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University of California Press

About the Book

This updated version of the celebrated biography contains a final chapter depicting the hurried creativity of Picasso's last years. A surrealist artist and organizer of a number of major exhibitions, Roland Penrose was a close friend of Picasso from 1935 until the latter's death in 1973.

About the Author

Sir Roland Algernon Penrose (1900 – 1984) was an English artist, historian and poet. He was a major promoter and collector of modern art and an associate of the Surrealists in the United Kingdom.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
List of Plates
Foreword

1 Origins and Youth (1881-95)
Malaga- Ancestry- Don Jose Marries- An Earthquake -Local
Painters and Painting - Bullfights - Departure for Corunna -
Summer in Malaga

2 Barcelona (1895-1901)
Catalonia and Spain - The Intellectuals Revolt - Arrival in
Barcelona - Science and Charity - Independence and New
Influences - Excursions along the Coast - Visit to Malaga
- Madrid - Horta de San Juan: Summer 1898 - Return to
Barcelona - Els Quatre Gats - Sketchbooks - First
Illustrations - Gaudi - Departure - Paris - New Year in
Malaga - Madrid: Arte Joven - Barcelona: Exhibitions at the
Sala Pares

3 The Blue Period (1901-04)
Return to Paris - Exhibition with Vollard: June 1901 - Work
of the Cabaret Period - Max Jacob - Decoration of Le Zut
- Departure for Barcelona - The Blue Period - Barcelona:
January 1902 - Paris- Barcelona: January 1903-April 1904:
Blindness and Vision

4 Au Rendez-vous des Poetes (1904-06)
The Bateau La voir: the Final Move to Paris - Fernande Olivier
- La Bande Picasso - The First Patrons - The Studio: Late
Blue Period - Au Rendez-vous des Poetes - The Rose Period
- Harlequin - Circus and Saltimbanques - Life in Montmartre

VI PICASSO: HIS LIFE AND WORK
- A Visit to Holland, and Sculpture - First Classical Period
- The Portrait of Gertrude Stein - Gosol

5 Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1906-09)
New Tendencies and Matisse - Recognition - Conflicting
Styles - Les Demoiselles d'Avignon - Negro Period - Literary
Friends- The Douanier Rousseau- A Duel- The Beginning
of Cubism - La Rue des Bois - Horta de San Juan: Summer
1909 - Return to Paris

6 The Creation of Cubism (1909-14)
Move to Boulevard de Clichy - The Cubist Portraits:
Analytical Cubism - Summer in Cadaques - The Heroic Days
of Cubism - The Subject Matter in Cubism - Ceret - First
Reactions to Cubism - L 'Affaire des Statues - Changes at
Home - The Beginning of Collage - Papiers colles and the
Return of Colour - The Widening Influence of Cubism -
Synthetic Cubism - Cubist Constructions - The Woman in a
Chemise - Avignon

7 First World War- Paris and Rome (1914-18) 195
Cubism at the Outbreak of War - Paris Goes to War - Max
Jacob and the Death of Eva - The Crystal Period - 'Back to
Ingres'- Life during the War- The Russian Ballet- A Visit to
Barcelona - Marriage and the Move into Paris - Guillaume
Apollinaire - The Armistice - Biarritz

8 'Beauty Must be Convulsive' (1918-30)
The Ballet in London - Pulcine/la and Cuadra Flamenco -
Mercure - Portraits and Drawings - Le Midi - Monumental
Nudes - Three Musicians - Fontainebleau: Mother and ChildExhibitions
- The Dinard Still-Jifes - Varied Styles - The
Great Still-lifes - Surrealism - 'Beauty Mu'st be Convulsive' -
Social Contacts - Renewed Violence - The Anatomy of
Dreams - A Crucifixion - Sculpture

9 Boisgeloup: Sculpture and the Minotaur (1930-36) 263
Le Chef d'ceuvre inconnu and Ovid's Metamorphoses -
Boisgeloup: New Activities - Still-lifes - Anatomy Reshaped -
Moonlike Heads: A New Model - Widespread Recognition -
The Sculptor's Studio - The Horned God - Picasso the Poet -
The Return of Jaime Sabartes - Paul Eluard - Picasso
Acclaimed in Spain and Paris - Secret Visit to Juan-les-Pins -
Summer in Paris- Civil War in Spain- August at Mougins

10 Guernica (1936-39)
Le Tremblay - Dream and Lie of Franco - A Mural for the
Spanish Pavilion - Premonitions - Picasso Furioso -
Universality of Meaning- The Public and Picasso- Return to
Mougins - The Autumn in Paris - Paul Eluard and the
Spanish War- Visit to Paul Klee- Mougins: 1938- Guernica
Travels - Illness and Recovery

11 Second World War- Royan and Paris (1939-45) 325
Royan - The German Occupation - Return to Paris - Picasso
as Playwright - Portraits of D. M. - Still-life and Figure
Paintings - Sculpture - Death of Max Jacob - Landscapes of
Paris and a Still-life - Liberation - Picasso: the Communist -
Exhibitions - The Charnel House

12 Antibes and Vallauris (1945-54) 357
Return to the Mediterranean - A New Medium and a New
Model - Picasso and the Museums - Ceramics at Vallauris -
Picasso and the Cause of Peace - Family Life - The Man with
the Sheep and the Vallauris Chapel - War and Peace - The
Temple of Peace - Paris: Books and Paul Eluard - Sculpture
and Painting at Vallauris- More Paintings and New Versions
of old Masterpieces - The Death of Friends - Separation - A
Season in Hell

13 'La Californie' ( 1954-58)
Tauromachia - Les Femmes d'Alger - Exhibitions - Cannes -
Films - Politics - Visitors and Friends - Paterfamilias - Picasso
Entertains - The Unesco Mural and another Project - Las
Meninas - Some Paintings of 1958

14 Vauvenargues: Departure from Cannes:
Spanish Friends (1959-61 and after)
Le Mont Sainte Victoire - A Monument for Apollinaire -
Figures and a Fountain - More Exhibitions - A New Spanish
Period - A Secret Rendez-vous and Public Celebrations

15 Le mas Notre Dame de Vie (1961-70)
A New Refuge - Sculpture: Intimate and Monumental - The
Chicago Picasso - Painting: the Artist and his Model and The
Sabines - Drawings - Lino-cuts - Engravings and Eroticism -
Unwelcome Ordeals- Homage to Picasso

16 Last Years (1970-73)
El Entierro del Conde de Orgaz - Le Palais des Papes - The
Vlll PICASSO: HIS LIFE AND WORK
Great Collage of 1937 Becomes a Tapestry - The Museo
Picasso - A New Language - Conclusion

Postscript
Appendix
Acknowledgements
Selected Bibliography
Index

Reviews

"An immensely likable book, and one which makes its hero immensely likeable."
Times Literary Supplement
"A work of absorbing interest."
Observer
"Densely factual, yet coherent and vital . . . it abounds in significant anecdotes, in intimate revelations . . . full and fascinating, intimate and authoritative." 
Listener
"A major contribution to the understanding of twentieth-century art . . . illuminating to a rare degree."
Manchester Guardian
"One of the most satisfactory full biographies of recent years."
Time and Tide
"Intimate, yet objective; comprehensive, yet enthralling; this biography of the greatest artists of our century will rank with Vasari in the annals of European painting."—Sir Herbert Read