A Life of Picasso Volume III
  • Published: 30 September 2011
  • ISBN: 9781448112531
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 608

A Life of Picasso Volume III

The Triumphant Years, 1917-1932

Formats & editions
EBook
30 Sep 2011
Paperback
1 Feb 2009
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The magisterial third volume in John Richardson's prize-winning life of the great artist

Drawing on exhaustive research from interviews and unpublished archival material, John Richardson has produced the long-awaited third volume of the definitive biography, full of original, groundbreaking new insights into Picasso's life and work. His lively and incisive analysis of the work meshes seamlessly with the rich and detailed narrative of this complex and sensual life.

The Triumphant Years reveals Picasso at the height of his powers, producing not only the costumes and sets for such Diaghilev Ballets Russes productions as Parade and Tricorne but some of his most important sculpture and paintings. These are tumultuous years, Picasso torn between marital respectability with Olga, the Russian ballerina who was his first wife, and the erotic passion of his mistress, Marie-Therese.

This extraordinary biography ends with the completion of a dramatic series of drawings of the crucifixion. From then on the horrors of war would replace any private horrors, leading ultimately to Picasso's masterpiece, Guernica.
  • Published: 30 September 2011
  • ISBN: 9781448112531
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 608
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About the author

John Richardson

John Richardson was born in London in 1924. He studied art at the Slade School but soon gave up painting for art criticism. In 1949 he moved to France, where befriended Picasso, Braque, Léger, and Cocteau. The first volume of his magisterial four-volume A Life of Picasso won the Whitbread Prize in 1991. He was also the author of the memoir, The Sorcerer's Apprentice; an essay collection, Sacred Monsters, Sacred Masters; and books on Manet and Braque. He wrote for the New York Review of Books, New Yorker and Vanity Fair. He was made a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy in 1993, and served as the Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford University from 1995 to 1996. He died in 2019.

Also by John Richardson

A Life of Picasso Volume IV
A Life of Picasso Volume II
A Life of Picasso Volume I
See all

Praise for A Life of Picasso Volume III

No man is better qualified to write the biography of Picasso...he writes with such fluency, simplicity and clarity that his knowledge and illuminating wisdom are very lightly borne... A marvellous book

Brian Sewell, Evening Standard

A colossal undertaking that has taken almost his whole life and will enrich yours forever

The Spectator

A monumental life of Picasso

Independent on Sunday

Every page provides some insightful and fascinating information

William Boyd, 'Books of the Year', Sunday Herald

Gossipy, profound, insightful and non-judgmental, Richardson is terrific company. This volume joins its predecessors as unrivalled among artists' biographies

Financial Times

I love this tumultuous, mercurial, idiosyncratic cavalcade of a book... It is a book that manages to be simultaneously individual and authoritative, and makes one impatient for the next volume

Philip Hensher, Daily Telegraph

Out of the detail the man Picasso emerges, as startling as a character in any good novel...it is glorious to read the story of an artist which does not make the sins count for more than the paintings, does not forget the life while theorising the paintings to dust. Richardson is writing the life of Picasso without ever forgetting the point of him

Michael Pye, Scotsman

Richardson, a magisterial writer, brilliant critic and deliriously funny raconteur, is a unique, dazzling match for his subject

Financial Times

Richardson's argument, cogent, witty and persuasive, backed up by prodigious research and sumptuous illustrations, makes this herculean biography increasingly harsh, tough and uncomfortable to read

Observer

The latest instalment of the finest artistic biography ever written

Waldemar Januszczak, Sunday Times

The most striking aspect of this surefooted account is the link that Richardson shows between the women in Picasso's life and the direction of his art

New Statesman

Unmissably good

Tim Martin, 'Christmas Biography Choice' Daily Telegraph