painted as much as printed.
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