Artist Demonstrating Picasso’s Reduction Linocut Technique

Conservator and printmaker Christina Taylor demonstrates the reduction linocut printing technique pioneered by artist Pablo Picasso and master printer Hidalgo Arnéra to create the vibrant print “Jacqueline with Glossy Hair,” 1962. Taking us into her printmaking studio, Taylor unveils the layers of creative revision, correction, and adjustment behind the finished print. Central to this process is the concept of a “print state,” which traditionally refers to a version of a print that precedes the final product. By tracing how artists move step by step to painstakingly rework and refine their images, we can explore how artists across time have maximized the iterative potential of states, for reasons ranging from the practical to the whimsical. This suite of progressive prints from Picasso’s “Jacqueline with Glossy Hair,” 1962, will be on view at the Harvard Art Museums in the exhibition “States of Play: Prints from Rembrandt to Delsarte,” from September 4, 2021–January 2, 2022. By decod