Bull's Head

Pablo Picasso, 1942

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About This Work

Perhaps the most celebrated example of Picasso's genius for transformation, the Bull's Head was created by simply inverting a bicycle seat and attaching the handlebars to form the horns. The result is startlingly convincing as a bull's head, yet the bicycle parts remain entirely recognizable. Picasso described the ideal of his assemblage work as the moment when someone would see the bull's head, then see the bicycle parts, and then throw the parts away to make a bicycle again.

Made during the Nazi occupation of Paris, the Bull's Head represents Picasso's ability to find creative freedom even in the most constrained circumstances. It is the most famous of his assemblage sculptures and a defining work of 20th-century art, demonstrating that any object can become art through the transformative power of the artist's vision.

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