Picasso's Bullfighting Aquatints

A snapshot in time.


Most people don't realize that Pablo Picasso had a whole lifetime of art apart from the cubism movement that he pioneered.


He did tons of other works.

When I visited the Museo Picasso in Malaga (the birth place of our beloved cubist), I was SHOCKED at the breadth and depth of his early works. There was one (quite good) realist painting of a girl sitting in a chair that was not abstract in the least which he painted when he was only 15. There was pottery and my favorite, his aquatints. Entitled, La Tauromaquia ("The Bullfight" translated from Spanish to English), this series of 26 panels includes some of my favorite images of all time.


Aquatint is an intaglio printmaking technique which is a variant of etching. Created in 1957, Picasso's aquatints are exquisite in line and form. I love the black and white contrast. The movement of the drawings. The character of the images. The hurried expressiveness of the bullfighting scene.

This lesser known side of Picasso is powerful, exquisite, and by far, my favorite.