Focus on an elegant multi-colored autograph letter by Pablo Picasso to Max Pellequer, signed and dated 'December 20, 1955'. A leaf in multi-color pencil (blue, green, orange and red). 
This "graphic" letter in the most literal sense constitutes a superb polychrome and artistic link in an epistolary chain that linked Picasso and his prominent patron for decades, Max Pellequer.
 
Living on the hills over Cannes, the painter entrusted his faithful secretary and childhood friend Jaume Sabartés with the task of writing numerous letters on his behalf – save a few correspondents, notably Pellequer. Picasso wrote each of Pellequer's letters, even the most insignificant, in an ample, voluptuous script, playing with letters and words as graphic objects blending aesthetically in the space of the page, in perfect contrast to the prosaic nature of the letter's content. It could even be argued that his artistic soul largely invaded his daily and administrative correspondence with his banker and ardent collector of his works.
Part of their correspondence is kept at the National Picasso Museum in Paris.

An extraordinary recipient
Banker and collector Max Pellequer was introduced to Picasso in 1914 by his uncle by marriage André Level. He quickly became one of Picasso's most important collectors and his financial advisor for over 30 years. Pellequer's interest in his art began as early as the 1910's, when he purchased a Picasso bronze from the art dealer Ambroise Vollard. During the 1930s and 1940s, as Picasso's personal banker, he secured and enhanced the painter's wealth and allowed him to settle comfortably in the South of France. Picasso created a superb copperplate ex-libris for him, bought him paintings including La Mer à L'Estaque by Cézanne now in the Picasso museum, and offered him a few artworks. Pellequer assembled a vast collection of paintings by the great masters of Modern Art: Degas, Raoul Dufy, Paul Gauguin, Fernand Léger, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Modigliani, and Maurice Utrillo, today preserved in the most important international museums.

The “epistolary art” of Picasso
Picasso's epistolary production acted as an outlet for his incessant creative energy, which was expressed in ceramics, sculptures, photographs, illustrations, collages, or poetry...  Each letter was an opportunity for genius to blossom, regardless of the administrative content of his exchanges with Pellequer. Perhaps to counteract the dullness of his work, Picasso redoubled his efforts: an explosion of color, calligraphic letters across the page... to conjure up beauty and adorn his words in shimmering hues using oil pastels, black felt-tip pens or colored pencils. These alphabet letters, numbers, words and sentences, placed on the paper like so many musical scales, are literally brought to life by the creative power of the painter.

The years of “La Californie” in Cannes
Living with Jacqueline Roque in the villa “La Californie”, at the time of this letter the painter was producing a series of captivating, lithographed portraits of his partner. Paradoxically, this colorful letter corresponds to a very monochrome period of his work – a superb counterpart to the black washes on zinc. Matisse, with whom Pellequer also corresponded, had died a month earlier.
A very beautiful and visual illustration of Picasso's need for total expression, through his correspondence with one of his close advisors and friends.

>> Click to view the letter