This lithograph, Man with Ruff, was originally created as a linoleum block print by Picasso in 1963.  Picasso created 10 other linocuts in the same year.

It was later recreated in a slightly smaller size as a lithograph by lithographer, Henri Deschamps (1898-1990). 

Deschamps was a master printer at the Mourlot Atelier and worked with Picasso in printing his lithographs since 1945.

The Mourlot stamp and seal of SPADEM, the authorizing body governing the Picasso estate are on the print.   The signature of Picasso appears in the plate and is not a manually produced pencil signature by the artist.

In 1963 the architectural firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill commissioned Picasso to create a monumental head for a plaza in downtown Chicago.

Later that year President Kennedy was assassinated.  Picasso was saddened by the loss of artist Georges Braque (with whom he created the Cubism style of painting 50 years earlier) and Jean Cocteau, both having died in 1963.