Conversations with Picasso
Category: Books,Biographies & Memoirs,Arts & Literature
Conversations with Picasso Details
From the Inside Flap "Read this book if you want to understand me."—Pablo PicassoConversations with Picasso offers a remarkable vision of both Picasso and the entire artistic and intellectual milieu of wartime Paris, a vision provided by the gifted photographer and prolific author who spent the early portion of the 1940s photographing Picasso's work. Brassaï carefully and affectionately records each of his meetings and appointments with the great artist, building along the way a work of remarkable depth, intimate perspective, and great importance to anyone who truly wishes to understand Picasso and his world. Read more About the Author Brassaï (born Gyula Halász, 1899—1984) was a photographer, journalist, and author of photographic monographs and literary works, including Letters to My Parents and Proust in the Power of Photography, both published by the University of Chicago Press.Jane Marie Todd is a translator whose books include Brassaï's Henry Miller, Happy Rock and Largesse by Jean Starobinski, both published by the University of Chicago Press. Read more
Reviews
To dismiss this wonderfully acute book as light because it is anecdotal would be a serious error. Brassai not only knew Picasso when; he was also an artist whom Picasso admired. Brassai's is a privileged vision, and he notes Picasso's many foibles--some of them large--as well as many of his strengths as artist and person. Until I read this book, I was unaware of just how selfishly Picasso treated even those he considered friends and lovers. But, in reading Brassai, I also learned that Picasso was intellectually voracious, a man who read an entire box of demanding books each week--on top of his work as an artist and his assiduous, but very often misconceived, efforts to be a husband and father. The only other writers who knew Picasso as well as Brassai are quite probably Fernande Olivier (earlier) and John Richardson (later). Richardson writes much more elegantly than Brassai (even if you read Brassai in the original French)--and Richardson's excellent ongoing three-volume biography of Picasso is turning out to be the gold standard--but he is no more perceptive than Brassai. For the best view of the younger Picasso on the make in Paris, I'd go with Brassai. If you want to "know" Picasso, Brassai is a must-read.