La Tauromaquia (Picasso)
La Tauromaquia by Pablo Picasso is a series of images on the subject of bullfighting in 26 aquatints .
history
The Spanish publisher Gustavo Gili wanted to re-publish the Tauromaquia by José Delgado y Galvez alias Pepe Illo in 1927 . The book was to be illustrated by Picasso. The project did not materialize at the time, but Gili's son came back to the project in 1956 and asked Picasso about it. He was enthusiastic and allegedly created 28 aquatint plates within three hours after the Easter corrida, of which only two were subsequently discarded. The pictures are 20 cm high and 30 cm wide.
Similar to Goya , who had already created a series of Tauromaquia pictures between 1814 and 1816 , Picasso did not stick closely to Pepe Illo's text, but kept the individual stages of a bullfight from the very beginning, i.e. the life of the bulls in the pasture pass by. It represented the entry of onlookers into the arena, then the entry of the toreros and the numerous figures and maneuvers of the bullfight up to the killing of the animal. Picasso had dealt with the subject of bullfighting for years; La Tauromaquia represents a culmination of his work on the subject.
Picasso used a technique that allowed him to paint directly on the copper plates with a brush. His work was followed by the American photographer David Douglas Duncan , who lived as a guest of Picasso in his villa "La Californie". Douglas compared Picasso's work on the plates to the work of a medieval scribe writing a romantic tale about bullfighting. Picasso only needed one brushstroke for most of the figures on the plates, the individual plates were finished after a few minutes and the painting on them was "finished, final, forever" once he took the brush off the copper.
For the book edition, special paper from Guarro was created, which was provided with a bull's head watermark according to Picasso's design. It was made in Barcelona and printed in Paris at Lacourière, with Picasso in charge. La Tauromaquia was published on October 25, 1959 in Barcelona by the Sociedad Alianza de Artes Gráficas (SADAG).
Picasso's Tauromaquia was on view from July 10th to October 30th, 2005 in the Hegewisch-Kabinett of the Hamburger Kunsthalle , after Goya's Tauromaquia cycle was shown there in the summer of 2003. In 2007, both Picasso's and Goya's bullfighting scenes were shown in Cologne . In 2014, Picasso's 26 pictures were shown again in an exhibition.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Read this in Pablo Picasso. La Tauromaquia on www.galeriefetzer.de . Other sources, such as manacontemporary.com, mention a longer period of origin.
- ↑ a b Pablo Picasso. La Tauromaquia or The Art of Bullfighting. July 10 to October 30, 2005. Hegewisch cabinet on [1]
- ↑ Quoted from Pablo Picasso. La Tauromaquia on www.galeriefetzer.de
- ↑ a b Pablo Picasso: La Tauromaquia. March 6 - August 1, 2014 on manacontemporary.com
- ^ Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud. La Tauromaquia. Meeting of the titans: Goya and Picasso in the Wallraf on www.art-perfect.de