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Lot Essay
Throughout the 1930s, the Minotaur became Pablo Picasso’s most prominent alter ego. This half-man, half-beast proliferated in the artist’s painting, drawing and printmaking, serving as a vessel in which to pour his anxieties and desires during these dramatic years of both public and personal upheaval. Drawn in Boisgeloup on 23 September 1934, Tête de Minotaure aveugle was executed about a month before one of Picasso’s most important prints, Minotaure aveugle guidé par une fillette, as the artist honed in on the motif of the blind Minotaur, an expression of one of his deepest fears. As Gert Schiff has written of the present work, ‘the Blind Minotaur is Man, groping his way in the dark, and crying out the pain of his unredeemed double nature, between god and brute’ (Picasso at Work at Home (Selections from the Marina Picasso Collection), exh. cat., Center of the Arts, Miami, 1985, p. 79). This work remained in Picasso’s collection for the rest of his life, before it passed by descent to his granddaughter, Marina Picasso.
The myth of the Minotaur had become enormously popular in 1930s Paris. Thanks to Arthur Evans’ archaeological excavations of the palace of Knossos in Crete, the story of this mythological beast and his labyrinthine domain had been rediscovered at this time, embraced in part due to the defiant propagation of the ideals of Mediterranean Classicism in reaction to the wave of Fascism sweeping across Europe.
The Minotaur had also been adopted by the Surrealists, who were particularly drawn to the symbolism of this character’s defiant rebellion against the constraints of society. In 1933, a new Surrealist periodical, Minotaure, was founded and Picasso was invited to design the cover. While the Minotaur had featured in his work in passing, this commission marked the beginning of an intense and deeply personal artistic dialogue with this mythological figure. From this point onwards, the Minotaur appeared in his art in myriad ways, immersed in actions both amorous, heroic, and violent. The importance of this motif is reflected in John Richardson's fourth and final biography of the artist, which he titled A Life of Picasso IV: The Minotaur Years: 1933-1943.
Picasso’s interest in the Minotaur was based in a very personal affiliation with the Cretan legend. Picasso saw in himself the same untamable power of this beast; regarding his artistic abilities, as well as his sexual prowess, as something that existed beyond his control and consciousness. Additionally, at this time, Picasso was embroiled in a passionate affair with the young Marie-Thérèse Walter, while attempting to maintain the status-quo of his marriage to Olga Khokhlova. For Picasso, the dual nature of the Minotaur, representing human nature's conflicting impulses of instinct and reason, became symbolic of his own troubled emotions – of desire, guilt and rage. He would once describe, ‘If all the ways I have been along were marked in a map and joined up with a line, it might represent a minotaur’ (quoted in D. Ashton, Picasso on Art: A Selection of Views, New York, 1972, p. 159).
In August 1934, Picasso went to Spain for the final time. Though he was trying to divorce Olga, she accompanied him along with their son. Not long after returning to Paris, Picasso began a new theme – the blind Minotaur. This would culminate in one of his greatest and most poignant prints, Minotaure aveugle guidé par une fillette, part of the monumental commission, the Suite Vollard. Famed for his mirada fuerte, Picasso harboured fears of going blind throughout his life. He was also extremely superstitious, so for him, the motif of the blind Minotaur was a means of warding off this deep seated terror.
In this nocturnal scene, Picasso can be seen to re-interpret the myth in light of his personal circumstances, casting himself in the role of the Minotaur, who is transformed from a creature of power into a figure of pathos. Or, perhaps, Picasso has turned to the story of the mythical Greek king, Oedipus. After killing his father, and unknowingly marrying his mother, he blinded himself when he realised his incestual relations, and was led out of Thebes by his daughter, Antigone.
The features of the girl are those of Marie-Thérèse, however John Richardson has also interpreted her as Conchita, Picasso's sister who died when the artist was thirteen. The scene is witnessed by a young sailor on the left, and by two older, bearded fishermen on the right, who are hauling in a fishing net and pulling down a white sail. In the myth of the Minotaur, Theseus sails home but fails to change his ship’s black sails for white ones, the pre-arranged signal for a victorious outcome. His aged father, Aegeus, seeing the black sails and fearing the worst, casts himself to his death from a cliff in grief. Picasso’s alteration of this detail suggests an alternative outcome: of tragedy averted and hope fulfilled.
The present Tête de Minotaure aveugle is closely related to this image and was likely created in preparation for the print. The beast’s head is thrown back, as if in angry defiance or distress at his sightless condition, and his arm is outstretched, as if clutching the same stick as in Minotaure aveugle guidé par une fillette. Another work, Minotaure aveugle conduit par une petite fille, now in the Hamburger Kunstalle, was executed the day prior to the present lot, and similarly shows the Minotaur being led by a young girl.
Considered against the backdrop of the political turmoil of the 1930s, the rise of General Franco, and the subsequent outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the motif of the blind Minotaur takes on another powerful meaning, perhaps a sign of the artist’s helplessness in the face of war in his homeland. As such, these works have been interpreted as ‘stepping stones on the road to Guernica, [Picasso’s] monumental icon of the horrors of war,’ which he painted in 1937 (S. Coppel, Picasso Prints – The Vollard Suite, exh. cat., The British Museum, London, 2012, p. 169).
The myth of the Minotaur had become enormously popular in 1930s Paris. Thanks to Arthur Evans’ archaeological excavations of the palace of Knossos in Crete, the story of this mythological beast and his labyrinthine domain had been rediscovered at this time, embraced in part due to the defiant propagation of the ideals of Mediterranean Classicism in reaction to the wave of Fascism sweeping across Europe.
The Minotaur had also been adopted by the Surrealists, who were particularly drawn to the symbolism of this character’s defiant rebellion against the constraints of society. In 1933, a new Surrealist periodical, Minotaure, was founded and Picasso was invited to design the cover. While the Minotaur had featured in his work in passing, this commission marked the beginning of an intense and deeply personal artistic dialogue with this mythological figure. From this point onwards, the Minotaur appeared in his art in myriad ways, immersed in actions both amorous, heroic, and violent. The importance of this motif is reflected in John Richardson's fourth and final biography of the artist, which he titled A Life of Picasso IV: The Minotaur Years: 1933-1943.
Picasso’s interest in the Minotaur was based in a very personal affiliation with the Cretan legend. Picasso saw in himself the same untamable power of this beast; regarding his artistic abilities, as well as his sexual prowess, as something that existed beyond his control and consciousness. Additionally, at this time, Picasso was embroiled in a passionate affair with the young Marie-Thérèse Walter, while attempting to maintain the status-quo of his marriage to Olga Khokhlova. For Picasso, the dual nature of the Minotaur, representing human nature's conflicting impulses of instinct and reason, became symbolic of his own troubled emotions – of desire, guilt and rage. He would once describe, ‘If all the ways I have been along were marked in a map and joined up with a line, it might represent a minotaur’ (quoted in D. Ashton, Picasso on Art: A Selection of Views, New York, 1972, p. 159).
In August 1934, Picasso went to Spain for the final time. Though he was trying to divorce Olga, she accompanied him along with their son. Not long after returning to Paris, Picasso began a new theme – the blind Minotaur. This would culminate in one of his greatest and most poignant prints, Minotaure aveugle guidé par une fillette, part of the monumental commission, the Suite Vollard. Famed for his mirada fuerte, Picasso harboured fears of going blind throughout his life. He was also extremely superstitious, so for him, the motif of the blind Minotaur was a means of warding off this deep seated terror.
In this nocturnal scene, Picasso can be seen to re-interpret the myth in light of his personal circumstances, casting himself in the role of the Minotaur, who is transformed from a creature of power into a figure of pathos. Or, perhaps, Picasso has turned to the story of the mythical Greek king, Oedipus. After killing his father, and unknowingly marrying his mother, he blinded himself when he realised his incestual relations, and was led out of Thebes by his daughter, Antigone.
The features of the girl are those of Marie-Thérèse, however John Richardson has also interpreted her as Conchita, Picasso's sister who died when the artist was thirteen. The scene is witnessed by a young sailor on the left, and by two older, bearded fishermen on the right, who are hauling in a fishing net and pulling down a white sail. In the myth of the Minotaur, Theseus sails home but fails to change his ship’s black sails for white ones, the pre-arranged signal for a victorious outcome. His aged father, Aegeus, seeing the black sails and fearing the worst, casts himself to his death from a cliff in grief. Picasso’s alteration of this detail suggests an alternative outcome: of tragedy averted and hope fulfilled.
The present Tête de Minotaure aveugle is closely related to this image and was likely created in preparation for the print. The beast’s head is thrown back, as if in angry defiance or distress at his sightless condition, and his arm is outstretched, as if clutching the same stick as in Minotaure aveugle guidé par une fillette. Another work, Minotaure aveugle conduit par une petite fille, now in the Hamburger Kunstalle, was executed the day prior to the present lot, and similarly shows the Minotaur being led by a young girl.
Considered against the backdrop of the political turmoil of the 1930s, the rise of General Franco, and the subsequent outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the motif of the blind Minotaur takes on another powerful meaning, perhaps a sign of the artist’s helplessness in the face of war in his homeland. As such, these works have been interpreted as ‘stepping stones on the road to Guernica, [Picasso’s] monumental icon of the horrors of war,’ which he painted in 1937 (S. Coppel, Picasso Prints – The Vollard Suite, exh. cat., The British Museum, London, 2012, p. 169).