Bull & Picador, Before The Thrust

The bullfight was a subject Picasso returned to frequently, particularly from the mid-1950s, and also one of his favorite spectator sports. Picasso, who had been taken to the Malaga bullring from an early age, was an avid follower of bullfights and after moving to Provence would often travel to the arenas of Arles, Nîmes or Vallauris to see them. Picasso’s friend and biographer Roland Penrose has written that, apart from his enjoyment of the action, ‘the main involvement for Picasso was not so much with the parade and the skill of the participants but with the ancient ceremony of the precarious triumph of man over beast ... The man, his obedient ally the horse, and the bull were all victims of an inextricable cycle of life and death.’ (Roland Penrose, ‘Beauty and the Monster’, in Penrose and Golding 1973, p.170.). Giorgia Bottinelli February 2004