For Picasso the owl holds symbolic and mythological meanings - in the South of France, he was currently going back to the classical themes that had marked his childhood. The Hispano-Moorish style, as well as the Pre-Columbian ceramics, with their zoomorphic and anthropomorphic subjects, undoubtedly also inspired the artist.

Picassp masters the traditional techniques of pottery-making. Nonetheless, the subject allows him to vary the forms and styles. The owl is infinitely varied, the motif of its fethers, its shape, its expression declined in different ways. Sometimes, the owl is humanized, its expression serious, and sometimes Picasso goes further, combining it with human features, such as in his "femmes hibou" (owl women). A famous self portrait as an owl, gifted to his friend, Duncan, represents the summit of the motif - Picasso's real, photographed eyes peering from cut-out eyes of an owl drawing.