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PICASSO'S PICASSOS Revised Edition
Ballantine Books #74691, 1968. Revised First Printing. This 6 1/2" x 9 1/2" trade paperback is in Very Good condition. Crease along the front spine seam. Small bumps to the outer corners. Dust soiling to the wrappers. Color illustrations through-out.
- GenresArt
Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
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January 30, 2016I found this book to be astounding. As I haven't read about Picasso in a number of years, I felt as surprised by the book as when Picasso showed Duncan a trove of 500 hidden paintings that astounded the art World in 1961 for the Maestro's 80th birthday.
If you love photography and 20th century modernism and Cubism, read on for more interesting detail.
Picasso invited Harper into a closed room of his Villa La Californie to see a secret cache of over 500 completely unknown paintings. Picasso insisted the paintings be photographed in full, in color, and oversaw the precise color representation of the selected images. Picasso frequently provided commentary on the images to correct misunderstandings.
Here are all the themes.
14 images of 1939 paintings feature, including Dora Maar, at a time when their work on Guernica was complete, with the painting on a World tour. Dora and Picasso got domestic, her routines in relaxed dress providing Picasso endless stimulation to work with. It was an incredibly rich period for the artist painting during the tragic closing months of the Spanish Civil War, in the last calm months before Europe was engulfed in World War Two, altering Picasso’s milieu in Paris forever. Following the war, Picasso moved his works and residence to Villa La Californie at Cannes, and invited Duncan with his camera into a locked room that literally no one in the art world suspected existed. As Duncan wrapped up his work in 1961, Picasso was preparing to move out, making this photographic record a unique capsule of 1955-61 residency in Picasso’s life.
Duncan Harper’s photo-essay are full color tipped-in plates. Duncan carefully controlled the precise photography. 3 photofloods were mounted on vertical banks, three to a side, set at a 30 degree angle to both left and right of the paintings, 12-15 feet from the images. Most images 2 seconds at F 6.3 on a single-lens Alpha 6 c Reflex camera. A 50mm F 1.8 lens was specially fitted with a groundglass with control grids by Alpha technicians. Duncan shot on Type A Kodachrome, processed by Kodak in Paris and Lausanne. Breaking with large-format preferences, Duncan broke with precedent to shoot in 35mm in a constrained space loaded with 500 paintings stacked from floor to shoulder height, and so that 8000 photographs could be processed and selected for the book to be ready on in time for the Maestro’s 80th birthday. The images were engraved in Switzerland’s finest engraving plants, attached to backing paper at the Imprimerie Centrale, Lausanne, Switzerland.
If you love photography and 20th century modernism and Cubism, read on for more interesting detail.
Picasso invited Harper into a closed room of his Villa La Californie to see a secret cache of over 500 completely unknown paintings. Picasso insisted the paintings be photographed in full, in color, and oversaw the precise color representation of the selected images. Picasso frequently provided commentary on the images to correct misunderstandings.
Here are all the themes.
14 images of 1939 paintings feature, including Dora Maar, at a time when their work on Guernica was complete, with the painting on a World tour. Dora and Picasso got domestic, her routines in relaxed dress providing Picasso endless stimulation to work with. It was an incredibly rich period for the artist painting during the tragic closing months of the Spanish Civil War, in the last calm months before Europe was engulfed in World War Two, altering Picasso’s milieu in Paris forever. Following the war, Picasso moved his works and residence to Villa La Californie at Cannes, and invited Duncan with his camera into a locked room that literally no one in the art world suspected existed. As Duncan wrapped up his work in 1961, Picasso was preparing to move out, making this photographic record a unique capsule of 1955-61 residency in Picasso’s life.
Duncan Harper’s photo-essay are full color tipped-in plates. Duncan carefully controlled the precise photography. 3 photofloods were mounted on vertical banks, three to a side, set at a 30 degree angle to both left and right of the paintings, 12-15 feet from the images. Most images 2 seconds at F 6.3 on a single-lens Alpha 6 c Reflex camera. A 50mm F 1.8 lens was specially fitted with a groundglass with control grids by Alpha technicians. Duncan shot on Type A Kodachrome, processed by Kodak in Paris and Lausanne. Breaking with large-format preferences, Duncan broke with precedent to shoot in 35mm in a constrained space loaded with 500 paintings stacked from floor to shoulder height, and so that 8000 photographs could be processed and selected for the book to be ready on in time for the Maestro’s 80th birthday. The images were engraved in Switzerland’s finest engraving plants, attached to backing paper at the Imprimerie Centrale, Lausanne, Switzerland.
November 28, 2022
My family trove contains an endless assortment of interesting books from this era of Harper. This book caught my attention today and I found it to be an enjoyable read. Apparently the first printing of this book with all the color photos filled something like 18 train cars. A painstaking effort for the author, who was also the principal photographer, its significance is not lost on me.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews