Lot Essay
Although Surrealism had made an impact in Picasso's work as early as the mid-1920s (see lot 267), Picasso was drawn more to the activities of the group's poets than he was to the painters. He yielded very little in his Cubist-derived formal vocabulary to the influence of Surrealism. On the other hand, his exposure to the Surrealist sensibililty encouraged him to delve into the subconscious and draw new imagery from within.
Perhaps the most significant monstrous creature that Picasso conjured up is the bull-headed man or minotaur, which appears as a powerful, well-defined character in the etchings of the Vollard Suite, beginning in April, 1933. Before he left Paris for his home in Boisegeloup, Normandy, in mid-June he made 33 etchings in which the minotaur is a central character.
In early July, Picasso, his wife Olga and their son Paulo arrived in Cannes for the beginning of their annual summer holiday. In these pleasant surroundings he often painted bathers, but at the same time he appears to respond to a deeper, more tormented vision, and he subjected the figure to radical formal dissection. In a series of drawings and watercolors painted that month, his seaside sketches suddenly turned whimsical but no less ominous; in the present drawing he breaks down the figure and reconstructs his subjects out of seemingly incongruous objects.
The psychological dimension in these works is difficult to analyze with any certainty; however, the formal elements clearly derive from his renewed interest in sculpture.
The nature of the Minotaur, half man, half beast, seemed
to correspond in certain ways to Picasso's vision of himself
in the role of the sculptor. The Greek demi-god is a being of
more earthbound quality than the ethereal vagrant, Harlequin,
to whom Picasso had felt so akin as a painter in his youth. In the Vollard suite of etchings the perplexed artist crowned
with laurels appears to be a caricature of the true spirit of
the sculptor. The powerful, carnal nature of the Minotaur, his
spontaneous instinctive behaviour, outrageous and yet endearing,
brings him closer to Picasso's mood and associates him with the
more terrestrial magic of sculpture. (R. Penrose, Picasso: His Life and Work, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1981, p. 276)
A photo-certificate from Maya Widmaier Picasso dated Paris, October 29, 1997 accompanies this drawing.
Perhaps the most significant monstrous creature that Picasso conjured up is the bull-headed man or minotaur, which appears as a powerful, well-defined character in the etchings of the Vollard Suite, beginning in April, 1933. Before he left Paris for his home in Boisegeloup, Normandy, in mid-June he made 33 etchings in which the minotaur is a central character.
In early July, Picasso, his wife Olga and their son Paulo arrived in Cannes for the beginning of their annual summer holiday. In these pleasant surroundings he often painted bathers, but at the same time he appears to respond to a deeper, more tormented vision, and he subjected the figure to radical formal dissection. In a series of drawings and watercolors painted that month, his seaside sketches suddenly turned whimsical but no less ominous; in the present drawing he breaks down the figure and reconstructs his subjects out of seemingly incongruous objects.
The psychological dimension in these works is difficult to analyze with any certainty; however, the formal elements clearly derive from his renewed interest in sculpture.
The nature of the Minotaur, half man, half beast, seemed
to correspond in certain ways to Picasso's vision of himself
in the role of the sculptor. The Greek demi-god is a being of
more earthbound quality than the ethereal vagrant, Harlequin,
to whom Picasso had felt so akin as a painter in his youth. In the Vollard suite of etchings the perplexed artist crowned
with laurels appears to be a caricature of the true spirit of
the sculptor. The powerful, carnal nature of the Minotaur, his
spontaneous instinctive behaviour, outrageous and yet endearing,
brings him closer to Picasso's mood and associates him with the
more terrestrial magic of sculpture. (R. Penrose, Picasso: His Life and Work, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1981, p. 276)
A photo-certificate from Maya Widmaier Picasso dated Paris, October 29, 1997 accompanies this drawing.