A Life Of Picasso Volume I: 1881-1906: 1881-1906 v. 1 by John Richardson

A Life of Picasso #1

by John Richardson

"My work is like a diary," Picasso once told John Richardson. "To understand it, you have to see how it mirrors my life." Richardson, who lived near the artist in Provence for ten years and became a trusted friend, was able to observe and record this phenomenon at first hand. Later, Picasso's widow continued to give Richardson access to the artist's studios and storerooms. This close personal friendship and the privilege of working in hitherto inaccessible archives make Richardson uniquely qualified to write the artist's life, rescuing his renown from sensationalist legend and specialist pleading and analyzing anew the traumas and obsessions that triggered his explosive genius.Richardson is the first biographer to make sense of the myriad contradictions that leave so many statements about Picasso's nature equally true in reverse. The artist's ambivalence is one of the author's central themes. At last we are able to see how his courage and terror misogyny and tenderness, generosity and thrift, superstition and skepticism, cynicism and sentiment, are reflected in the conflicts and paradoxes in his work.Richardson's eye is finely attuned to the complexities of Picasso's art, and his extensive knowledge of cultural history enables him to show how Picasso plundered the art of the past, the imaginations of his poet friends, the beliefs of mystics and magi, to create a revolutionary new synthesis. The author's evocation of Picasso's ferocious ego, demonic loves and hates and black fears is the more absorbing for its terse and lively prose and freedom from jargon.This first volume of Richardson's prodigiously detailed and documented four-volume study takes Picasso to the age of twenty-five. It reveals how the adolescent Picasso struggled, through determination and study, to escape the shadow of his father's artistic failures. It describes his precocious success in Barcelona and Paris and the period of rejection and despair that followed. We watch Picasso transform the prostitutes of the Saint-Lazare prison into Blue period madonnas and, later, the performers of the Montmartre circuses into Rose period harlequins. Volume I culminates in Picasso's dawning perception of himself as the messiah of the modern movement.Some nine hundred illustrations, many of them unfamiliar, enable the reader to follow Picasso's mesmerizing development in images as well as words.

Genres: Art, Biography, Nonfiction, History, Art History, Spain, France

Paperback

First published February 20, 1991

About the author

Sir John Patrick Richardson, KBE, was a British art historian and Picasso biographer. The elder son of Sir Wodehouse Richardson, he was sent to board at two successive schools after his father's death in 1929. When he was thirteen he became a boarder at Stowe school, where he admired the architecture and landscape and was taught something about the work of Picasso and other innovative painters. After bring invalided out of the army in the Second World War, he worked in London as an industrial designer and became friends with the painters Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud.

In 1949 Richardson met the art historian and collector Douglas Cooper and the two began a relationship that would last ten years. In 1952, he moved with Cooper to Provence, where he met a number of artists, including Pablo Picasso. In 1960, Richardson left Cooper and moved to New York, where he worked in the art world until retiring in 1980 to concentrate full time on writing. The first volume of his biography of Picasso was published in 1991, with subsequent volumes published in 1996 and 2007. In 2012, Richardson was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) for his services to art.

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[AC · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let me try to be a bit more coherent.

First, there is a nice on-line collection of Picasso's complete works (and much, much more) at this site:
http://picasso.tamu.edu/

The first volume of this biography covers the years 1881-1906 (but really goes through 1907): Picasso's youth, his early years in Paris, Blue Period, Rose Period, the remarkable sojourn at Gósol -- his dealings with Apollinaire, Alfred Jarry (who Picasso actually did not ever meet), the Steins, Matisse -- and his passion (via Paco Durrio) for Gauguin and El Greco. These are the years of Fernande Olivier, his first mistress. The book, which runs to near 500 large, beautifully pages, must contain well over 2,000 photos -- mainly of Picasso's many drawing, paintings, sculptures, sketchbooks -- but also of the works of those who influenced him. The photographs are integrated into Richardson's text such that the book is, in effect, a prolonged meditation on the origins of Modern Art. One can "see", for example, through the juxtaposition of photographs, the influence of an El Greco or of a particular landscape on this or that work of Picasso's. It is thus a fabulous book -- at least for one, like myself, who knows so little about the topic.

There are times, as I said earlier, when Richardson seems to engage in the biographical fallacy. His discussion of "La Vie", for instance, focuses on Picasso's use of the head of Casagemas (the friend of Picasso's youth who committed suicide) in the final version, in place of his own (which had appeared in the earlier sketches) --- and gives an interpretation of a biographical interpretation of the picture which is clearly erroneous.


(La Vie. 1903. Oil on Canvass. Cleveland Museum of Art)

In fact, the picture shows a woman in the four seasons of her life: Spring (on the left), Summer (w/ child, on the right); deep Autumn and t hen Winter (death) on the top and bottom -- in the manner (as Richardson does help to point out) of a Tarot reading. Richardson, I think, does not recognize that the same woman is depicted throughout. Likewise, in the Saltimbanques, he does not see that the four male figures groped on the left are really two -- Picasso in his maturity and in his youth (on the far right of this grouping), and a mature (and younger) el Tio Pepe (in the center). As with La Vie, one can see it in the eyes… Assuming this is correct, the girl with her back to the viewer (in the lefthand grouping) is presumably the Fernande of the portrait (on the far right) as a young girl. In all of this, one sees Picasso's growing obsession with death.


(The Saltimbanques. 1905. Oil on Canvass. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC)


What I found most striking in all of these photos -- and what I had not understand about Picasso -- was that he was first and foremost a master of drawing -- a draughtsman -- and that everything else is secondary. In fact, in commenting on Matisse's remarkable La Bonheur de Vivre and the Fauve use of color -- Picasso says perceptively that he (Picasso) always used color as an additive -- that he began with drawings, and then added the color like salt into a soup…; but that Matisse began with color, that was in search of form ("I've mastered drawing and am looking for colour; you've mastered colour and are looking for drawing" (I.417).

The most serious drawback is that none of the prints in this volume are in color. I have purchased both a paperback AND a hardbound edition -- and neither have color. The hardbound edition of vol. III DOES have some color plates -- but for vols. I and II, the paperback is adequate.

Unfortunately, Richardson does not use the standard catalogue numbers, and so one must look them up simply by year. I have found one marvelous sketch in the book [1900:], from a private collection, which I cannot locate on the website: a self-portrait of Picasso in a raincoat, carrying easel and brushes, but looking like a gangster with a submachine gun…. and bearing the inscription "Paulus Ruiz Picasso Pictor en misere humane"





(In reading this book, the first thing I noticed were its flaws. In dealing with the painter's early life, I felt that there was a certain lack of depth and nuance...; the author seems often to be guilty of the biographical fallacy. But as I continued reading, I began to feel the power of the subject taking shape... and form... and to see the character of the painter deepening before my eyes.... as he matures.

More importantly..., the writing itself is in some respects almost secondary -- as the book is adorned, on every page -- with anywhere from 2 or 3 to 5 or 6 different plates, mostly (but not exclusively) of Picasso's. These plates are integrated into the text -- not simply tossed onto the pages as random 'daubs' -- so that the narrative and the artistic development grow and expand in a fascinatingly interconnected fashion....

I am learning much not only about Picasso and his art - but about fin-de-siecle Spain, the Paris of Apollinaire and Modigliani and Gertude Stein... about impressionism, expressionism, surrealism... and, of special interest to me, about the development and 'mentalité' of the WWI generation -- many of whom moved from the avant-garde to the political right (like Salmon, Max Jacobs) -- and only a relatively few of whom ended up as committed anti-fascists. Picasso was one of those few..., and what it is that inoculated him is quite curious, indeed.)

[Sharon Barrow Wilfong · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first of three volumes I own of John Richardson's biography of Picasso.

At 500 pages, starting with artist's birth in 1881 and going as far as 1906, it is probably the most thorough biography written of the artist.

There is so much information, so well written, that I kept thinking we had traveled farther through time than we had. After all, Picasso lived into the seventh decade of the twentieth century.

Somehow Richardson is able to intertwine Picasso's family life, his lovers, the historical background through which he lived, the different countries and cultures he adapted to the complicated relationships he had with other artists, poets, writers, not to mention lovers. There are a string of women who served as his muses and I had to resort to the internet to keep them straight.

Of course, in my opinion, most importantly, Richardson describes and analyzes the stages of development in Picasso's art from realism, to the Rose, then Blue periods, then his moving in the direction of the abstract and the beginning of his cubist efforts.

Die hard fans of Picasso, of which I can claim to be, cannot go to their grave without reading this biography.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not sure how many volumes Richardson imagines. Three have been published to date, this first volume in 1991 and the most recent volume, which only goes to 1932, in 2007. When you take into account that Richardson knew Picasso, who died thirty plus years ago, and is therefore not a young man, and that he is not yet halfway through the artist’s life, and that he clearly believes that Picasso remained a major artist throughout his long life, he’s got some serious typing to do because at least three more volumes must be intended, perhaps four. And I’ll look forward to each of them, as I do to reading the two more already published. Richardson is a crusty, opinionated, yet companionable narrator who brings two kinds of insight to his task: personal knowledge of his subject, with deep access to the papers and people in the artist’s world, and the sure-footed authority of a major art historian. He doesn’t overplay his being an insider to intrude into the spotlight, at least not yet, when his intersects with the works and events of this first volume are limited to late in life interviews with Picasso about a particular memory or a forgotten work that Richardson shared with Picasso as a prompt for a recollection. Volume one covers Picasso’s childhood and early rise in the art world. Born in Malaga, in southern Spain, Picasso spends most of his early life in Barcelona, Madrid, and finally Paris learning to be, well, Picasso. His father was a painter of only local note, fond of painting pigeons. His dwarfish talent is sniffily dismissed by Richardson and the father-son relationship is given an Oedipal meaning by Richardson that never seems to warrant such mythical assumption. However, the boy can paint and draw. He admires El Greco and Velasquez. Later Cezanne, Matisse, and Gauguin. Before he reached the age when Kurt Cobain and Heath Ledger had died, he gone through his Blue Period, Rose Period, and entered the less definable period that gave the world his portrait of Gertrude Stein and the revolutionary Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, not to mention numerous self-portraits and other works influenced by primitive masks and classical forms. From the beginning, Picasso was both amazingly prolific and protean. Richardson provides a rich portrait with a cast of interesting thousands. He is a good writer, plain spoken and sharp-witted, and this multi-volume biography, a masterwork.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

#In sickness

I first met Picasso—not in person, obviously; he’d been dead forty years—but in the sweltering stillness of a sickroom in May 2013, when jaundice had me chained to the bed like a fevered prisoner. My eyes were the color of turmeric, my appetite was somewhere in the Mariana Trench, and all I could do was read. That’s when John Richardson’s A Life of Picasso arrived—all four volumes, like a brick delivery of genius and gossip.

Volume 1 is where it starts: Málaga to Paris, 1881 to 1906. Richardson has that rare biographer’s skill—he doesn’t just pile facts; he sets scenes like a novelist, except the plot is true and the protagonist is restless, talented, and more than a little infuriating. The boy Pablo is already cocky, but Richardson makes you see why. You get the father’s stern academic training, the precocious prodigy years, the shifts from Spain to Paris, the Blue Period’s melancholy, and the friendships with poets and misfits.

Confined to bed, I read slowly. Jaundice had dulled my metabolism but sharpened my attention. I noticed how Richardson never let Picasso’s myth-making go unchallenged; he checks the legend against the record, the diary, and the offhand remark from some long-dead friend. That honesty made me trust him—even when he clearly admired the man, he never seemed seduced into hagiography.

What Richardson captures—better than later Picasso books I’ve tried—is how context breeds genius. The Barcelona cafes, the Montmartre squalor, the failed romances, the political tremors — all of it seeped into the young Picasso’s brushstrokes. By the end of this first volume, you feel the inevitability of Cubism, even though it hasn’t been born yet.

Lying there, sweating through the summer heat, I realized something: Picasso’s early years weren’t that different from a fever. There’s the intensity, the blurring of days, the bursts of color in an otherwise monochrome stretch. Like my jaundice, it was an in-between state — the slow boil before the big eruption.

When I finally finished Volume 1, I didn’t stop. I devoured all four in quick succession, as if the story itself were medicine. And maybe it was.

Picasso didn’t just paint; he survived, adapted, and invented himself over and over. In that sickroom, I found that contagious. Even yellow-eyed and bedbound, I felt it — the itch to get back to work, to make something new, to not waste a single recovered day.

[Charles Bechtel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A while back I found myself, a canoeist for many years, the pilot of a river raft full of terrified landlubbers. I was chosen as pilot because I had wrestled with rapids and quick waters often, and was trusted. About halfway through the trip we were presented with a fast rapids in which an enormous boulder was centered. To one side ran fast water but few rapids, to the other were froths and boiling rages. I could manage either, but there was no way I could proceed without managing at least one.

Pablo Picasso is the boulder in the river of painting's progress. There are many who deal with him the same way they deal with the flow of that river: they don't even get in the water. But those who do get in must, inevitably, face the divide he makes.

This first volume, and the subsequent ones, help navigation immensely. Picasso changed the entire course of the flow, sometimes for the best, sometimes for the worst. Anyone who is serious about understanding this monumental obstacle to understanding painting would do well to read this and the subsequent volumes. There are other biographies, but this one is the rock in that river.

[Edward Champion · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fell down the Picasso rabbit hole entirely by accident. It all started with Francoise Gilot's remarkable volume, LIFE WITH PICASSO, which is a supremely accomplished "warts and all" memoir that both venerates the painter and tells the truth about him. Richardson's indefatigable energies (at least while he was alive: he was only able to make it through Picasso's sixty years before dropping dead) are a perfect match for Picasso -- in large part because he is more of an art critic than a proper biographer. He's constantly and incessantly on the lookout for patterns in his art and, rather interestingly, this is what drives him to frame Pablo's life. The margins are generously studded with endless paintings and illustrations that show us how Picasso was not only fiercely talented as boy, but moving to cubism at a steady clip. Richardson not only tracks the journey through nudes and abstract paintings, but he's also very good at showing how the incidents in his life (and his run-ins with notables like Gertrude Stein) affected his art. This results in a read that is both passionate yet appropriately detached. We all know Picasso was a misogynistic monster. But he was also a genius who inarguably altered the course of 20th century art. Like it or not, as Claire Dederer has rightfully argued, we do have to reconcile these contradictions, no matter how woke or progressive we are. And not in the obnoxious and narcissistic Hannah Gadsby sense. Richardson's extremely exacting work here is thus invaluable.

[ThePageGobbler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easily the best biography I’ve ever read and my highlight of 2025 - looking forward to volume 2! Identifies what was special about PP without falling into myth-making or excusing what was bad. Accessible to a newcomer to modern art while still rigorous and detailed. Does due diligence to family, social contexts etc without being overly dogmatic. You might not agree with Richardson as to Picasso’s value to modern culture but I’ve never seen a biographer make their case so well…

[Randall Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

I always thought I should read these three volumes on Picasso one day; I learned a lot less than I thought I would but it was still worth it. You do get an idea of Picasso’s stages/periods, changing influences, and chronology of works. In Volume One here, Picasso gets into religious art, El Greco and then the Modernista movement, then the Blue Period, a brief Dutch Period, and the Rose Period. The book gets heavily into where Picasso would hang out, and with whom, and every vacation spot is explained in copious detail. There’s a lot of who slept with whom, and who did opium or some other drug. Many pages are devoted to his art dealers and many famous friends who he loves on one page and then 20 pages later, can’t stand. Cocteau, Apollinaire and Gertrude Stein are the most common sidekick names through this book. Most of Picasso’s quotes in this book do little to explain why his did what art he did. The best I could find was a comment that Picasso wanted to make art “new and fresh”.

Harlequins were on no one’s mind before Picasso brought them back from near extinction. Picasso was Trotsky’s “favorite modern painter”. Origins of Picasso’s Blue Period can be found in the preference of symbolist Paris for blue as well as Art Nouveau which often used Peacock Blue, Madonna blue, ice blue.” Picasso seems to never get with a woman who is vaguely near his equal, so it’s not surprising that the constant discussion about his relationships are a big snore (Zzz…) for the reader. The Paperback version of this book which I read is all black and white, however, I believe the hardback version is much better because it has color plates in the center. The biggest problem with this paperback book is that you must constantly go on Google to call up color versions of these paintings; how does someone really learn about the Blue and Rose periods if every picture is in black and white?

[Jonny Hughes · Rating 5 out of 5]

A triumph. Easily one of the best biographies I've read on any artist. Detailed, succinct, and fascinating. The author doesn't let his personal relationship cloud any judgement and rightly calls Picasso's misogyny out - something that has become more prominantly scrutinised in our time - without letting it impact on his view of the work, separating the art from the artist, while simultaneously holding him to account, which is much needed in any academic overview of any artist's life
Highly recommended. Having read Volume IV first, I'll now follow the rest chronologically...

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had the very good fortune of enrolling in a course on Picasso at UMass Boston the year of the "Picasso Early Years Exhibit" at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston 1997-98. This was the primary text book we used for the course, and our class attended a lecture by the author at the MFA. They say timing is everything. It was an incredible course, and this book provided rich insight into Picasso's work and life and times.

[Steve Thorp · Rating 5 out of 5]

A magisterial, monumental biography of the first 26 years of the most important artist of the 20th century. Impeccably researched and written, and crammed with drawings, paintings, photographs, the book reads like a novel. Essential if you enjoy reading biograpy, or about Western art, or the artistic process, or the life of a great artist, etc.

[Ross Whamond · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thoroughly enjoyable and informative insight into the early formative years.
Showing how Picasso developed his art through his different periods and.And the other artists and movements of the period.
Only improvement would be to have the illustrations in colour rather than black and white.

Looking forward to volume 2.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another one on my quest to read biographies of all the artists. A tough slog, but fascinating sometimes.

[Keith Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me 17 years to read this book! But, despite that, it never felt like a slog. I had the book on the desk in my office, and would read a few pages when I had a moment. To use the old cliche "richly detailed" is an understatement, but the great gift of John Richardson is that these details are seldom, even never, boring. Picasso's life becomes a rich trove of stories.

And those stories, once he arrives in Paris and becomes part of the bohemian scene in Montmartre, often involve other figures that were central to the moment. The Richardson book is easy to leave for a while and then return to -- so I was able to follow tangents that presented themselves: Apollinaire, Jacob, even Rilke again. Stein, of course. Jarry. Matisse. And Richardson who has devoted a life to this work, says smart and interesting things about all of these people.

And Richardson always says very interesting things about the work. Picasso manifested his incredible ability early on with academic, realistic pieces. But he also had that tremendous, unique (although maybe rivaled by Leonardo?) visual memory. And when he started the technical experiments -- oh, say, the Blue Period things -- he had a wealth of memory to draw on. In this book, we go right up to Les Damoiselles D'Avignon. To the very edge of cubism. To the very edge, maybe even in to the recognition by the world of this imagination.

Richardson doesn't let Picasso off, either. He recognizes the misogyny -- although this early on his life, I think it manifests primarily as a version of that Andalusian "macho" attitude to the world. I'm going to have to think more about this. I recognize Picasso's moral failings, ethical failings, but I continue to be slain by the work itself.

[James Spencer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once again I'm surprised at how much I enjoyed this biography of a 20th century artist. The first volume of what will be four volumes (Richardson died a couple of years ago but the fourth volume will be published this November) but still only cover up to WW II, what makes this such a fascinating read is not so much Picasso's life but rather the people and places that surrounded Picasso and Richardson't detailed discussion of Picasso's oeuvre during his first 25 years. These years cover both the Blue and Rose periods and take us up to (but not including) Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and the cast of characters includes Gaugin, Matisse, Manet, Apollinaire, Jarry, Gertrude Stein, Cezanne, Max Jacob etc. One disappointment: while there are almost a thousand illustrations, mostly drawings and paintings by Picasso, they are all black and white and I found I needed to be near my computer or an iPad while a read to be able to pull up color versions of many of these illustrations to make them intelligible. This was a small price to pay for getting to see how Picasso changed over the years all in one place.

[HansBlog · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kurzer Auszug a.d. viel längeren Rezension m. Links u. Hintergründen i. m. Blog:
Fazit:
John Richardson erzählt recht leger, oft sarkastisch, meinungsfreudig und immer kurzweilig – nie wird er blasiert, langatmig, professoral. Richardson setzt kulturgeschichtliches Wissen sowie Fremdsprachenkenntnisse voraus. Weil Richardson ab den 1950er Jahren ein Freund der Picassos war, aber auch dank seinem Rechercheteam kann er viele neue Interna zutagefördern, auch neue Fotos. Richardson interpretiert intensiv und kommt dabei oft auf Sexuelles und Picassos Gefährtinnen. Der Rückumschlag von Band I sagt ebenso werblich wie zutreffend: "…magnificiently combines meticulous scholarship with irresistable narrative appeal".
Richardson bewundert viele Schöpfungen und wohl auch den Geschäftssinn Picassos, jedoch nicht den Menschen. Der Biograf stellt auch viele Wegbegleiter ausführlich vor – immer wieder auch mit deftigem Klatsch. Es gibt viele Abbildungen, zumeist jedoch nur recht klein und in Schwarzweiß, in guter Qualität (je nach Ausgabe).

[David Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This volume and the two which follow ("Vol. II: The Painter of Modern Life, 1907-1917," and "Vol. III: The Triumphant Years, 1917-1932" were written over a period of six years (1991-97). The set is the ultimate biography of one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, if not all time. How fortunate we are to see so many of his art works worldwide, and to have his life so well researched, documented and masterfully written by John Richardson. He and Picasso were long-standing, trusted friends, living near each other in Provence for ten years. Richardson had ready access to the artist's extensive archive and made the best of that privilege by making available the artist's genius as never before in this three-volume set. All three volumes are highly recommended. See also: Sacred Monsters, Sacred Masters." It's "a gallery of profiles of some of the most curious and creative figures that Richardson encountered during a career of more than fifty years."

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a lavish, wonderful book, printed on heavy, luxurious paper and with text and pictures on every page so you can always see the works that Richardson is discussing. It is true that they are all in black and white, but still it's wonderful to have it all together. I recommend having the internet handy. I did and used it to look at some of the pieces in both color and a larger format. (I suppose that publishing the works in color would have caused the cost of the book to skyrocket; it cost $45.00 in 1991. The third volume has colored pictures placed together in the middle of the book.)
Having finished it, I am moving on to the second volume.
Richardson lived long enough to finish the fourth volume, but I have had no luck in finding a firm publication date. Richardson died a little over a year ago at age 95.

[Marcus · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A Life of Picasso, Vol. 1: The Early Years, 1881-1906" is a comprehensive biography by John Richardson that delves into the formative years of the legendary artist Pablo Picasso. It provides insights into his upbringing, artistic development, and the influences that shaped his unique style. This meticulously researched book offers a fascinating glimpse into Picasso's early life and sets the stage for understanding his immense contributions to the art world. 🎨📚👨‍🎨

[Dara Salley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm excited to go view some Picassos now! I'll have lots of insights to bore my friends with.

[Randy Lowe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Volume 1 of 4. an incredible start

[Fabio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ho letto tutti e tre i libri.
Consigliati senza ombra di dubbio

[John Bond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deeply incisive. Great primer as well on art during this period. Wish the book was in color.

[翰林院编修]

毕加索传：1881-1906 (卷一)
8.5 (54人评价) [英] 约翰·理查德森 / 孟宪平 / 浙江大学出版社·启真馆 / 2016
这是一本毕加索生前就资助的毕加索传记，拟出版四卷，其中前三卷英文版已经出版，本书为中文版第一卷。

[Susanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. Recommended.

[Will Aubin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating and salacious - highly recommend before / during / after your next trip to local art museum

[Megangoldberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Something about you makes my skin tingle. Let's see if we can translate this feeling into something more... intriguing, shall we?

[alexisren03 · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book is the most interesting and very fun every part of the charm

[GK Stritch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary series, thanks to John Richardson--a treasure trove of information, visual and literary, plus excellent drawings.

"In the early days of their relationship Picasso entertained a higher regard for Gertrude than for any other woman . . . . Gertrude would wholeheartedly support Picasso . . . . to her aggravation, he started to call her 'Pard'--one of the slang words he had picked up from Westerns."

pp. 407-408

[Raina Anjari · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Book is very interesting. It is detailed about Picasso and his life (until the age of 25), his influences and best of all a lot of information about his paintings. There are a lot of black and white pictures of his work as well as the paintings that directly influenced a particular work. There is also a fair amount of gossipy information about Picasso and his poet and painter peers, girlfriends and especially excerpts from letters that allow you to get inside his mind. It is quite enjoyable.