Lot Essay
Picasso began work on La Minotauromachie on 23 March 1935, working on it intensely over a period of several weeks, and taking it through seven states before its completion on 3 May.
The imagery is the realisation of all the artist's work of the early 1930's and the apotheosis of the themes of the artist/minotaur (with all its related complex psychological issues) and of Picasso's obsession with his young model Marie-Thérèse Walter. At this point their relationship had reached a critical stage as it became known that she was carrying the artist's child.
The minotaur and the male figure climbing the ladder are dual representations of the artist, while the four female forms as well as the disemboweled horse are multiple portrayals of Marie-Thérèse. The scene is replete with references to birth and death, aggression and gentleness, war and peace (also related to the tense political situation particularly in Spain, but in all of Europe), with associations to the Annunciation and Crucifixion as well as the more overt themes of the Corrida.
S. Goeppert and H.C. Goeppert-Frank regard La Minotauromachie as 'arguably the greatest print to have been created since Rembrandt's time' (Minotauromachy by Pablo Picasso, Geneva, 1987), and in terms of the artist's work W. Boeck describes it as 'Picasso's most significant work prior to Guernica' (Picasso, Stuttgart, 1955).
Issues relating to the printing have always been confused, as although there is some documentation relating to the trial proofs pulled, a numbered edition was never issued at one time. In fact, the artist was most reluctant to release any impressions of the print except to his closest friends, and even pretended to his most trusted dealers that he had not completed work on the plate. Instead, he kept the impressions himself and would only inscribe the prints over the years as they left his possession. Some of these he dedicated to friends such as Paul Eluard, Jaime Sabartés and Madame Zervos; others he confusingly inscribed 'Une des trente épreuves du tirage', or numbered haphazardly as though from an edition of 50 (such a formal edition never existed). The most detailed examination of this is expounded by Brigitte Baer in Picasso Peintre-Graveur, volume III (Berne, 1986)
Nearly all these impressions of La Minotauromachie are now in public and other permanent collections around the world.
The imagery is the realisation of all the artist's work of the early 1930's and the apotheosis of the themes of the artist/minotaur (with all its related complex psychological issues) and of Picasso's obsession with his young model Marie-Thérèse Walter. At this point their relationship had reached a critical stage as it became known that she was carrying the artist's child.
The minotaur and the male figure climbing the ladder are dual representations of the artist, while the four female forms as well as the disemboweled horse are multiple portrayals of Marie-Thérèse. The scene is replete with references to birth and death, aggression and gentleness, war and peace (also related to the tense political situation particularly in Spain, but in all of Europe), with associations to the Annunciation and Crucifixion as well as the more overt themes of the Corrida.
S. Goeppert and H.C. Goeppert-Frank regard La Minotauromachie as 'arguably the greatest print to have been created since Rembrandt's time' (Minotauromachy by Pablo Picasso, Geneva, 1987), and in terms of the artist's work W. Boeck describes it as 'Picasso's most significant work prior to Guernica' (Picasso, Stuttgart, 1955).
Issues relating to the printing have always been confused, as although there is some documentation relating to the trial proofs pulled, a numbered edition was never issued at one time. In fact, the artist was most reluctant to release any impressions of the print except to his closest friends, and even pretended to his most trusted dealers that he had not completed work on the plate. Instead, he kept the impressions himself and would only inscribe the prints over the years as they left his possession. Some of these he dedicated to friends such as Paul Eluard, Jaime Sabartés and Madame Zervos; others he confusingly inscribed 'Une des trente épreuves du tirage', or numbered haphazardly as though from an edition of 50 (such a formal edition never existed). The most detailed examination of this is expounded by Brigitte Baer in Picasso Peintre-Graveur, volume III (Berne, 1986)
Nearly all these impressions of La Minotauromachie are now in public and other permanent collections around the world.