Set design for the ballet Le Tricorne

Set design for the ballet Le Tricorne by Pablo Picasso is a seminal example of the artist's engagement with theater and dance during the post-World War I era. Created in 1920, this design reflects Picasso's ongoing collaboration with the Ballets Russes, a partnership that profoundly shaped his output in the late 1910s and early 1920s. Le Tricorne, often known as The Three-Cornered Hat, premiered in 1919 with costumes and staging by Picasso; this image, rendered the following year, captured the essence of his modernist staging concepts within a portable format.

The work is classified as an Illustrated Book, specifically a collotype drawn from a portfolio consisting of thirty-two separate collotypes. Notably, thirty-one of these reproductions utilized the highly specialized pochoir technique. Collotype printing, known for its high fidelity and lack of screen pattern, allowed for sophisticated reproduction of Picasso’s original drawings and studies. The subsequent application of pochoir (a stencil-based hand-coloring method) imbues the resulting Set design for the ballet Le Tricorne with vibrant, saturated color, elevating these artistic prints far beyond simple monochromatic reproductions. This choice of medium underscores the period's commitment to producing fine art editions and portfolios documenting important cultural events and the evolution of the Spanish artist's work.

Picasso moved fluidly between Cubism, Neoclassicism, and design work throughout the 1920 period, often using set design as a testing ground for his aesthetic theories. This piece demonstrates his skill in creating striking visual environments necessary for Diaghilev’s theatrical visions, integrating elements of traditional Spanish culture with avant-garde aesthetics. The physical print is preserved within the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), highlighting its significance in the history of modernist visual culture and graphic arts. Because the design dates from 1920, early high-resolution prints of this seminal work have become widely accessible, contributing to the growing body of works by Picasso that have entered the public domain.