Conversations with Picasso Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

Conversations with Picasso Book

Henry Miller called Brassaï (born Gyula Halasz) "The Eye of Paris." As a photographer, journalist, and author of photographic monographs and literary criticism, he had an uncanny ability to capture the Paris art world of the mid-20th century. Conversations with Picasso, originally published in 1964, is a collection of Brassaï's memoirs, resurrected from scraps of paper he stored in a huge vase each night after his talks with the famous Spanish painter, whose work he photographed from 1932 to 1962. In keeping with the lively bohemian spirit that so characterized Pablo Picasso's milieu, Brassaï wrote these notes in a vivid, conversational style, and they are now vignettes, of a sort, from a theatrical time capsule. Presented alongside the actual photographs he took during his visits with Picasso, Brassaï's anecdotes of the artist and his most intimate associates paint an unforgettable portrait of Picasso the master artist and the man. Sly humor and telling details embellish these accounts--in one particularly well-rendered scene, Picasso throws a temper tantrum over a lost flashlight--that vividly depict many of the artist's creative revelations, his insatiable curiosity, and his views on the art of his time, including that of the surrealists. One very strong image depicts Picasso, with brush in hand, using a palette made of newspaper. Confiscated by military censors due to the mere presence of World War II headlines, this photo represents one of the many wartime frustrations Picasso endured, including using a bathroom for a studio and secretly casting sculptures in scarce bronze at night. Underneath the worshipful posturing so prevalent in writings of the time, in which an everyday shopping list of paint colors is hailed as a prose poem, Brassaï offers an intimate chronicle full of loving detail of the impossible yet delightful enfant terrible. Entertaining, charming, light but truly satisfying fare. --A.C. Smith Read More

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  • Product Description

    "Read this book if you want to understand me"--Pablo Picasso Since the early days of his career, Brassaï has been our guide to avant-garde Paris. Not only was Brassaï a noted photographer--nicknamed "the eye of Paris" by Henry Miller--he was also a prolific author and journalist whose Letters to My Parents was named "a small classic in the history of the medium" by Jed Perl in the New Republic. In that book, as well as many others, Brassaï described, with wit and humor, the many important artists and writers with whom he developed close personal and professional relationships. Not the least among these was Picasso. Brassaï recorded his many meetings and appointments with the great Spanish artist from 1943 to 1946, resulting in Conversations with Picasso.

    While the two artists shared the same milieu in the 1930s, it wasn't until the 1940s that they saw each other on a regular basis, when Brassaï was asked to photograph Picasso's works. Brassaï's recollections of these visits offer an intimate portrait of one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century: a Picasso who described Cezanne as his "one and only master"; a Picasso who throws a tantrum because he lost a flashlight; a Picasso who remained in Paris during the German Occupation. At the same time, these conversations are only about Picasso. They also treat everyone who comes into his life, the artistic and intellectual debates of the time, and the events of World War II.

    Brassaï relates his encounters with Picasso in great detail, from the artist's dull wood studio floor to the smoky cafes. Conversations with Picasso gives us an intimate view of one of the most creative milieus of modern time as well as a rare look at the day-to-day life of Picasso, all from the original perspective of the "eye of Paris." Brassaï (born Gyula Halász, 1899-1984) was a photographer, journalist, and author of photographic monographs and literary criticism, including Letters to My Parents, published by the University of Chicago Press. "When I returned to [Picasso's] apartment the next day, or the day after, he impishly showed me the little forgotten [photographic] plate. . . . With a sharp point, his infinitely patient fingers had transformed it into a minuscule Picasso measuring six by nine centimeters. . . . It was a miniature variant of his major piece of work [which today] belongs to the Museum of Modern Art in New York and is titled Woman in Front of a Mirror."--from Conversations with Picasso

  • 0226071480
  • 9780226071480
  • Brassai
  • 10 December 1999
  • Chicago University Press
  • Hardcover (Book)
  • 412
  • 2nd
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