id: 161635 accession number: 2000.20 share license status: Copyrighted url: https://clevelandart.org/art/2000.20 updated: 2019-11-25 09:13:02.364000 Vollard Suite: Minotaur Caressing a Sleeping Woman, 1933. Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973). Drypoint; sheet: 38.5 x 50.1 cm (15 3/16 x 19 3/4 in.); platemark: 29.6 x 36.5 cm (11 5/8 x 14 3/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund 2000.20 © Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York title: Vollard Suite: Minotaur Caressing a Sleeping Woman title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1933 creation date earliest: 1933 creation date latest: 1933 current location: creditline: John L. Severance Fund copyright: © Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York --- culture: Spain, 20th century technique: drypoint department: Prints collection: PR - Drypoint type: Print find spot: catalogue raisonne: Bloch I.68.201; Baer II.137.369 --- CREATORS * Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973) - artist Pablo Ruiz Picasso (1881-1973), the most prolific and influential artist of the 20th century, shifted the emphasis of art from its traditional concern with beauty toward radical innovation. The son of an art teacher, Picasso demonstrated remarkable talents as a child and entered the royal art academy in Madrid at age sixteen. Less than a year later, he abandoned his studies and soon joined several avant-garde artist and anarchist groups in Barcelona and Paris. After passing through a succession of stylistic periods, most notably the Blue (1901-1904) and Rose (1904-1906) Periods, he collaborated with Georges Braque (1882-1963) in 1908 to invent Cubism, a revolutionary method of restructuring pictorial space. Picasso remained active until his death in 1973. Although his art still appears radical, many of his works are over one hundred years old. Cubism and Its Influence Cubism, perhaps the most important development in 20th-century art, was invented around 1908 by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) and Georges Braque (1882-1963). The most revolutionary aspect of the style was not its obvious emphasis on geometric form; rather, it was the introduction of a radically new approach to configuring pictorial space. Since the Renaissance, artists had used various methods to create the illusion of distant space receding behind the canvas surface. The Cubists rejected that idea and collapsed space by compressing foreground, middle ground, and background into a continuous web of overlapping, intersecting planes. During the 1910s, other painters and sculptors embraced or adapted Cubism to their own ends. This revolutionary approach inspired a host of related movements and continues to influence the visual language of artists, architects, and designers throughout the world. --- measurements: Sheet: 38.5 x 50.1 cm (15 3/16 x 19 3/4 in.); Platemark: 29.6 x 36.5 cm (11 5/8 x 14 3/8 in.) state of the work: IIIb / IIIc edition of the work: 50 on large paper, 260 on small support materials: description: medium weight handmade laid paper with watermark of a mermaid enclosed in a circle watermarks: inscriptions: inscription: signed in graphite translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: From Rembrandt to Rauschenberg: Recently Acquired Prints opening date: 2000-09-17T00:00:00 From Rembrandt to Rauschenberg: Recently Acquired Prints. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (September 17-November 26, 2000). title: Monet to Dalí: Modern Masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art opening date: 2006-05-27T00:00:00 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 (organizer) (October 21, 2007-January 13, 2008). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * Cleveland, Ohio: The Cleveland Museum of Art; September 17 - November 26, 2000. "From Rembrandt to Rauschenberg: Recently Acquired Prints."
CMA (organizer). Seoul Arts Center, Seoul, Korea: Dec. 18, 2006 - March 31, 2007; Seoul Olympic Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea: Apr. 7 - May 20, 2007: "Modern Masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art" --- PROVENANCE --- fun fact: digital description: wall 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. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS --- IMAGES