\n\tBetween 1935 and 1936 Picasso virtually ceased to paint, producing numerous etchings devoted to bullfights and the Minotaur. These themes merge in the Minotauromachy, often considered to reflect a turbulent period in the artist’s life when he was married to Olga Khoklova while involved with Marie-Thérèse Walter, who was pregnant with their child. The artist saw the Minotaur—half bull, half man—as his allegorical alter ego, divided between unconscious instinct and conscious responsibility. Here the Minotaur is shown standing over two of his victims, while blinded by the light from a candle held by a young girl. Many elements from this violent and hallucinatory scene also served as visual sources for Picasso’s Guernica, he artist’s 1937 black-and-white painting about the horrors of the Spanish Civil War and the rise of fascism.\n
","remarks":"European Pavilion Rotation July 2026 "},{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Didactics","textentryhtml":"In the 1930s, at the height of his Surrealist phase, Picasso created some of his most innovative prints, often depicting the artist in his studio, the bullfight, and images of the Minotaur. All three of these themes are entwined in Minotauromachy, whose title pays homage to La Tauromaquia, Goya’s famed aquatint suite devoted to the bullfight. In classical mythology, the Minotaur was a monster with the body of a man and the head of a bull, representing unbridled animal instinct, but for Picasso the creature symbolized the artist’s savage alter ego, combining man and beast in a Freudian division of conscious and subconscious selves.","remarks":null}],"datebegin":1935,"sortnumber":"1986 104x","published_date":"2026-08-12 02:00:28.269892","objectid":16133,"dimensions":"plate: 49.3 x 69.1 cm. (19 7/16 x 27 3/16 in.) \r\nsheet: 56.3 x 77.4 cm. (22 3/16 x 30 1/2 in.)","on_view":true}