Lithograph on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Gustav and Elly Kahnweiler
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/pablo-picasso-1767" aria-label="More by Pablo Picasso" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Pablo Picasso</a>
Dance Banderillas
Bequeathed by Elly Kahnweiler 1991 to form part of the gift of Gustav and Elly Kahnweiler, accessioned 1994
actions: postures and motions
actions: processes and functions
adults
animals: mammals
arm / arms raised
baboon
banderilla
bull
bullfighting
clothing and personal items
dress: fantasy/fancy
equestrian and sporting
fancy dress / role play
female
fine arts and music
gender
instrument, tambourine
jug
kneeling
leisure and pastimes
looking / watching
man
mask
matador
nudes
objects
people
social comment
society
sport
sports and games
standing
vessels and containers
woman
woman, old
work and occupations
<p>The bullfight was a subject Picasso returned to frequently, particularly after the mid-1950s. In this print, the<span> banderillero</span>, whose task is to wound the bull by driving darts into its neck or shoulders, is transformed into a young woman. Her prey is an older man carrying a bull's head mask who kneels in front of her, as if in submission. The fight between man and bull becomes an ironic metaphor for the battle of the sexes at a time when Picasso was becoming particularly aware of his own ageing.</p><p><em>Gallery label, August 2004</em></p>
paper print lithograph
24 May 2004 – 8 November 2004
2004-11-08
24 May 2004
2004-05-24
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
11 December 2004
2004-12-11
Tate Liverpool (Liverpool, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/
2004-05-24
Cubism and its Legacy: The Gift of Gustav and Elly Kahnweiler
Collection based display
11 December 2004 – 2 May 2005
2005-05-02
11 December 2004 – 2 May 2005
2005-05-02
2004-12-11
Tate Liverpool (Liverpool, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/
2004-12-11
Cubism and its Legacy: The Gift of Gustav and Elly Kahnweiler
Collection based display
Dance of the Banderillas
502 × 652 mm
Bequeathed by Elly Kahnweiler 1991 to form part of the gift of <a href="/search?gid=999999791" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Gustav and Elly Kahnweiler</a>, accessioned 1994
<p>Picasso made <i>Dance of the Banderillas</i> on 14 February 1954 in Vallauris. Having made a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawing</span></a> on transfer <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/paper" title="Glossary definition for 'Paper'"><span>paper</span></a> with a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/l/lithography" title="Glossary definition for 'Lithography'"><span>lithographic</span></a> crayon, he then had it transferred onto lithographic stone by the Paris printer Fernand Mourlot. The lithograph was produced in an <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/edition" title="Glossary definition for 'Edition'"><span>edition</span></a> of five artist’s proofs and fifty signed and numbered <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/print" title="Glossary definition for 'Print'"><span>prints</span></a> on white Arches wove paper, of which this is number forty-eight, and published by the Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris.
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<br/><i>Dance of the Banderillas</i> depicts a play-bullfight between a beautiful woman and a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/classicism" title="Glossary definition for 'Classicism'"><span>classical</span></a>-looking man. The bullfight was a subject Picasso returned to frequently, particularly from the mid-1950s (see also Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/picasso-bullfight-scene-t06803" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T06803</span></a>). It was also a favourite spectator sport for the artist from an early age, when he enjoyed regular visits to the Malaga bullring with his family. Picasso’s biographer Roland Penrose has written that, apart from his enjoyment of the action, ‘the main involvement for Picasso was not so much with the parade and the skill of the participants but with the ancient ceremony of the precarious triumph of man over beast ... The man, his obedient ally the horse, and the bull were all victims of an inextricable cycle of life and death.’ (Roland Penrose, ‘Beauty and the Monster’, in Penrose and Golding 1973, p.170.)
<br/>
<br/>In this work, however, the bullfight has become role play. The <i>banderillero</i>, the bullfighter whose hazardous task is to drive short decorated darts into the neck or shoulders of the bull in order to slow it down, is turned into a young woman who is gracefully poised to strike her prey, an older man carrying a bull’s head mask who kneels in front of her, as if in submission. The fight between man and bull is transformed into an artificial erotic game and an ironic comment on the battle of the sexes at a time when Picasso was said to be particularly aware of his own inevitable ageing.
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<br/>The ethnographer and writer Michel Leiris has noted that in Picasso’s work people often ‘interpose a mask between themselves and those who are looking at them (occasionally, following the Spanish custom, a mask of a stuffed or artificial bull’s head), and sometimes they unmask themselves: in these cases the emphasis is on the pretence which transforms the man looked at into something he is not and allows him to escape the other person’s stares. They are examples of the games of truth versus falsehood that Picasso so often indulged in.’ (Michel Leiris, ‘The Artist and his Model’, in Penrose and Golding 1973, p.251.)
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<br/>The scene is observed by a group composed of a baboon, an old peasant woman, a younger woman with a tambourine, wearing a bullfighter’s costume, and a young girl carrying water, who is looking away. These heterogeneous characters, reminiscent of the acrobats of Picasso’s blue period, recur at different times throughout Picasso’s work, particularly the old woman, who is often portrayed as a procuress, and the baboon. The baboon may in fact be a cipher for Picasso himself, who had first portrayed himself as a monkey as early as 1903 (<i>Self-<a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/portrait" title="Glossary definition for 'Portrait'"><span>portrait</span></a> as a Monkey</i>, <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/i/ink" title="Glossary definition for 'Ink'"><span>ink</span></a> on paper, Museu Picasso, Barcelona) and, only a month before making this work, in an ink drawing (<i>In the Studio</i>, Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris) where the artist at his easel in front his model was metamorphosed into a monkey on a stool, holding a palette and brush.
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<br/><b>Further reading</b>
<br/>Fernand Mourlot, <i>Picasso lithographe</i>, Paris 1970, reproduced p.207
<br/>Roland Penrose and John Golding (eds.), <i>Picasso 1881/1973</i>, London 1973, reproduced p.156
<br/>Giorgia Bottinelli, ‘Pablo Picasso’, in Jennifer Mundy (ed.), <i>Cubism and its Legacy: The Gift of Gustav and Elly Kahnweiler</i>, exhibition catalogue, Tate Modern, London 2004, pp.88-103, reproduced p.102
<br/>
<br/>Giorgia Bottinelli
<br/>February 2004</p>

Summary
2005-09-15T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<p><span>The bullfight was a subject Picasso returned to frequently, particularly after the mid-1950s. In this <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/print" title="Glossary definition for 'Print'"><span>print</span></a>, the</span><i>
banderillero</i><span>, whose task is to wound the bull by driving darts into its neck or shoulders, is transformed into a young woman. Her prey is an older man carrying a bull's head mask who kneels in front of her, as if in submission. The fight between man and bull becomes an ironic metaphor for the battle of the sexes at a time when Picasso was becoming particularly aware of his own ageing.</span></p>

Display caption
2004-08-18T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
actions: postures and motions actions: processes and functions adults animals: mammals arm / arms raised baboon banderilla bull bullfighting clothing and personal items dress: fantasy/fancy equestrian and sporting fancy dress / role play female fine arts and music gender instrument, tambourine jug kneeling leisure and pastimes looking / watching man mask matador nudes objects people social comment society sport sports and games standing vessels and containers woman woman, old work and occupations