A Life of Picasso: 1881-1906 Vol. 1

A Life of Picasso magnificently combines meticulous scholarship with irresistible narrative appeal. John Richardson draws on his close friendship with Picasso, his own diaries, with the collaboration of Picasso's widow Jacqueline, and unprecedented access to his studio and papers to arrive at a profound understanding of the artist and his work. He has distilled a lifetime's study into a book that is monumental, enthralling and perceptive. Volume I sheds new light on Picasso's innovations, obsessions and influences and reveals how his art and life were inextricably bound together. It explores his Spanish, intensely Andalusian nature, his adolescence in Corunna and Madrid, and his passion for Barcelona, where he became the hero of Catalan Modernisme. It chronicles his formative early years in Paris and his complex relationships with Apollinaire, Max Jacob, and Gertrude Stein during the Blue and Rose periods. At the end of the book, we see Picasso already poised to become the messiah of modern art, ready to develop into one of the great artists of the twentieth century.