Pablo Picasso

Estate of the artist

New York, Paul Rosenberg & Co. & Genève, Galerie Krugier, The Primacy of Design, Major Drawings from the Marina Picasso Collection, 1983, no. 43
Cannes, Centre d'Art La Malmaison, Picasso, Le Nu en liberté, Collection Marina Picasso, 2013, n.n.

Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, Vol. VIII : Œuvres de 1932 à 1937, Paris, 1957, no. 103, illustrated p. 46

Executed on white laid paper, not laid down, floating in the mount, fixed in the corners and in the centre of each edge. The edges are uneven with associated minor scuffs and nicks and some discoloration notably at the bottom of the right edge. Apart from some finger smudges and a few tiny spots of foxing, this work is in excellent original condition.
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THREE DRAWINGS FROM THE MARINA PICASSO COLLECTION

The collection of drawings by Pablo Picasso belonging to his grand-daughter, Marina Picasso, is one of the most exceptional groups of works on paper by the artist. Part of this collection was the subject of an important exhibition in Cannes at the Centre d’art La Malmaison from June to October 2013 (Picasso, Le Nu en liberté. Collection Marina Picasso). Sotheby’s is honoured to present three remarkable drawings coming directly from this collection, and each illustrating different facets of the Master's work.

 

Lot 25

Executed in 1933, the present drawing illustrates one of the most emblematic themes of Picasso’s art: the mythical figure of the Minotaur, a creature from Cretan mythology, born from the adulterous love of king Minos’ wife, Pasipahae, and a bull.

The figure of the Minotaur appeared in 1928 for the first time in Picasso’s art in a collage now in the collection of the Musée national d’art moderne de Paris. In 1933, the year of the present work, Picasso revisited this theme for the cover of the first issue of the Surrealist magazine Minotaure, edited by Tériade and published by Albert Skira. This project was the starting point of an important series of engravings in which the Minotaur generally appears by the side of the artist's young muse and lover Marie-Thérèse Walter. In this series, most of which feature in the Vollard Suite, the sexual theme becomes progressively more and more explicit (Minotaure caressant une femme, Scène bachique avec Minotaure...), culminating in Viol executed on November 2^nd 1933. 

These remarkable engravings were relayed by several drawings, including the present example. Executed in Boisgeloup on April 20^th 1933, L’Etreinte (Minotaure embrassant une femme) depicts Marie-Thérèse, easily recognisable by her soft and voluptuous curves, naked and in locked in a passionate embrace with the Minotaur, a representation of the artist’s alter ego. At once a sensual embrace and a scene of rape, this work synthesises the themes that had been haunting the painter, emphasising the ambiguity of human nature, split between divinity and bestiality.