Brassaï first met Pablo Picasso in 1932 when he was commissioned to photograph Picasso’s Paris art studios for the inaugural issue of Minotaure, a Surrealist periodical by Albert Skira and edited by André Breton. Brassaï’s exemplary work for the project not only landed him another job with Picasso shortly thereafter, but also launched their lifelong friendship and working relationship. Their next collaboration involved Brassaï photographing Picasso’s sculptural work for his upcoming book Les Sculptures de Picasso (1949). The 75 photographs in the present lot are the original photographs taken by Brassaï for this publication. The challenge of translating Picasso’s three-dimensional artworks into a two-dimensional medium was substantial. Every choice made by the photographer – angle, height, lighting, distance – alters the viewer’s perception of a work they have likely not seen in person. Brassaï approached this with particular sensitivity, employing strong light sources to accentuate the contours of Picasso’s forms with dramatic shadows. This approach not only sensitively renders the sculptures, but also introduces a sense of theatricality. Here, the sculptures appear animated, almost alive, through the interplay of light and shadow, conveying the same imaginative energy that had produced them. Brassaï’s images of even the smallest, most delicate sculptures command a presence irrelative to their original scale, a skill that echoed Picasso’s own nonhierarchical approach to the medium. Throughout their time working together, Brassaï was granted rare access to Picasso’s most intimate space of creation – a unique, rarely seen habitat finally brought to light by one of the artist’s most trusted confidants. An incomparable monograph, Les Sculptures de Picasso provided the first major survey of what had previously been an overlooked section of Picasso’s oeuvre. The present lot includes 75 of the original 216 images that appear in the first edition of Les Sculptures de Picasso published in 1949.