Read The Success and Failure of Picasso Online
Authors: John Berger
Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Artists; Architects; Photographers
The Success and Failure of Picasso
FIRST VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL EDITION, DECEMBER 1993
Copyright © 1965, 1989 by John Berger
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in Great Britain and the United States by Penguin Books in 1965 and 1966. Reprinted in 1980 by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Macmillan Publishing Company and A.P. Watt Ltd. for permission to reprint “The Spur” from
Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats.
Copyright 1940 by Georgie Yeats, renewed 1968 by Bertha Georgie Yeats, Michael Butler Yeats, and Anne Yeats; “Crazy Jane on the Day of Judgment,” and “Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop” from
Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats.
Copyright 1933 by Macmillan Publishing Company, renewed 1961 by Bertha Georgie Yeats. Rights outside the U.S. administered by A.P. Watt Ltd. on behalf of Michael B. Yeats and Macmillan London Ltd.
Chapter 3
, “A Last Tribute,” first appeared under the title “An Old Man’s Frenzy” in
Art International
, issue no. 3, Summer 1988, pp. 21-30.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Berger, John.
The success and failure of Picasso/John Berger.
– 1st Vintage International ed.
p. cm.
Originally published: New York: Pantheon Books, 1989.
eISBN: 978-0-307-79424-6
1. Picasso, Pablo, 1881–1973–Criticism and interpretation.
I. Title.
ND553.P5B45 1993
709’.2–dc20 93-13121
v3.1
I dedicate this book to my Anya, to Ernst Fischer, and to the memory of Max Raphael,
1
a forgotten but great critic. The three of them persuaded me.
1
Proudhon, Marx, Picasso
(Excelsior Press, Paris, 1933).
Contents
1. Picasso
2. The Painter
3. A Last Tribute
I would like to acknowledge the help of Tony Richardson throughout all stages of the production of this book – and especially for all his work in the tracing and collecting of the plates.
J.B.
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the Artists Rights Society, Inc., for permission to reproduce the work of Pablo Picasso, Roger de la Fresnaye, Juan Gris, and Fernand Léger (all copyright ARS N.Y./SPADEM, 1988) and that of Georges Braque, Robert Delaunay, and Constantin Brancusi (copyright ARS N.Y./ADAGP, 1988). For their help in supplying specific photographs, we are indebted as follows: to Studio Alfieri for illustration
14
; to Mariette Lachaud for
17
; to the Arts Council for
18
,
23
,
42
,
99
,
100
, and
106
; to Giraudon for
52
and
66
; to Éditions Cercle d’Art for
68
; to Jean Mohr for
91
; and to Galerie Louise Leiris for
103
,
105
, and
107
–
20
. The remaining photographs have been obtained from the institutions and individuals acknowledged in the list of illustrations.
ILLUSTRATIONS
a.
Picasso:
Self-Portrait
, autumn 1906 (Musée Picasso, Paris)
1
Château de Boisgeloup, Normandy
2
Picasso and Françoise Gilot at Golfe Juan, 1948 (photo: Robert Capa)
3
Picasso:
An Old Man
, 1895 (private collection)
4
Spanish landscape (photo: Jean Mohr)
5
Spanish peasants harvesting peppers (photo: Jean Mohr)
6
Easter procession in Lorca (photo: Jean Mohr)
7
Spanish peasants returning from market (photo: Jean Mohr)
8
Barcelona, Las Ramblas (photo: Jean Mohr)
9
Picasso:
Head of a Horse
, 1937 (on extended loan to the Museum of Modern Art, New York, from the artist)
10
Rubens:
Christ Crucified Between Two Thieves
, 1620 (Antwerp)
11
Picasso:
Portrait of Artist’s Father
, 1895
12
Picasso:
Portrait of Artist’s Mother
, 1895
13
Picasso:
The Coiffure
, 1954 (Rosengart collection)
14
Picasso:
Jacqueline with Black Scarf
, 1954 (private collection)
15
Picasso:
Seated Woman
, 1955 (Rosengart collection)
16
Braque:
Studio
,
VIII
, 1954–55 (Douglas Cooper collection)
17
Braque:
The Bird and Its Nest
, 1955–56
18
Picasso:
Self-Portrait
, 1901 (private collection)
19
Picasso:
The Frugal Meal
, 1904
20
Picasso:
Clown with a Glass
(self-portrait), 1905 (private collection)
21
Picasso:
Family of Saltimbanques
, 1905 (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Chester Dale collection)
22
Picasso:
Acrobat’s Family with Ape
, 1905 (Gothenburg Art Gallery)
23
Picasso:
Still-life with Chair-caning
, 1912 (private collection)
24
Fra Angelico:
The Vocation of St Nicholas
(detail), 1437 (Vatican Museum)
25
Picasso:
The Fruit-dish
, 1912 (private collection)
26
Courbet:
Les Demoiselles des bords de la Seine
, 1856 (Petit Palais, Paris)
27
Courbet:
The Pond
, 1860s (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna)
28
Poussin:
Orpheus and Eurydice
, 1650 (Louvre, Paris)
29
Cézanne:
Trees by the Water
, 1900–04 (private collection)
30
Braque:
Bottle, Glass, and Pipe
, 1913 (Lady Hulton collection)
31
Picasso:
Portrait of Monsieur Kahnweiler
, 1910 (courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago)
32
Gris:
Portrait of Picasso
, 1911–12 (courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago. Gift of Leigh Block)
33
Robert Delaunay:
The Eiffel Tower
, 1910 (Guggenheim Museum, New York)
34
Roger de la Fresnaye:
Conquest of the Air
, 1913 (Museum of Modern Art, New York, Mrs Simon Guggenheim Fund)
35
Carlo Carra:
The Funeral of the Anarchist Galli
, 1911 (Museum of Modern Art, New York, Lillie P. Bliss Bequest)
36
Picasso:
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
, 1907 (Museum of Modern Art, New York, Lillie P. Bliss Bequest)
37
Cézanne:
Les Grandes Baigneuses
, 1898–1906 (Philadelphia Museum of Art)
38
Picasso:
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
, 1907 (Museum of Modern Art, New York, Lillie P. Bliss Bequest)
39
Braque:
Nude
, 1907–8 (Madame Cuttoli collection)
40
Picasso:
Landscape with Bridge
, 1908 (National Gallery, Prague)
41
Braque:
Houses at Estaque
, 1908 (Rupf Foundation, Berne)
42
Picasso:
Girl with a Mandolin
, 1910 (private collection, New York)
43
Braque:
Girl with a Mandolin
, 1910 (private collection)
44
Picasso:
The Violin
, 1913 (Philadelphia Museum of Art)
45
Picasso: Curtain for
Parade
, 1917 (Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris)
