A Collage Before Collage

The drawing titled Man Leaning Against a Wall is part of a series of life studies drawn by Picasso at the Círculo Artístico de Barcelona in February and March 1899. This time was a crossroads in the young artist's life. He decided, against his father's wishes, to drop out of art school and pursue a career as an independent painter. The scrap of paper glued to the lower right-hand corner of the drawing is a matchbox picture-card from a series about performing artists: a popular image of the time. The subject of the photograph is the French actress Angeline Cavelle.

In Barcelona at the turn of the twentieth century, the graphic arts were thriving. The picture-card was a central feature; it typically came as a promotional gift, the most popular being the cromos given away with chocolate bars and matchboxes. You were given an illustrated album with allotted spaces in which to affix each picture-card as and when you added it to your collection. Each series revolved around a specific theme. This relationship between drawing and industrially copied photographs is strongly reminiscent of the duality established in Picasso's drawing.

Shortly after Man Leaning Against a Wall, Picasso threw himself into Barcelona’s bustling world of the graphic arts. His need to earn a living drove him to enter poster contests and design business cards and restaurant menus. In one drawing of the period, Picasso repeatedly wrote out the words "Drawing Factory Pablo Ruiz Picasso Barcelona" in lettering reminiscent of advertising. In about 1899, the young Picasso took a keen interest in the "kiosk artist" Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen. He scribbled Steinlen’s name repeatedly on a sheet of paper, and indirectly alluded to him in a portrait of his father in Gil Blas Illustré – a publication to which Steinlen was a fellow contributor.

Like Ramon Casas – a designer of posters and postcards whose drawings often appeared in the press, particularly Pèl & Ploma, a magazine he edited himself – Picasso was a prolific illustrator. His work appeared in the pages of the magazines Joventut, Catalunya artística and Pèl & Ploma, and the highpoint of his career as an illustrator was Arte Joven, a publication he edited himself for several months in Madrid in 1901. Later, he designed a poster for the newspaper El liberal (1902) and contributed to French popular magazines, such as the weekly Frou-frou (four drawings in 1901 and 1903).

By the late 19th century it was a popular pastime to cut out printed illustrations and put them together in a composition of your own. In photography, too, “clichés” were routinely cut, pasted and photographed afresh. Clippings were assembled to create new illustrations, which were then printed as postcards. This offshoot of the visual arts extended to posters, the small ads, theatrical programmes and ladies' fans. These were the trends forming the background to Picasso’s drawing.

Cutting and pasting was characteristic of Picasso. Even as a boy in Malaga, in 1890, he used scissors to cut out drawings, like this surviving picture of a dog. He made further use of this discovery in his later career, for quite different purposes. Many of his drawings enact a juxtaposition of violently opposed styles. In 1906, Picasso began to alloy post-Renaissance art with alternative traditions – Iberian, Australasian and African art – that at the time were still sneered at and misunderstood. It is not unfair to say that the whole of Cubism rests on that juxtaposition of languages. The process came to a head in the spring of 1912. Picasso glued an oil cloth to his painting Still Life with Chair-caning, and invented collage.