Matador and Nude Woman (1970)

The painting Matador and Nude Woman fits into the two overarching themes informing Picasso's entire oeuvre: one is bullfighting, the other is male-female relationship. In his late works, the woman is often unclad while the man plays various roles. Sometimes he is a voyeur, reflecting the artist's changed relationship to sexuality. The graphic series "Suite 347" from two years earlier features a number of scenes that overtly depict the female body exposed to male inspection. The objects in the hands of men, the sword and the brush are clear phallic symbols, but for Picasso the male gaze fixed on the female body is sexually charged, as well.

The protagonist of this painting is the self-confident “matador” of the Spanish traditions embodying the male principle and sexual potency, depicted by the artist in a fancy, colorful dress wrapped in an orange cloth and with a sword held in front of his buttocks. While in the other variants of the picture, the “torero” is alone, here a black-haired, fertile beauty turns to him whose features evoke the artist's wife, Jacqueline. K.SZ.