Pablo Picasso’s Corrida (Bullfight), 1959, captures the raw energy and timeless ritual of the Spanish corrida with the bold immediacy of the linocut medium. In this striking work, Picasso translates the movement and drama of the bullring into a composition of sweeping curves, jagged contours, and stark contrasts of black and white. With a few decisive cuts, he distills the essence of the spectacle—the power of the bull, the poise of the matador, and the tension between man and beast—into a graphic language that is both primitive in its directness and profoundly modern in its abstraction.

The image surges with vitality: forms overlap and intertwine, creating a rhythm of chaos and order that mirrors the unpredictability of the bullfight itself. The monumental presence of the bull dominates the space, its muscular power suggested through bold, carved masses, while the human figure is rendered with equal intensity, locked in a dynamic confrontation that evokes both danger and beauty. The sharp interplay of positive and negative space heightens the sense of movement, transforming the arena into a stage of eternal struggle.

For Picasso, the corrida was not merely a spectacle but a symbol of life’s primal forces—passion, courage, mortality, and triumph. In Corrida (Bullfight), he channels this theme through the graphic strength of linocut, elevating the medium to new expressive heights. The result is a work that resonates with the grandeur of tradition and the daring of modern invention, encapsulating Picasso’s lifelong fascination with the bullfight as both artistic subject and existential metaphor.

Created in 1959, Pablo Picasso Corrida (Bullfight) is a color linocut on Arches paper hand-signed by Pablo Picasso (Malaga, 1881 - Mougins, 1973) in pencil in the lower right margin. Numbered from the edition of 50 in pencil in the lower left margin, this work was published by Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris.

Catalogue Raisonné & COA:
Pablo Picasso Corrida (Bullfight), 1959 is fully documented and referenced in the below catalogue raisonnés and texts (copies will be enclosed as added documentation with the invoices that will accompany the final sale of the work):

1. Baer, Bridgette. Picasso Peintre-Graveur, Tome V – Catalogue Raisonné de l’œuvre grave et des monotypes, Berne: Editions Kornfeld, 1989. Listed and illustrated as catalogue raisonné no. 1228.
2. Bloch, Georges. Picasso Catalogue de l'ouvre gravé et lithographié, Volume I. Kornfeld et Cie: Switzerland, 1968. Listed and illustrated as catalogue raisonné no. 911.
3. McVinney, L. Donald, et al Picasso Linoleum Cuts: The Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kramer Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: Random House, 1985. Listed and illustrated as catalogue raisonné no. 16.
4. A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany our Pablo Picasso’s Corrida (Bullfight), 1959.

About the Framing:
Framed to museum-grade, conservation standards, Pablo Picasso Corrida (Bullfight), 1959 is presented in a complementary moulding and finished with silk-wrapped mats and optical grade Plexiglas.