A Life of Picasso Volume IV
The Minotaur Years: 1933–1943
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Vintage Publishing
Published:7th Apr '22
Should be back in stock very soon
'A masterpiece' Sunday Times
'Magisterial... thrilling' Guardian
'Terrifically enjoyable' Daily Telegraph
The beautifully illustrated, long-awaited final volume of John Richardson's magisterial Life of Picasso, drawing on original research from interviews and never-before-seen material in the Picasso family archives.
The Minotaur Years opens in 1933 with a visit by the Hungarian-French photographer Brassaï to Picasso's château in Normandy, Boisgeloup, where he would take his iconic photographs of the celebrated plaster busts of Picasso's lover Marie-Thérèse Walter. Picasso was contributing to André Breton's Minotaur magazine and spending time with the likes of Man Ray, Salvador Dalí, Lee Miller, and the poet Paul Éluard, in Paris and the south of France. It was during this time that Picasso began writing surrealist poetry and became obsessed with the image of himself as the mythic Minotaur.
Richardson shows us the artist being as prolific as ever, painting Walter, as well as the surrealist photographer Dora Maar, who became a muse, collaborator and lover. The bombing of Guernica in April 1937 would inspire Picasso's vast masterwork of the same name, which he painted in just a few weeks for the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris World's Fair. When the Nazis occupied Paris in 1940, Picasso chose to remain in the city despite the threat that his art would be confiscated. In 1943, Picasso met Françoise Gilot who would replace Maar and inspire a brilliant new sequence of paintings.
As always, Richardson tells Picasso's story through his work, analysing how it shows what the artist was feeling and thinking. His fascinating and illuminating narrative immerses us in one of the most exciting moments in twentieth-century cultural history, and brings to a close the definitive and critically acclaimed biography of one of the world's most celebrated artists.
Clever, amusing, flamboyant and outrageous... Even incomplete, this is Richardson's masterpiece. * The Times, *Books of the Year* *
Richardson's monumental biography...comes at you like a roar... As biographer, Richardson is clever, amusing, flamboyant, outrageous - a worthy match for his subject... Even incomplete, this is Richardson's masterpiece. -- Laura Freeman * The Times *
Magnificent, unparalleled... How [Volume IV] manages to be as gripping as it is, as fresh as it is, only the gods of art can answer... Richardson is both an intimate witness and a ravenous historian... No one will ever again be able to combine Richardson's personal familiarity with Picasso with such impressive levels of history, insight, detail, gossip and breezy writing. The greatest art biography ever written can never have a proper ending. It's an incomplete masterpiece. But a masterpiece nevertheless. -- Waldemar Januszczak * Sunday Times *
What a magnificent resource this four-volume biography is, unfinished...yet unrivalled in its blend of erudition and gossipy insights. * Financial Times, *Books of the Year* *
Magisterial... What has always made Richardson's biographical work on Picasso so alive is the fact of his personal friendship with the artist. It is thrilling to read a narrative in which scholarly prose is regularly interrupted with the phrase "Picasso once told me ... " followed by an entirely fresh anecdote... How lucky we are...that Richardson lived long enough to get this far. -- Kathryn Hughes * Guardian *
One of the great biographical enterprises of our times. * New Statesman, *The Best Books of 2022 So Far* *
Terrifically enjoyable... irresistible. -- Alastair Sooke * Daily Telegraph *
No previous biographer of Picasso has commanded such detail, range and depth when dealing with this unendingly inventive and ferociously experimental artist. This fourth volume...reflects Richardson's gift for merging the personal with the professional. * Literary Review *
Gripping, highly readable and thoughtfully illustrated... It's hard to imagine that he could be bettered as our guide in the labyrinth of the minotaur. -- Stephen Smith * Financial Times *
Enlivened by...anecdotal intimacy... Richardson...has ingeniously deciphered the art without demystifying the artist. -- Peter Conrad * Observer *
Every page carries an entertaining story or a fascinating gobbet of artistic gossip. -- Craig Brown * Mail on Sunday *
A fluent writer with a gift for narrative and a sensitive ability to read the artist's work in relation to his life... The decade covered in this volume, which turns on Picasso's identification with the part-beast, part-man mythical Minotaur, is a tumultuous one, both in public and in private life... [it is] deftly presented as Richardson moves from the man to his circle to his art to larger historical events. -- Siri Hustvedt * New York Times Book Review *
Personal and political collide in lively fourth volume of detailed biography... The Minotaur Years retells what might be considered a familiar story, but carries it off with a liveliness generated by short chapters, sharp judgements and occasionally waspish dismissals, all dispatched at pace. It is the fruit of 60 years of thinking, conversing and speculating about the artist, underpinned by detailed looking, research and investigation of his movements moment by moment. -- Matthew Gale * The Art Newspaper *
[Richardson] set the standard for modern artists' biographies...The fourth and final volume...is a worthy follow-up to its predecessors... just as rich, just as astounding. -- Sebastian Smee * Washington Post *
The final chapter of a magisterial biography... The author's unique, extensive knowledge and insider information about Picasso - both the man and artist - informs insightful explications of the nuances and symbolism in Picasso's works... A masterful accomplishment. * Kirkus Reviews *
Monumental... Nobody has brought us closer [than Richardson] to understanding this extraordinary and complex artist. -- Miranda France * Prospect *
[A] magisterial work... superbly illustrated. -- Nicky Haslam * Oldie *
[A] magisterial and superbly illustrated biography. -- Ysenda Maxtone Graham * Daily Mail, *Book of the Week* *
Monumental... This uncompleted project will surely be the Ozymandias of all biographies, since Richardson's talents were uniquely matched to his protean subject. -- Fram Dinshaw * Catholic Herald *
Wonderfully lively, greatly informative and memorably insightful... a great read. -- Alexander Adams * Jackdaw *
- Winner of Whitbread Book Awards: Biography Category 1991
- Winner of Whitbread Book Awards: Book of the Year 1991
ISBN: 9780224031226
Dimensions: 240mm x 190mm x 31mm
Weight: 1121g
320 pages