A Tale from the Labyrinth The Vollard Suite - a challenging tale
Between 1930 and 1937 Picasso did 100 intaglio prints for his
art dealer Ambroise Vollard. The series, which is known as the
Vollard Suite, on one hand constitutes a narrative, but on the
other hand it challenges the familiar tale as regards the
players, timeline, places, and plot involved. Minotaur borrowed
from Greek mythology Three recurring figures remain: a sculptor,
his model, and the Minotaur. The inclusion of the Minotaur links
the suite to Greek mythology in which the Minotaur was a
legendary creature, part man, part bull, that dwelled in the
labyrinth by Knossos on Crete. Every ninth year the city of
Athens brought a group of young people to the Minotaur as
sacrifice, but one year Theseus, an Athenian, killed the beast.
Indeed, the suite shows the Minotaur being slain at some point,
but it has risen from the dead again towards the end of the
series. The surrealists and Minotaur While the links to the
original Greek myth are tenuous, Pi