Synopses & Reviews
There can be no question that Pablo Picasso (18811973) was the greatest artist of the twentieth century. His genius changed the art of our time, and his influence was most deeply felt during his cubist period, which is the subject of this volume.
Josep Palau i Fabre, author of Picasso 18811907 (Rizzoli, 1981) has spent ten years compiling and studying Picasso's tremendous artistic output during his cubist decade. Beginning with the experiments that culminated in his epoch-making Demoiselles d'Avignon, the book covers his close association with Braque and his work created in Ceret, Sorgues, and Avignon in the years just before World War I, and concludes with the late Harlequin drawings and paintings of 1917. Divided into twenty-four chapters, this study is one of the most detailed accounts to date of Picasso's life and work and includes virtually everything he produced during this prolific period. Magnificent paintings, collages, sketches, and drawings are linked by the author, who astutely shows innovation at its inception, elucidating previously unexplained developments in Picasso's enterprise. Intimate with the landscape before Picasso's eyes, Palau i Fabre also suggests the influence of locale on many works from the artist's summers in Spain and in southern France.
Rarely has an artist's work received such extended documentation as has Picasso's in this impressive volume. These 1,500 paintings and drawings offer an overview of his cubist work that will become a standard resource for years to come. There is a selected bibliography, and a special appendix tracing the reception of Cubism by Picasso's colleagues and critics.