A Life of Picasso: The Prodigy, 1881-1906 (Borzoi Books)
As he magnificently combines meticulous scholarship with irresistible narrative appeal, Richardson draws on his close friendship with Picasso, his own diaries, the collaboration of Picasso’s widow Jacqueline, and unprecedented access to Picasso’s studio and papers to arrive at a profound understanding of the artist and his work. 800 photos.

Customer Review: A life of Picasso vol 1
Great work, done by a real scholar, beautifully written, as fascinating as a novel. Keeps away from myths and tales, impressively documented, meticulously illustrated (too bad it is not in color).

Customer Review: John Richardson’s Magisterial Biography of Painter-Genius Picasso begins in Malaga in 1881
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was born to a mediocre painter and his good wife Maria on October 25, 1881. His family was poor but well connected. One uncle was a priest; another a prominent medical doctor. Picasso’s father was easygoing eking out a living as an art teacher. When Pablo was a boy the family moved to Barcelona where his father taught in an art school. His mother was beloved of Pablo who had her tenacity of character and eager desire to learn. His younger sister Conchita died in childhood and he was close to his remaining sister throughout their long lives.

Pablo loved to paint from birth! He did not like formal schooling. He did attend the art school in Madrid but grew bored and left. As a teen he was wild and enjoyed chasing girls and hanging around with his bohemian chums. In these early years Pablo developed his routine throughout life: hard work, lots of sex (often in brothels!and smoking. Picasso drank very little and never had an alcohol problem.

As a young man he made three trips to Paris finally staying for good in the City of Lights on his fourth trip. He became friendly with several artists and writers most notablly the poet Apollinaire. His first true love was Olive Ferdinand a fetching Parisian who was also a minor painter.

Picasso had countless mistresses.

During these early years he went through his “Blue Period” in which he portrayed tragic and erotic figures in gloomy and sad modes. He later entered the “Rose Period” of colorful harlequins, clowns and street folks. He also enjoyed sculpture. His work began to sell.

Instrumental in his success were the dealers he relied upon to majrket his avant garde art. Among the influential people who bought his paintings were the American expatriots Leo and Gertrude Stein. Picasso was popular with Russian buyers. He preferred private sales rather than exhibiting his art alongside other salon artists. It was during these years he produced such masterpieces as “La Vie” “Old Man with a Guitar” and several works portraying androgynous bathers. As the book ends he is on the verge of moving into cubism along with fellow painter Braque.

Richardson does a good job of keeping his text balanced between sapient art assessments and Picasso’s personal life. The crammed text is filled with such characters as the Steins, Matisse and the fetching Olive

Ferdinand. We see how Picasso was influenced by such masters from the past as: Ingres, Cezanne, Velasquez and El Greco. Richardson is insistent that we see Picasso as a Spanish artist heavily influenced by his Andalusian roots and the luminaries of Spanish art.

The book is well illustrated with hundreds of black and white photos of Picasso’s works and snapshots taken of Picasso and friends. Richardson knew Picasso in his old age and is a brilliant critic of his work.

What kind of man was Picasso? He once told an interviewer “Truth is false!” In other words he was a paradox. He could be kind or cruel. He could abuse lovers forcing them into unnatural sex acts or he could be a gentle lover. He loved and hated Spain. He was apolitical at this early juncture of his career. Picasso hated pretense and liked common people.

He is complex and unique in art history as a protean master of many different types of art. This is the best biography ever written of Picasso and is the first of the four volumes to be published on a 2oth century art icon. Essential.

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A Life of Picasso: The Triumphant Years, 1917-1932

The long-awaited third volume of John Richardson’s definitive biography of Pablo Picasso combines the critical astuteness, exhaustive research, and stunning narrative that made the first two volumes an art-historical breakthrough as well as a pleasure to read.

The Triumphant Years takes up the artist’s life in 1917, when Picasso and Cocteau left wartime Paris for Rome to work with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes on their revolutionary production of Parade. Visits to Naples, above all to the Farnese marbles in the Museo Nazionale, would leave Picasso with a lifelong obsession with classical sculpture as well as the self-referential commedia dell’arte. After returning to Paris and marrying one of Diaghilev’s ballerinas, Olga Khokhlova, he abandoned bohemia for the drawing rooms of Paris. Hence, his so-called Duchess period, which coincided with his switch to neoclassicism, and would ultimately be absorbed into a metamorphic form of cubism.

In the summer of 1923, Picasso and his American friends Gerald and Sara Murphy transformed the French Riviera from a winter into a summer resort, when they persuaded the proprietor of the H?tel du Cap at Antibes to keep the place open for the summer. In doing so, they made the Riviera Europe’s major playground. Mediterraneanism was in Picasso’s bones. Born in M?laga, he would always identify with this inland sea.

In 1927 the artist’s life underwent a major change; he abandoned society for a life out of the spotlight with a beautiful seventeen-year-old girl, Marie-Th?r?se Walter. His erotic obsession with Marie-Th?r?se would result in an ever-growing antipathy for his neurasthenic, understandably jealous wife. Balletic clues have enabled Richardson to identify a number of baffling figure-paintings as portrayals of Olga and reinterpret the work of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Picasso’s passionate love for his mistress and his passionate hatred for his wife can be fully understood only in light of each other.

The last three chapters constitute an annus mirabilis—spring 1931 to spring 1932—during which the artist celebrated his fiftieth birthday. Challenged to scale new heights by the passage of time, Picasso lived up to his shamanic belief that painting should have a magic function. In the course of this year, he reinvented sculpture and to a great extent his own imagery in a bid to Picassify the classical tradition. The resultant retrospective in Paris and Zurich in the summer of 1932 confirmed Picasso as the leader of the modern movement.

Customer Review: Third Volume of John Richardson’s A life of Picasso: The Triumph Years, 1917-1932
John Richardson’s long awaited third of four volumes of “A Life of Picasso” does not disappoint. The writing is insightful due to the author’s personal relationship and knowledge of the artist. The first two works provided more than simply a lesson in art history, rather, an encompassing view of the life and times of the man and his culture. This most recent work continues the saga in the same well written manner.

Customer Review: Valuable Insights into Picasso’s Sources and Methods
If you think you know Picasso’s work, this book will convince you otherwise. John Richardson has done a tremendous service by sorting out when Picasso produced his greatest works between 1917 and 1932, what sources he “borrowed” from, what he was trying to accomplish, and how all of these works affected his career. This book was quite a revelation to me. Simply by seeing a lot of his work (as you can do at Musee Picasso, for example), you quickly realize that Picasso constantly copied himself. And, of course, it is well known that he borrowed much while trying to establish a style and while working with Braque to develop cubism. But Picasso borrowed early and often in ways I didn’t realize. In that sense, he was a supreme stylist who could execute someone else’s idea in a more profound way. I came away with a new appreciation for that aspect of his talent.

While Picasso was alive, very little was said in books about his mistreatment of women and the motives behind his paintings of his wives and lovers. While his second life was alive, people were still pretty circumspect on this point. But now we know that Picasso was louse when it came to women and his family. This book gives you the full story of his first marriage, relationship with his young mistress who inspired so many joyous works, Marie-Therese Walter, and his constant attraction to prostitutes.

There are some other surprises in this book including how central his work with ballet was in creating interest in his paintings and sculptures. It was through Diaghilev that Picasso met his first wife, Olga Khokhlova, a ballerina in the Ballets Russes. Picasso decided it was time to settle down and marry. Despite having had long relationships with women before, he now was looking for someone who would help make him respectable. In the process, Picasso adopted the lifestyle of one of the first wealthy artists (famously being driven around in one of the world’s most expensive cars by a chauffeur in the middle of the world-wide economic depression).

As good as John Richardson is on those subjects, he can be most annoying in other ways. For example, Mr. Richardson seems to have an obsession with Jean Cocteau and writes a lot about him even though Picasso didn’t like Cocteau very much and Cocteau didn’t influence Picasso very much either. Mr. Richardson also has a writing style that can be enormously elusive, describing what happened without saying anything. Picasso’s wife seems to have had a lot of physical and mental problems but these are mentioned without providing much real information other than when they occurred. A greater problem comes in that Mr. Richardson likes to drop in lots of French phrases (I read French so I had no problem), but if you don’t read French it makes the text harder to follow. Some will also find some of Mr. Richardson’s put downs of those who disagree with as being rude and high handed. Perhaps the most annoying problem comes in using academic words to describe distasteful aspects of Picasso’s personality and behavior. It’s like putting lipstick on a pig.

But I advise you to read the book while being prepared for its weaknesses. I’m afraid there is no substitute. The generously represented art makes up for the weaknesses.

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Balls to Picasso
Customer Review: Well, It’s Balls To Me!
Look, I know this album has `Tears Of The Dragon’ which even with the Rush playing reggae section is a fantastic song but that does not mean it’s a classic album, especially when consider that eight of these songs are either embarrassingly bad or just forgettable. I should of known, Bruce wearing what looks like Pete Way’s tracksuit bottoms on the sleeve and the fact that I picked this up for 70p that this was going to be a stinker but no, I thought from hearing `Tears Of The Dragon’ that I was in for a classic Bruce Dickinson solo album. Your probably thinking that I hate this album because its not metal? Well no, this is pretty damn bad regardless of the genre, its confused and Bruce although trying new things which is good as he didn’t descend into the stale autopilot generic metal that Maiden did in the 90’s, these new ideas for the most part simply don’t work. First of all this album opens on `Cyclops’ which is goes nowhere for seven minutes and even features the one thing which makes me scared and angry, slap bass, what the hell Bruce? Did you think you’d try to be funky? In the Red Hot Chilli Peppers now are we? Thankfully things pick up a bit on `Hell No’ which is very reminiscent of the Led Zeppelin song `Friends’ from `III’ and it’s easily one of this albums highlights . `Gods of War’ isn’t a Def Leppard cover, sadly (yes, I like `Hysteria’) and is just filler as is most of the album so I won’t go into much detail. Now, if you thought the slap bass was bad wait till you hear `Shoot All The Clowns’ it has rapping! Bruce Dickinson, a nice English boy from Worksop rapping, I’ll let that sink in for a minute. Anyway, Bruce was apparently told by the record company to write a song like `Rocks’ era Aerosmith and he came up with this, Ok Roy Z’s guitar is pretty Aerosmith but their wasn’t any rapping and slap bass on an Aerosmith album in 1976. Also this song sounds pretty much like any other mid-90’s bad rock band, just to make matters a little bit worse. Even some good guitar solos can’t save this one. Now as previously stated `Tears Of The Dragon’ is an amazing song, easily one of highpoints of Bruce’s solo career which would be so fruitful in the late 90’s, however I can’t help but smile when thinking “here’s Bruce trying to be a 90’s rocker and he still slips in a song about Dragons” now that’s metal! It even features an tempo change and a great solo, wow at last a bit which rocks, it’s a similar feeling to `Dirty Women’ at the end of `Technical Ecstasy’. Instrumentally, this band is good and can pull off the 90’s rock thing well although the playing isn’t a patch on `Chemical Wedding’ and `Accident of Birth’ which both Roy Z and Eddie Casillas would play on. Roy Z, is seriously lacking in the riffs and solo which were vital parts of `Chemical Wedding’, `Accident of Birth’ and `Tyranny Of Souls’. But the bands good, Bruce always had a good ear for players giving a good few guitarists a break (I’ am especially grateful he chose Janick for the Maiden job, that’s right Janick’s a phenomenal player). Bruce is still in great shape vocally here, those who didn’t like his more gritty singing on `No Prayer…’ and `Fear of the Dark’ will certainly find this more to their liking. So although this has a few moments for the most part it’s tame, uninspired and even dated 90’s rock. Hardly the classic some will have you believe. Download `Tears Of The Dragon’ and maybe `Hell No’ which I suppose were worth my 70p. Thankfully things would pick up on `Skunkworks’ and continue to do so until reaching the lofty peak of ‘Chemical Wedding’

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