Picasso: The Formative Years. A Study of his Sources

by Anthony Blunt, Phoebe Pool

116 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1962

About the author

Known as Sir Anthony Blunt, KCVO, from 1956 to 1979, was a leading British art historian who in 1964, after being offered immunity from prosecution, confessed to having been a Soviet spy. A closely held secret for many years, his status was revealed publicly by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in November 1979, and he was stripped of his knighthood immediately thereafter.
Blunt was Professor of the History of Art at the University of London, director of the Courtauld Institute of Art, and Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures. He was exposed as a member of the Cambridge Five, a group of spies working for the Soviet Union from some time in the 1930s to at least the early 1950s.

Reviews

[AC · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting little book on the early Picasso. The first part, text, is derived from Phoebe Pool’s dissertation. The second part consists of a selection of black and white plates of Picasso’s work prior to Les Demoiselles, with commentary mainly by Blunt, that compares specific works both in form and motif to the works of other artists — thus trying to establish the sources of Picasso’s early work. Much of Blunt’s short commentary is illuminating.

Pool came late to the profession, wrote a brilliant book on the Impressionists, and then threw herself under a train. Blunt, her mentor, wrote a definitive work on Poussin, and was quite brilliant. Both were Russian spies, Blunt being one of the “Cambridge Five”.

Wiki: ‘After he was publicly exposed, he claims to have considered suicide but instead turned to "whisky and concentrated work"’.