Customer Reviews

Picasso

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After having read many books about Picasso. It was a pleasure to enjoy the author's prose. The subject was a keen interest of Mr.O'Brian's as were his other bio. clients who form a wide range of characters. It is apparent that it is the writing rather than exacting erudition which is the author's trademark.

The opening of the book which describes Malaga and its history is fascinating and sets the stage for Picasso's development. One can easily understand Picasso absorbing this rich culture.

On comparison with Richardson this volume comes off rather poorly and subscribes to some well known anecdotes which are now known to be false. One such incident was when Picasso's father is supposed to have given up painting altogether after seeing how good his son was. Picasso was fourteen or fifteen at the time yet there exist paintings of pigeons signed by Don Ruiz up until his death.

The narrative follows Picasso from Spain to France and rightly emphasises the entire cubist episode. The usual list of early characters are present, e.g. Max Jacob, Guillaume Apollinaire, Fernande Olivier, etc.

What struck me as the best of this book was the author's willingness to describe Picasso's terrible behaviour, especially in his latter years when he would ignore or reject official plaudits. His treatment of women including the terrible initiation of Jacqueline Roque is not spared and yet it is not written with malice but with an understanding that it was all the sycophants and their scraping that only served to isolate Picasso even further.

Nevertheless, when Picasso was faced with an equal (Matisse or Braque) or someone even older than himself whom he may have known as a youngster (Pallares)he was a gracious and tactful host.

This is not the best biography of Picasso (that honour belong's to John Richardson) but it is perfectly readable and does contain some insights that are unique.

Patrick O'Brian was not an art historian or a professional biographer. He was an accomplished writer with a wide range of interests and knowledge. He is, of course, the author of the celebrated Aubrey/Maturin nautical novels ("The best historical novels ever written" - New York Times), but was much more than that. Among other things, he was the first to translate Simone de Beauvoir's works into English, and was the author of a fine biography of the English scientific luminary Joseph Banks. He was also a close friend of Picasso's.

O'Brian's familiarity with Picasso, his wide range of interests and knowledge, and his attention to historical context and detail is a recipe for a wide-ranging and very personal account of the artist. It attends carefully to the material and geographical circumstances of Picasso's origins and life; it is filled with real truth about the artist and how his life and history are reflected in his art. It is not a treatise on Picasso's contribution to 20th century painting, but is nonetheless a wonderfully written and engaging perspective on the man and his work. Highly recommended.

A note: Amazon lists several versions of this title. Most of them are imports that will take 1 to 4 months for delivery, and the more current one from Norton doesn't show up in a search on Picasso and O'Brian. Do a search on ISBN 0393311074, listing just the number, to get the most current edition.

I have read two other books about Picasso ("Picasso's Women" and "Picasso's War". This give a much more-rounded (and affectionate) view of the great man, and also gives much insight into his work and the critical reception of it. Highly recommended.

I purchased this book as a text book for a class on Psychology of Art History. I only read the first 70 pages and was completely turned off by the author's blind worship of Picasso. (Not to mention his laborious style and paragraph-long sentences with too much needless information.) It is literally the worst book I've ever read in my life. Picasso must surely be one of the most interesting characters in the history of art, but this books is mind-numbingly boring. There is a whole chapter about the weather where Picasso lived as a boy, but only one sentence on how he lost his virginity.

The author was a personal friend of Picasso's and it shows. He always manages to find reasons to excuse Picasso's often atrocious behavior. The facts speak for themselves--how many of Picasso's lovers, wives grandchildren took their own lives?

It is a pleasure to find a work of non-fiction in which the writing flows smoothly across the page, and in which a rich portrait of the subject emerges without recourse to over-wrought speculation. This sympathetic, yet detailed account of Picasso is both fun to read for its own sake, and fascinating for the sake of its subject. A very readable biography.