Pregnancy

In front of the hands of the female on the right there is an embracing couple, a well known Picasso pregnancy motif. The couple have been sketchily drawn and would appear to be within a vaginal opening. Just above this is an anus shape that doubles as the eye of the bull and as the severed stump of the central figure's flying arm.

The embracing couple was the subject of a number of Picasso studies and paintings from around 1903. In the same year Picasso sketched a nude sitting within a vaginal opening in much the same way as he has depicted the embracing couple in the drawing. The configuration of an anus above a vagina is also a common feature in some of Picasso's erotic engravings of the 1950's and 1960's depicting acrobatic nudes.

Because the embracing couple is in close proximity to the female on the right, it seems to be suggestive of sexual jealousy on the part of Picasso's wife Olga, whom the right hand figure appears to represent.

The female figure on the left, who appears to represent Picasso's mistress, seems to be pregnant. Her belly is convex and she is holding her hands in way that suggests she is supporting the weight of her unborn child.

Another very strong pregnancy image in the drawing is that of a baby's feeding bottle overlaid in the wash onto the torso of the central figure.

The baby's bottle resembles the type of feeding bottles used in France in the 1930's and what is more, it bears a strong relationship to a hidden wine bottle containing a female breast and the blade of a large carving knife in the same the same approximate location in Picasso's Three Dancers of 1925.

Fatherhood seems to have been very important to Picasso, in his work he yearns for it, sometimes as if in mourning. When it does occur in his life he celebrates it in a loving and tender way.

These allusions to pregnancy in the 1934 drawing pose a chronological problem because Marie-Therese did not 'officially' become pregnant until 1935.

In an interview that she gave with the American art historian Lydia Gasman, Marie-Thérèse divulged certain personal details which Gasman decided it was best not to publish. For some reason both Picasso and Marie-Therese chose to lie about the date of their first liaison. There has been a suggestion, based on research, that Marie-Thérèse actually met Picasso in 1925 when she was only fifteen, indicating that they had an illegal sexual relationship. There has also been speculation based on the content of Picasso's drawings from the 1930's that Marie-Therese may have had an abortion in that period. There is certainly a cryptic allusion to an abortion in the Three Dancers of 1925, although it seems impossible to say whether it relates to Marie-Therese, who 'officially' did not meet Picasso until 1927, although she seems to be present in his work from 1925 onwards. It may have been something along these lines that Lydia Gasman chose not to make public in her thesis.

© Mark Harris 1996

Themes of the 1934 Drawing

• The Bullfight Theme
• The Crucifixion Theme
• Theatrical Themes in the 1934 Drawing
• Picasso's Poetry of the 1930's
• The Pregnancy Theme

Next Section: Symbolism in the 1934 Drawing

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