PABLO PICASSO

(1881-1973)

La Tauromaquia, 1959 Folio 35.5 x 50cm (14 x 19 11/16in).

Footnotes

Literature
Georges Bloch, Catalogue de l'oeuvre gravé et lithographié, Volume I, 1904-1967, Berne, 1968 (Bl.950-976).
Geiser & Baer, Picasso Peintre-graveur, Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre gravé, Volume IV, 1946-1958, Berne, 1988 (B.970-998).
Patrick Cramer, Pablo Picasso: The Illustrated Books Catalogue Raisonné, Geneva, 1983 (CR.100).

Picasso's love for bullfighting goes back to his childhood in Málaga
where he attended the corrida with his father on Sunday's afternoons.
No doubt his obsession with the theme of bullfighting was connected
to his Andalusian heritage, where bullfighting is celebrated as a
national cultural institution.

Picasso made numerous drawings and oil sketches of bulls and
scenes from corridas from an early age. One of his earliest paintings, at
eight years old, was of a young picador (Le Petit Picador, 1889), and
the first etching he ever created in the medium of printmaking in 1900
depicted a picador too.

The artist's passion for bullfighting is made evident in the upcoming
lots and is best exemplified with one of his most compelling folios
presented here.

The book comprising 26 aquatint etchings on the art of bullfighting,
La Tauromaquia, o arte de torear, was commissioned by the Barcelona
publisher Gustau Gili Esteve in 1956.

The publisher contacted Picasso and visited him in Cannes to
convince him to revisit an old proposition of his father, Gustau Gili
Roig, to produce a livre d'artiste to illustrate the instruction manual on
bullfighting written by the famous matador José Delgado, alias Pepe
Illo, in 1796.

Inspired by Goya's La Tauromaquia, Picasso made this series of 26
brush drawings on copper plates apparently in just three hours, after
having attended a corrida in Arles.

The spontaneity and simplicity of these scenes is facilitated by directly
drawing with the brush on the copper plate and evokes a lightness
in composition and dynamic alternation of contrasting light and dark.
Leaving large areas of the sheet blank, Picasso uses the contact of the
black figures against the white ground to recreate the ambience of the
bullring under a bright afternoon sun.

Picasso counted bullfighters amongst his friends and the letter to
'El Minuni' (Lot 53) is a wonderful example of the artist's sympathy
and devotion to the matadors.

Establishing himself in Cannes in the 1940s, Picasso started creating
ceramics with Georges and Suzanne Ramié of the Madoura pottery
studio in Vallauris. Attending and often presiding over bullfights in the
area, Picasso further developed his bullfight imagery through ceramics
and posters. Two examples of the latter can be found in this sale,
advertising the corridas at Vallauris (lots 54-55).

In the ceramics he produced, the Picador and the bull often take
centre stage in a plate or a bowl (see lots 56, 58, 59, 61, 63 and 64),
a pitcher made in red terracotta and painted with black glaze gives a
dramatic setting to the picador (lot 60) and, in Scène de Tauromachie
(lot 57), the circular shape of the plate imitates that of the arena, giving
a great dynamism to the scene and placing the viewer as a spectator
with a bird's-eye view of the dance of death being performed.

Picasso's obsession with the subject carries another layer of interest
for afficionados of his art. It is well known and documented that he had
created his figure of the Minotaur as an alter-ego for his personality.
If he saw himself in the bull, he once referred to the horses mounted
by the picadors as the women of his life and, in the corrida, the bull
in fact represents the male and the toreador embodies a feminised
machismo; the two executing a coded dance, an unreasonable game
of power where the ultimate result is death.

Hence for Picasso, bullfights were not solely about expressing his
Spanish identity or celebrating the tragic beauty of what some call
an art form. Corridas and the ultimate death of the bull were allowing
Picasso to face death himself in a way that resonated strongly with
both his creativity and personality.

Bullfight representations were also about inscribing himself in history,
from the Minotaur on antique Crete, through Ancient Greece and
Roman times, via Velázquez and Goya, celebrating the bull as an
animal whose mythological importance can be traced far back in
Mediterranean civilization. Through his bullfight works, Picasso once
more confirms and celebrates his importance as an artist.