Pablo Picasso Spanish, 1881-1973
Minotaure aveugle guidé dans la nuit par une petite fille au pigeon , 1934
Etching and drypoint on copper plate
Image: 24 x 30 cm
Papier: 34 x 43.7 cm
Papier: 34 x 43.7 cm
Edition of 260 on Montval paper, filigree "Picasso".
Printed by Lacourière, Paris.
Edited by Ambroise Vollard, Paris.
Printed by Lacourière, Paris.
Edited by Ambroise Vollard, Paris.
Signed by the artist on the lower-right corner
Further images
Picasso first explored the figure of the Minotaur in 1928, in a gouache-enhanced collage entitled Minotaure courant. But it was not until the 1930s that the theme gained momentum, with the commissioning of the Vollard Suite. The Suite of one hundred prints is traversed by several major themes: the Artist, his Model and Studio, and the Minotaur. Romancing to ancient Greece, the figure of the Minotaur is a paradoxical figure: half-man and half-bull, a tragic figure and animal pleasure. In Picasso's bestiary, populated by real animals as well as fantastic beings - fauns, bacchantes - the Minotaur obsesses Picasso. Is it a mise en abîme of the artist or an intimate double?
At the time of the Suite Vollard, Picasso was in love with Marie-Thérèse while trying to keep his marriage with Olga Khokhlova. The figure of the hybrid Minotaur was, perhaps, a way of reconciling his conflicting emotions, between love, desire and rage. Unlike the other representations of the Minotaur in the Vollard Suite, which show the monster at the moment of his death or in love, the blind Minotaur guided by a young girl with a pidgeon shows another side of the myth.
In a reversal of the Ariadne legend, this time the Minotaur is led into the labirynth by the young fille holding a dove. The monster is tamed, becoming a figure of pathos. The young fille's features identify her with Marie-Thérèse. It is a vision of hope at the end of the labirynth, of the power of love to transform the monster. If Marie Thérèse is a representation of sensual pleasure for Picasso in most of the images the artist has given of her, here it is tenderness that takes precedence.
Picasso first explored the figure of the Minotaur in 1928, in a gouache-enhanced collage entitled Minotaure courant. But it was not until the 1930s that the theme gained momentum, with the commissioning of the Vollard Suite. The Suite of one hundred prints is traversed by several major themes: the Artist, his Model and Studio, and the Minotaur. Romancing to ancient Greece, the figure of the Minotaur is a paradoxical figure: half-man and half-bull, a tragic figure and animal pleasure. In Picasso's bestiary, populated by real animals as well as fantastic beings - fauns, bacchantes - the Minotaur obsesses Picasso. Is it a mise en abîme of the artist or an intimate double?
At the time of the Suite Vollard, Picasso was in love with Marie-Thérèse while trying to keep his marriage with Olga Khokhlova. The figure of the hybrid Minotaur was, perhaps, a way of reconciling his conflicting emotions, between love, desire and rage. Unlike the other representations of the Minotaur in the Vollard Suite, which show the monster at the moment of his death or in love, the blind Minotaur guided by a young girl with a pidgeon shows another side of the myth.
In a reversal of the Ariadne legend, this time the Minotaur is led into the labirynth by the young fille holding a dove. The monster is tamed, becoming a figure of pathos. The young fille's features identify her with Marie-Thérèse. It is a vision of hope at the end of the labirynth, of the power of love to transform the monster. If Marie Thérèse is a representation of sensual pleasure for Picasso in most of the images the artist has given of her, here it is tenderness that takes precedence.
Provenance
Galerie Pierre, Stockholm.
Private collection, Sweden
Galerie Jean-François Cazeau, Paris
Literature
Georges Bloch, Pablo Picasso, Catalogue de l’oeuvre gravé et lithographié 1904-1967, Berne, Editions Kornfeld et Klipstein, 1968, p. 73, n°223.
Brigitte Baer, Picasso Peintre-Graveur. Tome II, Editions Kornfeld, 1989, p. 311, n°435.