Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973) Blind Minotaur... Lot 4

Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973) Blind Minotaur Guided by a Girl in the Starry Night, 1934 Aquatint and drypoint signed in pencil lower right. Fourth state out of four. Suite Vollard, plate 97 on Montval laid paper watermarked Picasso. Mark in pencil on the back "Dun 8". Work : Height 24,7 Width 34,7 cm. Provenance: - given by Picasso as a wedding present to the American photographer David Douglas Duncan, 1962 - given by David and Sheila Duncan to the present owner, Côte d'Azur. Bibliography: - Georges Bloch, "Pablo Picasso: Catalogue of the Printed Graphic Work 1904-1967", Kornfeld and Klipstein, 1972, n°225. - Brigitte Baer, "Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre gravé et des monotypes 1946-1958", Kornfeld Eberhard W., 1988, n°437 : Blind Minotaur guided by Marie-Thérèse to the pigeon in a starry night. 97th plate of the suite of 100 commissioned by Ambroise Vollard to Pablo Picasso between 1930 and 1937, our work is one of the 250 completed to print by Roger Lacourière in 1939. Its copper was scratched in 1956. Given by Picasso to his friend and photographer David Douglas Duncan (1916-2018), alias "DDD", it is a tribute to the man who, returning from the United States, chose "a woman fifteen years his junior to make her the wife of the rest of his life". If the theme of the blind Minotaur is one of the seven major themes identified in the Suite Vollard, how can we not draw a parallel between the figure of the little girl, whose features take on those of Marie-Thérèse, and the young wife of his friend, who will guide him in her turn in life? The unique friendship between Duncan and Picasso spans from 1956 to 1973, with numerous gifts and exchanges and 5,000 negatives resulting in seven books. Made between December 3, 1934 and January 1, 1935, this blind Minotaur in aquatint, treated with a scraper like a black manner, is of a crazy intensity, both a synthesis and a promise of the master's future work: Guernica.