Taureau et Picador by Pablo Picasso takes the bullfight—one of the most persistent subjects in his work—and filters it through the disciplined structure of linocut. Produced in 1959, it comes at a point when Picasso had already spent decades returning to this theme, not as spectacle alone, but as something deeply tied to identity, memory and artistic language.

The bull occupies the left, its body built through sweeping, muscular curves, head lowered in the familiar posture of charge. Opposite, the mounted picador enters from the right, lance extended, the horse held in a more upright, controlled stance. Both figures are tightly compressed within the frame, with little separation between them, heightening the sense of contact and tension. Pattern and line run across both forms—circles, markings, repeated motifs—flattening the image while keeping the movement intact.

The reduction linocut technique is central to how the image reads cleanly. Working from a single block, Picasso cuts and prints each colour in sequence, meaning every stage is irreversible. That constraint pushes the composition towards clarity—forms interlock, colour is deliberate, and nothing can be reworked. The limited palette of browns, blacks and warm beige reinforces this, echoing the tones of earth, hide and arena dust.

The subject itself carries far more weight than the immediate scene. Bullfighting was part of Picasso’s life from childhood, embedded in Spanish culture and tied to ideas of ritual, performance and confrontation. Across his career—from early drawings to Guernica and late prints—the bull appears in multiple forms: violent, passive, symbolic, ambiguous. It can stand for strength, brutality, instinct, even the artist himself.

The picador introduces a different force. Mounted and as part of a formal sequence within the corrida, he represents intervention and control. The encounter between bull and rider becomes less about a single event and more about opposition—nature against system, instinct against order. Picasso returns to this dynamic repeatedly because it mirrors broader concerns in his work: tension, conflict, and the balance between creation and destruction.

By the late 1950s, working from La Californie in Cannes, Picasso was no longer observing the bullfight directly. Instead, he was reworking it from memory and imagination, pushing it through different mediums—painting, ceramics, print—each time reducing and reshaping it. In linocut, the subject becomes more condensed, more graphic, but no less loaded.

Taureau et Picador holds both aspects at once. The scene remains clear—a bull, a rider, a moment of contact—but beneath it sits a much longer engagement with the image of the bull itself, one that runs through Picasso’s entire career.

For more information or to buy Taureau Et Picador by Pablo Picasso, contact our specialists using the enquiry button above.
Browse Picasso signed prints for sale, or enquire about selling Picasso prints.