The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 13, 2025

Vollard Suite: Minotaur Caressing a Sleeping Woman

1933

Pablo Picasso

(Spanish, 1881–1973)
Spain, 20th century
drypoint
Platemark: 29.6 x 36.5 cm (11 5/8 x 14 3/8 in.); Sheet: 38.5 x 50.1 cm (15 3/16 x 19 3/4 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 2000.20
© Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Catalogue raisonné: Bloch I.68.201; Baer II.137.369
Location: Not on view

Description

The Vollard Suite is a group of 100 prints executed in 1930–36 and published by the art dealer Ambroise Vollard in 1939. Since Picasso did not originally create these plates as a unified set, they address several themes, including the legend of the Minotaur. In classical mythology, this fierce monster with a human body and a bull's head was trapped in a labyrinth by the king of Crete until it was slain by the Athenian prince Theseus. The Minotaur was a potent symbol for the Surrealists, an important group of artists in the 1930s, for whom the creature suggested irrational, unconscious impulses. The Minotaur assumes many guises in the Vollard Suite, reflecting many aspects of Picasso's complex personality. Alternately violent and tender, a carouser and a lusty lover, the Minotaur is also pictured wounded and dying. Unhappy with his wife, dancer Olga Koklova, in 1927 Picasso met the beautiful Marie-Thérèse Walter. In Minotaur Caressing a Sleeping Woman, one of the most emotional, tender prints in the Vollard Suite, Picasso, the ardent Minotaur, expresses love and passion for his radiant young mistress.
  • ?–2000
    (Marc Rosen Fine Art, Ltd., New York, NY), sold to The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
    June 5, 2000–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Cleveland Museum of Art, “Recent Acquisitions Press Release,” June 19, 2000, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives. Mentioned: p. 2 archive.org
    Glaubinger, Jane. "The Printmaker's Art." Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 40, no. 7 (September 2000): 8-9. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 8 archive.org
  • Monet to Dalí: Modern Masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Seoul Art Center, South Korea (December 22, 2006-March 28, 2007); Seoul Olympic Museum of Art, South Korea (April 7-May 20, 2007); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 21, 2007-January 13, 2008).
    From Rembrandt to Rauschenberg: Recently Acquired Prints. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 17-November 26, 2000).
  • {{cite web|title=Vollard Suite: Minotaur Caressing a Sleeping Woman|url=false|author=Pablo Picasso|year=1933|access-date=13 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2000.20