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Title: Conversations With Picasso by Brassai, University of Chicago Press ISBN: 0-226-07149-9 Publisher: University of Chicago Press (Trd) Pub. Date: January, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (3 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A Revealing View of a Great Genius
Comment: 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.
Rating: 3
Summary: The Inner Sanctum; not quite.
Comment: This book is written as it has been culled from Brassai's personal journal and notes over a period of almost fifty years.
It reads more like a compendium of valuable snippets and insights rather than as a continuous narrative. Brassai as a photographer met Picasso in Paris and was invited by the painter to take some photographs of his work. Most of these photographs were actually of Picasso's small (and not so small) recent sculptures. It was common practice for all sorts of artists at that time(and earlier) to have professional photographs taken of their output so they could see their creations from a different, more removed perspective (vanity?). Picasso was certainly no different.
Picasso himself was an avid amateur photographer and as John Richardson has pointed out in his excellent Picasso Bio. he was not merely content to paint the paintings he also tried to somehow install himself in his pictures via self portaits with various paintings as backgrounds. The camera had become an instrument of magic tele-kinesis.
Brassai's notes show us how enthusiastic Picasso was about his new friend's talents in portraying Picasso's sculptures as if new. Brassai goes on to render much detail of the retinue of followers and sycophants that daily alighted on Picasso's doorstep in Rue Grand Augustin during those mostly war years. One sees completely how it was none other than Picasso himself who craved such fawning even if he did ignore most of their attentions.
It is obvious that Brassai wished to cause no offence with this publication as he discounts all of Picasso's nasty foibles as necessary bohemian artistic exigencies.
The book is full of wonderful photographs of the characters that came into contact with the great man as well as various photos of Picasso's studio, output and abundant clutter.
There is even a complete listing of Picasso's paint requirements. I found that fascinating. One is reminded of Marcel Duchamp's comments that all paintings are really the same in as much as they all start out as a given colour range of tubes of oil paint.
There is little humanity in the observations and maybe that is no bad thing. Picasso and Sabartes are portrayed as two scheming nuncios whose Catalan dialect was the spoken code of choice. Much is given to calcuation of Picasso's position with Byzantine nuance and deliberation. Should he sign this picture? Should he see that dealer?
Overall, a valuable addition to the ouevre on Picasso and a book that can easily be dipped into from time to time.
Rating: 5
Summary: A must for Picasso fans
Comment: This is quite simply a wonderful book, and a splendid new translation of a great classic about the Paris art world during the 30s and 40s. Brassai was a witty, wry observer of Paris life and an excellent writer as well as photographer. The episodes he captures of Picasso's life are irreplaceable, often hysterical--and not recounted in other, stuffier books on the great modern artist. Highly recommended for art lovers. A pleasure to read
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Title: Life with Picasso by Francoise Gilot ISBN: 0385261861 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 26 May, 1989 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Henry Miller, Happy Rock by Brassai, Jane Marie Todd, University of Chicago Press ISBN: 0226071391 Publisher: University of Chicago Press (Trd) Pub. Date: December, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Brassai : Paris By Night by Brassai ISBN: 0821227386 Publisher: Bulfinch Pub. Date: 01 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $50.00 |
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Title: Diane Arbus Revelations by Doon Arbus ISBN: 0375506209 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 30 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $100.00 |
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