The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Horizontally oriented painting abstracted into triangular shards with a fractured bull skull in yellows and browns on the left. On the right sits a swirling orange pitcher, appearing as if made of abstracted carrots, flanked by two circular, red, yellow, and green pieces of fruit. Behind, extends a shattered blue and green pattern with a bushy pink tree rising just above the nose of the bull skull.

Bull Skull, Fruit, Pitcher

1939

Pablo Picasso

(Spanish, 1881–1973)
Spain, 20th century
oil on canvas
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.)
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 1985.57
© Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Catalogue raisonné: Zervos IX.238
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.
  • (P. Rosenberg, New York, NY)
    1950
    Walter Bareiss [1919-2007] Greenwich, CT
    1985
    (E. V. Thaw, New York, NY, 1985, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    1985-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Henning, Edward B. Creativity in Art and Science, 1860-1960. [Cleveland, Ohio]: Published by the Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1987. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 118, no. 26
    Richardson, John. A Life of Picasso. First edition. New York: Random House, 1991. Reproduced: Color plates
    Boggs, Jean Sutherland, Brigitte Léal, and Marie-Laure Bernadac. Picasso and Things: The Still Lifes of Picasso. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1992. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 258-259, no. 102
    Boggs, Jean Sutherland. "Evan Turner: Colleague and Friend." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 80, no. 4 (1993): 118-21. Mentioned: p. 121 www.jstor.org
    Herschel Browning Chipp, Alan Wofsy, and Fernand Mourlot. Picasso's paintings, watercolors, drawings and sculpture: a comprehensive illustrated catalogue, 1885-1973. San Francisco, CA: Alan Wofsy Fine Arts, 1995. Reproduced: p. 216
    Nash, Steven A., Robert Rosenblum, and Brigitte Baer. Picasso and the War Years, 1937-1945. New York, NY.: Thames and Hudson, 1998. Reproduced: no. 27
    Warncke, Carsten-Peter, Ingo F. Walther, and Michael Hulse. Pablo Picasso: 1881-1973. Koln, Germany: Taschen, 1998. Mentioned: p. 37; Reproduced: p. 39
    Ocaña, Naria-Teresa. Picasso: Indoor & Outdoor Landscapes. Madrid, Spain: Electa, 1999. Reproduced: p. 39
    Robinson, William H., Jordi Falgàs, Carmen Belen Lord, and Josefina Alix Trueba. Barcelona and Modernity: Picasso, Gaudí, Miró, Dalí. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in association with Yale University Press, 2006. Reproduced: p. 478
    Kelly, Raymond J. To Be, or Not to Be: Four Hundred Years of Vanitas Painting. Flint, MI: Flint Institute of Arts, 2006. Reproduced: p. 45, fig. 20
    Fundación Mapfre, Antonia Castaño, M. Teresa Ocaña, Neil Cox, Brigitte Léal, Valeriano Bozal Fernández, and Christopher Green. Picasso en el taller: Madrid, Spain : Fundación MAPFRE, Instituto de Cultura, 2014.
    Fundación Mapfre, Antonia Castaño, M. Teresa Ocaña, Neil Cox, Brigitte Léal, Valeriano Bozal Fernández, Christopher Green, and Pablo Picasso. Picasso en el taller: 12 febrero-11 mayo 2014. Madrid, Spain : Fundación MAPFRE, Instituto de Cultura, 2014. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 170-171
    Robinson, William H. "Guernica and the War Years." In Picasso and Paper. William H. Robinson, et al., 202-241. London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2020. Reproduced: P. 218-219, cat. no. 212
    Absolon, Kurt, Bernhard Hainz, and Stefan Üner. Kurt Absolon: Monografie und Werkverzeichnis.
    [Weitra] : Verlag Bibliothek der Provinz, 2021. Reproduced: p. 60
  • Picasso and Paper. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (co-organizer) (December 8, 2024-March 23, 2025).
    Picasso's Studio. Fundación MAPFRE (organizer) (February 10-May 11, 2014).
    Barcelona & Modernity: Picasso, Gaudí, Miró, Dalí (1868-1939). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 15, 2006-January 7, 2007); The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (co-organizer) (March 4-June 3, 2007).
    Monet to Dalí: Modern Masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada (June 9-September 16, 2007); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 21, 2007-January 13, 2008); Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN (February 15-June 1, 2008).
    Masterworks from The Phillips Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 20-May 29, 2005).
    Picasso. Sous le soleil de Mithra. Musée national Picasso-Paris, Paris, France (organizer) (November 27, 2001-March 4, 2002).
    Picasso. Indoor, Outdoor Landscapes. Museu Picasso, Barcelona, Spain (organizer) (October 26, 1999-January 30, 2000).
    Picasso and the War: 1937-1945. Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA (organizer) (October 10, 1998-January 3, 1999); Guggenheim Museum Soho, New York (January 27-April 26, 1999).
    Picasso: The Love and the Anguish--The Road to Guernica. National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (organizer); Tobu Museum of Art.
    Creativity in Art and Science, 1860-1960. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 16-November 8, 1987).
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  • {{cite web|title=Bull Skull, Fruit, Pitcher|url=false|author=Pablo Picasso|year=1939|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1985.57