World Library  
My Account |  Register |  Help  
  
Flag as Inappropriate
Email this Article

Bull's Head

Article Id: WHEBN0037404630
Reproduction Date:

Title: Bull's Head  
Author: World Heritage Encyclopedia
Language: English
Subject: Pablo Picasso, List of Picasso artworks 1941–50, The Four Little Girls, Le pigeon aux petits pois, Visit to Picasso
Collection: 1942 Sculptures, Found Object, Sculptures by Pablo Picasso
Publisher: World Heritage Encyclopedia
Publication
Date:
 

Bull's Head

Bull's Head (French: Tête de taureau) is a found object artwork by Pablo Picasso, created in 1942 from seat and handlebars of a bicycle. It is described by Roland Penrose as Picasso's most famous discovery, a simple yet "astonishingly complete" metamorphosis.[1]

Picasso described the artwork in 1943 to visiting photographer George Brassaï, saying:

Guess how I made the bull's head? One day, in a pile of objects all jumbled up together, I found an old bicycle seat right next to a rusty set of handlebars. In a flash, they joined together in my head. The idea of the Bull's Head came to me before I had a chance to think. All I did was weld them together... [but] if you were only to see the bull's head and not the bicycle seat and handlebars that form it, the sculpture would lose some of its impact."[2]

In 1944, catalogued as Bicycle Seat, the sculpture was displayed at the Salon d'Automne in Paris together with another 78 works. Visitors were shocked by Picasso's new works and a demonstration took place, during which Bicycle Seat was one of the pieces removed from the wall.[3]

Bull's Head is described by art critic Eric Gibson as unique amongst Picasso's sculptures for its 'transparency' - the constituent found objects are not disguised.[4] He says the sculpture is "a moment of wit and whimsy ...both childlike and highly sophisticated in its simplicity, it stands as an assertion of the transforming power of the human imagination at a time when human values were under siege."[4]

The sculpture is in the permanent collection of the Picasso Museum in Paris.[5]

References

  1. ^ Penrose, Roland (1981). Picasso: His Life and Work, Third edition. University of California Press. p. 345.  
  2. ^ Brassai, George (1999). Conversations with Picasso. University of Chicago (from original published 1964). p. 61.  
  3. ^ Utley, Gertje R. (2000). Pablo Picasso: The Communist Years. Yale University Press. pp. 49–50.  
  4. ^ a b Gibson, Eric (16 April 2011). "A Magical Metamorphosis of the Ordinary". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2012-10-21. 
  5. ^ Ewart, Nancy (5 June 2011). "Picasso: Masterpieces From the Musée National Picasso at the de Young". Examiner.com. 
Pablo Picasso
Periods
Lists of works
Major works
Partners
Family
Colleagues and friends
Patrons and biographers
Museums
Films
Plays by Picasso
Poetry by Picasso
See also
Wikimedia
  • Picasso at Wiktionary
  • Picasso at Wikiquote
  • at Commons
  • Picasso at Wikinews
This article was sourced from Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. World Heritage Encyclopedia content is assembled from numerous content providers, Open Access Publishing, and in compliance with The Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR), Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., Public Library of Science, The Encyclopedia of Life, Open Book Publishers (OBP), PubMed, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and USA.gov, which sources content from all federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial government publication portals (.gov, .mil, .edu). Funding for USA.gov and content contributors is made possible from the U.S. Congress, E-Government Act of 2002.
 
Crowd sourced content that is contributed to World Heritage Encyclopedia is peer reviewed and edited by our editorial staff to ensure quality scholarly research articles.
 
By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. World Heritage Encyclopedia™ is a registered trademark of the World Public Library Association, a non-profit organization.
 



Copyright © World Library Foundation. All rights reserved. eBooks from World eBook Library are sponsored by the World Library Foundation,
a 501c(4) Member's Support Non-Profit Organization, and is NOT affiliated with any governmental agency or department.