‎PICASSO, PABLO (+) LUIS MIGUEL DOMINGUIN.‎
‎Picasso. Toros y Toreros. - [SIGNED BY PICASSO]‎

‎(Paris, Editions Cercle D'Art, 1961). Folio (380 x 280 mm). In publisher's original pictoral full cloth binding. Number 76 out of 150. Illustrated with 138 lithographic reproductions in black/white and colour after the artist's drawings in pencil, ink, crayon, brush and washPortfolio (375 x 278 mm). A seperate suite, also numbered 76, with 17 loosely inserted (as issued) litographs, the first being signed in pencil by Picasso.Both housed in publisher's original clam-shell box with title and author embossed to spine. Very light wear to edges of the box, but otherwise a very fine, clean, and well preserved copy. ‎

Reference : 62803

‎First edition, being one of the 150 numbered copies signed by Picasso, of one of the artist’s greatest books of the post-war period, magnificently printed under Picasso’s supervision and dedicated to his lifelong fascination with bullfighting. Luis Miguel Dominguín, legendary bullfighter whose exploits were described by Hemingway in “The Dangerous Summer”, wote the lengthy introduction. A monumental artist’s book, “Toros y Toreros” stands as both an artistic summary of Picasso’s lifelong fascination with the spectacle of the bullfight and a deeply personal reflection of the people and passions that surrounded him in his final decades. The work is based on Picasso’s sketchbooks from 1959, a period of graphic experimentation at Vallauris, and reflects his deep personal engagement with the bullfighting world and its participants. His old companion Manuel Pallares would visit for long tertulia-style conversations in Catalan, while his wife Jacqueline was more interested in the artist’s publisher, Gustav Gili, and his Andalusian friend, the celebrated bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguin:“Picasso had always enjoyed having Spanish or Spanish-speaking friends around. Manuel Pallarés, a Catalan who had been a friend since he was fourteen, would come and spend two weeks in a nearby hotel. In true tertulia style the two old cronies would gossip for hours in Catalan about the minutiae of life in turn-of-the-century Barcelona or the high sierra. Jacqueline found all this very tedious. She far preferred the company of the artist’s Catalan publisher, Gustav Gili, or his fellow Andalusian the celebrated bullfighter, Luis Miguel Dominguin. Although Picasso loved to discuss bullfighting with Dominguin, he was taken not so much with his professional prowess - “his real arena is the Place Vendôme.” He told Cocteau: “One thinks he’s not like the others, but he’s exactly the same” - as with his personal allure. Picasso had a short man’s envy of people who were tall, and Dominguin was the inspiration for the slender elegant torero in most of the later bullfight scenes. In his lively text Toros y Toreros, Dominguin likens his relationship with Picasso to the great Pedro Romero’s with Goya. He sees Picasso as a bull and quotes the popular Andalusian poet Rafael Alberti’s paean to him: “You the only matador in Picassian pink and gold - with Pablo Ruiz Picasso as the bull! And me as picador.”” (Richardson, A Life of Picasso, p. 8) “The main involvement [in bullfighting] for Picasso was not so much with the parade and the skill of the participants but with the ancient ceremony of the precarious triumph of man over beast … The man, his obedient ally the horse, and the bull were all victims of an inextricable cycle of life and death.’ (Roland Penrose, Beauty and the Monster, p.170.) The present work unites Picasso’s art with his lifelong fascination for the drama, ritua,l and symbolism of the bullfight, uniting his genius as an artist with one of the most strong passions of his Spanish identity.‎