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 *
- 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