Author(s): Dominique Dupui-Labbe

Art

The horse was a constant reference point in the work of Picasso. He experienced the last moments of the civilisation of the horse in the 20th century and while the presence of the horse is barely found in his earliest works it becomes ever more present as his career progresses. Picasso's impressions of the horse from visiting the bullfights at La Malagueta as a ten-year old boy through his career that took him to Paris, Barcelona, Malaga and beyond are brought together into more than 50 works of art, that for the first time tell a story of a world now almost forgotten where the horse was part of daily life. Picasso liked all horses without exception and as he depicted them in his work they were all appealing, whether circus horses, children's toys, idealised classical horses, race horses or funeral horses. As Dominique Dupuis-Labbe writes, 'aside from works devoted to the women he loved, Picasso never better celebrated the fusion of emotion and creation than when he focused on the subject of the horse.'