Picasso My Grandfather [Hardcover]

Marina Picasso (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 25, 2001

This family memoir of life in the shadow of "The Sun"-the twentieth century's greatest painter-who towered over the lives of his wives, children, and grandchildren, is told by Marina Picasso, the granddaughter of Picasso and his first wife, Olga Kokhlova, a former Russian ballerina who remained married to him until her death.

Writers, artists, and film stars installed themselves in Picasso's orbit, even as his family lived in impoverished conditions, in terror of provoking his displeasure, unable to carve lives and identities of their own for the control he exerted over their every move. After years of humiliation, her father drank himself to death. Then, the day after Picasso's death, her brother poisoned himself. Marina's own estrangement and subsequent breakdown followed, until at last, through grief and awakening, she found herself and came to terms with the blessings and curses of the Picasso legacy. The result is this fascinating and operatic account of her grandfather's first family.

Fame, tragedy, glamour, excess, passion, betrayal, and redemption: All the essential ingredients for a compelling family drama are in full force in this story of the private world of one of the great iconic figures of the last century.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Pablo Picasso showed a lifelong fascination for monsters, populating countless paintings and drawings with their hideous forms. To judge by his granddaughter Marina's anguished memoir, he might have found their model in the mirror.

In this highly impressionistic account, Marina Picasso writes of life with a man who set impassable boundaries "between the inaccessible demigod and us." And with a vengeance: Picasso terrorized his son, Marina's father, who took refuge in downward-spiraling alcoholism, his ambition crushed. "To make a dove," Picasso once wrote, "you must first wring its neck." The grandchildren fared little better; they provided Picasso only with a little local color, just as women provided him with sexual prey, and in the end everyone in her grandfather's life, Marina writes, wound up as a victim, "sacrificed to his art."

Many books have portrayed Pablo Picasso unfavorably, but this is the closest we have to a fly-on-the-wall account of the artist in his cruel prime. The picture isn't pretty, but it is captivating. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly

Author Picasso, granddaughter of the richest artist who ever lived, inherited almost a quarter of Picasso's wealth, including 400 paintings of great value. With Valentin, known francophonically for an untranslated biography of French singer Edith Piaf (Piaf : l'ange noir ), an erotic novel (36.15 : tapez, sexe) and novelizations of French TV shows, she weighs in with an unrelievedly grim and bitter memoir of the artist-patriarch. A tedious one-sidedness becomes clear early on, when during a visit, Picasso asks his grandchildren how they are and how school is going, and the adult Marina comments: "Empty questions that don't need answers. A way of taming us whenever it suits him." She overreacts throughout the book, such as when Picasso and his son file their nails by rubbing them against a wall in Spanish peasant style: "It made me blush and feel sick with shame." The thuddingly prosaic text is not helped by a poor translation, as when Marina recounts her shock at seeing Picasso in his underpants, with "his overflowing attributes visible" or when she and her brother "sob silently while munching our misery apple." Readers will munch their own misery apple through this whiny narrative that accuses Picasso for not using his grandchildren as models in his art, instead "infecting" them with the "Picasso virus," which is apparently a result of neglecting family matters. (Nov. 12) Forecast: The total absence of charity with regard to her famous benefactor and grandfather will limit this title's interest to gossip-mongers eager for the least scrap of Picasso dirt. While there could be some coat-tailing with the recently released Loving Picasso, the memoir of Picasso mistress Fernande Olivier, the latter book is far more significant.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 198 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover; 1St Edition edition (October 25, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573221910
• ISBN-13: 978-1573221917
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,121,064 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars a story of self pity, November 18, 2001

By 

Charles Jones (belvidere, illinois United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Picasso My Grandfather (Hardcover)

If you wish to read of Picasso this is not the book for you. It is a story of self pity. It sickened me. I am angry that I spent the money on this poorly written drivel. Let me sum it up for you; "Poor me poor me poor me. Grandpa ignored me, poor me" Save your money. Do not buy this book.

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A bitter bitter memoir, August 12, 2002

By 

Moe811 (New York USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Picasso My Grandfather (Hardcover)

Although I feel sorry for Marina Picasso, her brother and her life, I think that maybe this memoir should have stayed between herself and her psychiatrist. Not only is the story badly written, the author leaves out large portions of her life. Even though she is a grown woman, the book is written from the perspective of a little girl. Everyone except her and her brother are self centered and not a little bit evil. This book might have done wonders for her psyche, but it should never have been printed.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The myth of "self pity" -, December 19, 2007

By 

Mark Terran (Salt Lake City, UT, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Picasso, My Grandfather (Paperback)

One reader called this a book of self pity. What is "self pity?" Do you mean that if a person experiences a personal tragedy or trauma they are not allowed the humanity of recognizing that they, too, are human? They are not allowed to mourn? They are not allowed to come to terms with the truth?

They are not allowed to tell the truth lest it stir up guilt in abusive parents and grandparents other than Picasso? They are not allowed any measure of justice?

Telling the Truth is not Self Pity. "Self Pity" involves giving up and refusing to struggle toward health and happiness. Obviously Marina has engaged in this struggle. Not only has she gone to the necessary trouble of coming to terms with the cause of her suffering, she also has gone on to a state of improved well-being and a life of selfless and effective service as evidenced by her work among the orphans of Vietnam.

As a bonus, she leaves, by way of her book, an aid to others who must engage in a similar struggle.