A Life of Picasso II: The Cubist Rebel

About this book

In the second volume of his Life of Picasso, Richardson reveals the young Picasso in the Baudelairean role of “the painter of modern life.” Never before have Picasso’s revolutionary vision, technical versatility, prodigious achievements, and, not least, his sardonic humor been analyzed with such clarity. Hence his great breakthrough painting, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, with which this book opens. As well as portraying Picasso as a revolutionary, Richardson analyzes the more compassionate side of his genius. The misogynist of posthumous legend turns out to have been surprisingly vulnerable—more often sinned against than sinning. Heartbroken at the death of his mistress Eva, Picasso tried desperately to find a wife. Richardson recounts the untold story of how his two great loves of 1915–17 successively turned him down. These disappointments, as well as his horror at the outbreak of World War I and the wounds it inflicted on his closest friends, Braque and Apollinaire, shadowed his painting and drove him off to work for the Ballets Russes in Rome and Naples—back to the ancient world. In this volume we see the artist’s life and work during the crucial decade of 1907–17, a period during

Appears in these reading paths

Best Books on Cubism, in Reading Order

Beginner9books45 hrs4 stages

C

@craftsherpa♥ 0