PABLO PICASSO (1881-1973)

Following in Goya's footsteps, Picasso's Tauromaquia is the second great series in the history of printmaking dedicated to the bullfight. Both Goya and Picasso based their prints on the classic text on the Spanish bullfight, Tauromaquia o arte de torear, by José Delgado (alias Pepe Illo), first published in Madrid in 1816. While Goya was foremost interested in conveying the drama and atmosphere of the fight, Picasso depicts the scenes as a visual - one might even say 'graphic' - spectacle. Picasso had made some first etchings on the theme of the corrida in 1928-29 (see Baer 136-141) and included some bullfighting scenes in the Suite Vollard (1930-37), but it seems that the sugar-lift technique employed here finally gave him the language to create a larger series on the subject. In their pared-down starkness and concise simplicity of form, some of the plates are reminiscent of the cave paintings of Altamira. The two very rare supplementary plates are different in character, more tonal, complex and in closer proximity to the event, and were therefore probably not included in the standard editions.