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Lot Essay
Picasso's passion for bullfighting is evident throughout his oeuvre. His love for bullfighting was rooted in his childhood in Málaga, where he became acquainted with the traditional Spanish spectacle. His school books were laced with sketches of bullfight scenes and he returned to the motif throughout his life, particularly in his ceramic works. His delight for bullfighting was revived on his return to the Mediterranean in 1948, where he visited corridas in Vallauris, the home of the Madoura Pottery, in a portable ring which he helped finance. A small model of a bull was reportedly one of the first works Picasso made when he first visited the Madoura Pottery in the summer of 1946.
This unique work, Taureau, is a fine example of the importance of the bull in Picasso's work. It was made during one of Picasso's most remarkable bursts of creativity in his ceramic bullfight series, between 1950 and 1957. The plate series was produced simultaneously to his lithographic posters for the events in Vallauris and are similar in style to his exquisite aquatint series, La Tauromaquia, made the same year as this plate. Taureau differs from the earlier use of the motif in his ceramics, which were often painted on oval plates and depicted whole scenes of the spectacle in colour with spectators populating the borders. The design on this plate is pared down, the spectators around the border have been reduced to decorative marks and a single bull stands alone in the centre of the plate unaccompanied by matedors and picadors. In only a few brush strokes Picasso conveys the physical bulk and power of the bull. Picasso recreated the image of this single bull on other circular plates that year, with varying decorative edges. Picasso celebrates the power and command of the beast, much like the protective bull in his seminal painting, Guernica (1937). A key theme in Spanish culture and a personal passion of Picasso's, the bull stands strong and proud, and also recalls the reverent worship of bulls in the ancient world. In his later years Picasso was also preoccupied by the theme of virility and sexual potency, and the bull or minotaur motif appears regularly throughout the late 50's and 60's as a symbol of this obsession, as exemplified by this piece.
Sold with a photo-certificate from Claude Ruiz-Picasso.
This unique work, Taureau, is a fine example of the importance of the bull in Picasso's work. It was made during one of Picasso's most remarkable bursts of creativity in his ceramic bullfight series, between 1950 and 1957. The plate series was produced simultaneously to his lithographic posters for the events in Vallauris and are similar in style to his exquisite aquatint series, La Tauromaquia, made the same year as this plate. Taureau differs from the earlier use of the motif in his ceramics, which were often painted on oval plates and depicted whole scenes of the spectacle in colour with spectators populating the borders. The design on this plate is pared down, the spectators around the border have been reduced to decorative marks and a single bull stands alone in the centre of the plate unaccompanied by matedors and picadors. In only a few brush strokes Picasso conveys the physical bulk and power of the bull. Picasso recreated the image of this single bull on other circular plates that year, with varying decorative edges. Picasso celebrates the power and command of the beast, much like the protective bull in his seminal painting, Guernica (1937). A key theme in Spanish culture and a personal passion of Picasso's, the bull stands strong and proud, and also recalls the reverent worship of bulls in the ancient world. In his later years Picasso was also preoccupied by the theme of virility and sexual potency, and the bull or minotaur motif appears regularly throughout the late 50's and 60's as a symbol of this obsession, as exemplified by this piece.
Sold with a photo-certificate from Claude Ruiz-Picasso.