These days, Apple incorporates Picasso’s bulls into its internal training program. It’s become a sort of emblem for product designers in their quest for pared-down designs in the face of evermore complex devices. But what message did the artist originally intend to convey with this series, more than half a century before the invention of the iPod?

Fernand Mourlot The story of Picasso and his bulls began on November 2, 1945, when the Spanish painter strode into printmakerworkshop off the Rue de Chabrol in Paris. Picasso had experimented with lithographs before, during the 1920s, but only briefly and rather half-heartedly. That would change over the next four months, during which time he regularly worked 12-hour days and produced four distinct series of prints: two focusing on female heads, one on a pair of nudes, and the last on a bull.

Picasso began working on the now-iconic bulls on December 12th. The first print was “a superb, well-rounded bull,” Mourlot noted. “I thought to myself that that was that. But not at all.” Picasso began creating subsequent lithographs, each one more pared down than the last. “He could see that we were puzzled,” Mourlot continued. “He made a joke, he went on working, and then he produced another bull. And each time less and less of the bull remained. He used to look at me and laugh. ‘Look…’ he would say, ‘we ought to give this bit to the butcher.’”