Tauromachy depicts an abstracted bullfighter strutting past the skull of a bull on the ground. The hollow cavity of the figure, covered with crevices, appears decayed and reflects the somber mood of death projected by the skull of the slain bull. Germaine Richier extended the mythic vocabulary of the bullfight, which had also fascinated Surrealist artists including André Masson, as seen in Masson’s painting of the same title on view nearby. Richier’s fondness for unusual human-animal hybrid figures and macabre sensibility placed her well within French avant-garde circles and has led to some comparison with her younger compatriot, Louise Bourgeois. Despite participation at the 1937 Paris World’s Fair and a prestigious exhibition at the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris in 1956, her career was little remembered after her death in 1959, as was the case of many women of her generation.