Image: Image reproduction rights managed by Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio; institutional source link provided
View source →Pablo Picasso, 1939
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
Framed: 85.7 x 117.2 x 7 cm (33 3/4 x 46 1/8 x 2 3/4 in.); Unframed: 65 x 92 cm (25 9/16 x 36 1/4 in.)
Style
Wartime modernism
Decade
1930s
The official Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio record identifies Bull Skull, Fruit, Pitcher as a Pablo Picasso artwork, dated 1939, in oil on canvas. Pablo Picasso painted this still life following the surrender of his beloved Barcelona to General Francisco Franco’s fascist army, an event signaling the defeat of the Spanish Republic. Spain—because of its association with bullfighting—is represented by a bull’s skull. Outside the window, a flowering tree grows in the moonlight. The tree likely references the sacred oak of Guernica in the Basque region of Spain that survived a 1937 bombing by German and Italian air forces ordered by the Spanish Nationalists, a coalition of groups opposed to the Spanish Republic. Symbolic of freedom for the Basque people, the tree suggests hope for the rebirth of democracy in Spain.
Bull Skull, Fruit, Pitcher is grouped here under Wartime Period for gallery navigation based on the date published by Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio. This period label is interpretive context, not a replacement for the cited primary object record. The holding collection is documented by the cited institutional source.
2026 Estimated Value
Public collection / market value not asserted
* Estimates are based on comparable auction results and market analysis. Not a formal appraisal.
Last Known Sale
No public auction record — held in permanent museum collection
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