Pablo Picasso -- Picador and Bull from Toros y Toreros

Pablo Picasso
Picador and Bull from Toros y Toreros, 1961
Lithograph 
Sheet size: 26.7 x 37 cm
Publisher: Éditions Cercle d'Art, Paris.
 
This Lithograph by Pablo Picasso, dated 3 April 1959, depicts a mounted picador facing off against a charging bull. Executed with loose, expressive strokes in deep black and violet tones, the work captures the immediacy and drama of the bullfight ritual. The tension between the figures is heightened by the contrast of dense ink forms against the blank paper, a hallmark of Picasso’s late graphic style. Bullfighting, a recurrent theme in Picasso’s oeuvre, offered him a way to explore movement, violence, and the symbolic clash of forces.