The artistic career of Francoise Gilot, spanning the era of WWII to the present, brings to the realm of the lithographic print a vision both powerful and feminine. Her dedication to the medium had a reluctant beginning in her efforts to avoid te printmaking's provocative enticements, when Picasso introduced her to the French artistic milieu of the day, which included Matisse, Braque, Chagall, and Miro, Gilot discovered a natural affinity for lithography. She developed a vocabulary in the medium that brought her work to the attention of Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler, a major art dealer who showed her work in his Parisian gallery in early 1952. She was only the second female artist whose work he handled. Gilot developed a "nourishing collaboration" with Mourlot - according to Mel Yoakum in his catalogue raisonne of her graphic works - printing at his atelier for many years. Additional patronage arose in the United States in 1961 with the interest of Sylvan Cole, director of Associated American Artists. Cole commissioned an edition of her lithographs produced at Mourlot Atelier for distribution to an American market. With this sponsorship, Gilot was able to explore the medium's offerings with unguarded experimantation, discovering a vibrant approach to color that became the hallmark of her mature style. Her subsequent devotion to printmaking coincided with a phenomenal revival of the medium, both in America and Europe beginning in the 1960s. Author of several books - Life With Picasso, The Painter and the Mask, Mattise and Picasso: A Friendship in Art - Gilot continues to work in her studios in California, New York, and Paris. The Lore Degenstein Gallery is privileged to display a retrospective of Gilot's prints in an exhibition organized by the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus college in Collegeville, PA. Accompanying the exhibition is a catalogue raisonne authored by Mel Yoakum, curator of the Gilot Archives.     Diane (A Study for Titania). Françoise Gilot. Lithograph in five colors on Arches. 34.25 x 25.5"