Bull Skull, Fruit, Pitcher

1939

Pablo Picasso

(Spanish, 1881–1973)

Culture

Spain, 20th century

Medium

oil on canvas

Measurements

Framed: 85.7 x 117.2 x 7 cm (33 3/4 x 46 1/8 x 2 3/4 in.); Unframed: 65 x 92 cm (25 9/16 x 36 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 1985.57

Catalogue raisonné

Zervos IX.238

This artwork is known to be under copyright.

Location

223 20th Century Avant-Garde

Did You Know?

The flowering tree in the background was added by Picasso in the final stages of the painting’s creation.

Description

Pablo Picasso painted this still life following the surrender of his beloved Barcelona to General Francisco Franco’s fascist army, an event signaling the defeat of the Spanish Republic. Spain—because of its association with bullfighting—is represented by a bull’s skull. Outside the window, a flowering tree grows in the moonlight. The tree likely references the sacred oak of Guernica in the Basque region of Spain that survived a 1937 bombing by German and Italian air forces ordered by the Spanish Nationalists, a coalition of groups opposed to the Spanish Republic. Symbolic of freedom for the Basque people, the tree suggests hope for the rebirth of democracy in Spain.

$A horizontally oriented oil painting depicts an abstract fractured bull skull in yellows and browns on the left. On the right sits a swirling orange pitcher, appearing as if made of abstract carrots, flanked by two red, yellow, and green circles of fruit. Behind, extends a shattered blue and green pattern with a bushy pink tree rising just above the nose of the bull skull.$