Signed and inscribed newspaper clipping with Picasso's portrait.

Newspaper clipping from 'Le Patriote de Nice et du Sud-Est' (25 October 1959) signed and inscribed by Pablo Picasso. A folded leaf inscribed with a large red felt-tip pen.

A pictorial and unusual inscription signed by Picasso on the front page of a Nice newspaper celebrating his 78th birthday: “For Max Pellequer / his friend / Picasso”. A beautiful testimony of friendship in an important political newspaper which featured many of the artist's original creations.

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 art dealer Ambroise Vollard. During the 1930s and 1940s, as Picasso's personal banker, he made the painter exceptionally wealthy and allowed him to settle comfortably in the South of France. Picasso created a superb 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 works. 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 in the most important international museums.
The choice of this newspaper of the Nice Communist Party is particularly significant for Picasso. He had joined the Party in 1944 and advocated for peace in the post-war period with the communists. In 1946, he met the paper's future editor-in-chief Georges Tabaraud, then a young journalist who had fought in the Resistance. They remained very close until Picasso's death:

“Le Patriote became, in a way, 'Picasso's newspaper', especially during the Nice Carnival: in 1951, as a gesture of friendship, Picasso created a jester king for the front page of the daily newspaper, for that particular day of popular jubilation, and then every year from 1958 to 1967. He knew that the press was the main source of information for the French. His direct style is combined with a fraternal feeling, a desire to act and work together. Georges Tabaraud and Pablo Picasso joined forces for better but also for worse, when the news required serious action" (Picasso Foundation).

Picasso had given the Patriote an exclusive portrait in his villa in Cannes for his 78th birthday. Highlighting the date, he signs here around his photograph on the front page of the newspaper. The artist is seen sitting next to his Picador, a striking linocut depicting a bullfighting scene - a theme dear to the artist throughout his long and versatile career: “The painter has in fact just devoted his last weeks to lino[cut]. He created an extraordinary collection of some thirty engravings [...] The entire team of our newspaper wishes good health for many years to come to the illustrious painter, comrade and collaborator, who make us the envy of the press all around the world” is printed in the insert next to Picasso's red felt-tip pen.