Product：Pablo Picasso became a bullfighter in 1970

NO：8005

Starting Price：HKD 85,000,000

Transaction Price：HKD 139,946,000

Specification：130×97cm

Auction Time：23-Jul-Thu

Auction Company：Sotheby

The country where Picasso grew up is Spain, which is his beloved hometown. Spain is a famous bullfighting country, and bullfighting is also Picasso's favorite sport. Picasso once said that if he didn't become a painter, he would definitely be a horseback bullfighter. He likes the passion and power displayed by bullfighters.
 

Picasso used to have the same surname as his father, but later changed his name to Picasso after his mother. One of the reasons for this is that the Spanish name for a bullfighter is "Picar", which is very similar.
 

When Picasso was 8 years old, his first work was born, related to the theme of bullfighting, and his subsequent creative career involved the element of "bull".
 

"Bullfighter" is the first of Picasso's last series of bullfighter works, which he began to create in late September 1970. Inspired by a bullfight watched in Fr é jus at the end of the summer of the same year, it marks the artist's last time to pick up the theme of bullfighting in his creative life, with extraordinary historical significance. At the age of nearly 90, Picasso was not bound by his age. The ups and downs of his personal fate and the sedimentation of the times and history stirred up a strong creative enthusiasm. He expressed his sense of belonging and attachment to cultural traditions through the bullfighting ceremony representing the passionate culture of Spain, and revitalized the past national honor with the brave swordsman spirit of the bullfighter.
 

This art exhibition has a rich history, and since its completion, it has participated in important solo exhibitions of artists organized by various art galleries in France and the United States, and has been included in corresponding exhibition albums. Among them, the retrospective exhibition Picasso 1970-1972 held in the Palais des Papes, Avignon in Avignon in 1973 was particularly important. The exhibition was planned by Jia Guilin to display the artist's masterpieces from 1970 to 1972. Among the works exhibited with the painting in that year were three small head close-up paintings, which were created on the same day of the birth of the painting, and echoed the painting from composition to color, It can be regarded as an important first draft of this painting, one of which is more privately collected by Jia Guilin. This painting gathers the culmination of three first drafts, symbolizing the ultimate chapter of a legendary master's passionate life for art, with unparalleled significance and weight.