A prolific and tireless innovator of art forms, Pablo Picasso impacted the course of 20th-century art with unparalleled magnitude. Inspired by African and Iberian art and developments in the world around him, Picasso contributed significantly to a number of artistic movements, notably Cubism, Surrealism, Neoclassicism, and Expressionism. In 1949 Picasso’s illustrations for Les Carmen de Carmen were presented in a folio consisting in an array of mediums, from aquatint to etching. The timeless story of Carmen, which became popular through Georges Bizet’s opera (1875), evoked in Picasso associations with Spain and the corrida.