Le Taureau

Le Taureau is a series of lithographs by Pablo Picasso made with the assistance of Fernand Mourlot from December 1945 to January 1946.

[1] In his memoir Mourlot recalled that "in order to achieve his pure and linear rendering of the bull, he had to pass through all of the intermediary stages".

[2] Despite the simplicity of the final image the Portland Art Museum describes it as "nonetheless eloquently captur[ing] the power and bulk of the bovine".

Mourlot believed this was the bull in its "essential form", having been "rendered in a few perfectly placed lines...with his pinhead and ridiculous horns like antennae".

[5] Le Taureau is number 389 in Georges Bloch's Catalogue of the Printed Graphic Work of Picasso.