PICASSO (2023) OUNCE "BULLFIGHT"ID92937015
On the occasion of the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of Pablo Ruiz Picasso, the National Mint and Stamp Factory dedicates a collection of commemorative coins to the Spanish painter, the inimitable creator of the various currents that revolutionized the visual arts of the 20th century.
The reverse reproduces the work titled "Bullfight", made by Pablo Picasso in 1934, which is preserved in the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, in Madrid.
On the obverse a detail of the Portrait of Pablo Picasso in a white sweater in his studio Le Fournas, Vallauris, taken by the photographer Edward Quinn in 1953, is reproduced.
| Shape | Square |
| Series | Picasso Fiftieth Anniversary |
| Year | 2023 |
| Colour | Yes |
| Quality | Proof |
| Face Value (Euro) | 10 |
| Size (mm) | 36 X 36 |
| Alloy (‰) | 999 |
| Metal | Silver |
| Weight (g) | 31.41 |
| Maximum Mintage (units) | 10,000 |
"BULLFIGHT" PICASSO (2023) OUNCE
The close relationship that exists between the bullfighting world and Picasso's work is unquestionable. Since his childhood in Malaga, where his father frequently took him to the plaza, he always felt an enormous fascination for the national holiday. In addition to the plastic possibilities of the bullfight - a theme full of drama, which will be very useful in certain moments of conflict - Picasso saw in the bulls a manifestation of Spanishness: «The life of the Spanish consists of going to mass in the morning, to the bulls in the afternoon and to the brothel at night. What is the common element? "Sadness," he snapped one day at André Malraux.
The bull, the artist's alter ego, appears in his painting loaded with symbolism, although always endowed with ambiguous meanings. It can become a metaphor for different human behaviors, both violence, eroticism or love and it can also appear as a violent murderer or as a poor victim. On other occasions Picasso identified himself with Minotaur, the mythological brother of the bull. Born in Crete from the loves of a woman and a bull, the figure of Minotaur is repeated in numerous drawings and engravings between 1933 and 1935, almost always linked in a loving embrace with a female figure who is none other than Marie-Thérèse, his lover of those years.