Footnotes

Provenance
The Estate of H.M Petiet, Paris.
Acquired from the above by the current owner.

Literature
Georges Bloch, Catalogue de l'oeuvre gravé et lithographié, Volume I, 1904-1967, Berne, 1968 (Bl.223).
Geiser & Baer, Picasso Peintre-graveur, Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre gravé, Volume II, 1935-1945, Berne, 1986 (B.435.B.d).

This work is perhaps one of the best known and most admired prints
from the Suite Vollard. An etching of great complexity and intensity,
Minotaure aveugle guidé par une Fillette II is the second of four
consecutive prints dedicated to the subject in the suite. It was no
doubt an important scene for Picasso, one for which he showed an
obsessive involvement as he also did many drawings of the subject.
There have been many attempts to explain the symbolism of the work
and it is generally acknowledged that it is Picasso presenting himself
as his alter-ego, the Minotaur. Rather than the usual overt sexuality
and virility associated with the monster (as depicted in lots 7 & 12),
the Minotaur here appears blind and vulnerable, in a dramatic night
setting reminiscent in design to a scene from a Greek tragedy.

The little girl guiding the creature bears the traits of Marie-Thérèse,
Picasso's pregnant lover at the time to whom he had offered a dove,
the bird of peace she is carrying here. Her appearance is innocent
and sweet as she gently leads the blinded creature towards the gate
at the left.

Brigitte Baer has wondered whether the sailors in the background are
an attempt at personifying traditional family principles of 19th century
Barcelona, where she believes the scene could be set. Picasso had
visited Barcelona with his then wife Olga and their son in September
and was perhaps experiencing conflicted feelings. He was obviously
transgressing traditional marital values because of his affair with MarieThérèse, and the guilt intertwined with his amorous passion could well
have blinded the Minotaur.

Yet Marie-Thérèse seems to represent a haven of peacefulness and
voluptuous tranquillity in opposition to the bitterness felt in his unhappy
marriage to Olga; Picasso had lost much of his inspiration and
creativity which were revived after his chance encounter with MarieThérèse in 1927.

Is this in fact Olga to the right, statuesque in aspect and seemingly
watching the scene with a detached, estranged gaze? In an earlier
version of the work (see Baer 434), Picasso's re-interpretation of
Jacques-Louis David La Mort de Marat, done in July of the same year,
was present in the upper left of the plate. This was a piece said to
caricature Olga's – as Charlotte Corday – deathly aggression of MarieThérèse as Marat, which imbued the scene with a tragic aspect.

One wonders if the scene here is therefore a hopeful one, in which the
Minotaur, guided by the serene Marie-Thérèse, is taken to a brighter
place of comfort and tranquillity. Or is he, blinded by his passion,
walking towards more trouble and conflicts? One can only think of the
tumultuous years to come afterwards, both in the artist's personal life
and politically, to attempt a guess.

The importance of this work could then be read both in its obsessive
repetition in the artist's creative output of the time, as well as a pivotal,
suspended moment in time: uneasy in his deteriorating relationship
with Olga, expecting a child from Marie-Thérèse, with the Spanish
Civil War, Nazism and war growling rampant, all to later explode in
Picasso's etching masterpiece La Minotauromachie the following year,
and of course in Guernica in 1937