A Life of Picasso: The Triumphant Years

By the time I opened the third volume of John Richardson's biography of Picasso, several years had elapsed since I had read the first two.  The first of those had dealt with the artist's early years, including the Blue and Rose periods, and the second with the invention of Cubism.  I had been greatly impressed by those earlier volumes and had very much been looking forward to reading the third, A Life of Picasso: The Triumphant Years, 1917-1932.

If I was disappointed in the third volume it was not so much Richardson's fault as Picasso's.  Gone was the young bohemian genius who struggled in the Bateau-Lavoir to produce Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and then cavorted nightly through Paris with a motley assortment of friends.  In his place was a successful middle-aged bourgeoisie who dressed in tailored suits, rode in chauffeured limousines and lived in expensive homes.  His marriage to the conservative ballerina Olga Khokhlova was his pass to middle-class respectability.  He moved with her to the Right Bank and deliberately left behind friends such as Max Jacob.  In the summers, he would travel with his wife and child to the Riviera where he would mingle with prominent society figures, such as the Murphys.  In the midst of a mid-life crisis, he began an affair with the seventeen year old Marie-Thérèse Walter.  In the meantime, the poet Guillaume Apollinaire who had been a huge source of inspiration, died from wounds received during World War I.  It was ultimately a rather depressing story.

There are some interesting interesting points along the way, particularly those early on in the book dealing with Picasso's involvement as set designer for the Ballet Russes.  His meetings, not only with Diaghilev and Massine, but also with such composers as Stravinsky and Satie makes for compelling reading.  And all the while, of course, Picasso was producing masterworks of neo-classicism and synthetic Cubism.

Richardson's writing seems less passionate here than in the earlier volumes.  Though he still displays an enormous amount of insight when discussing Picasso's artworks, he seems at times merely performing due diligence as he chronicles the artist's movements month by month through this fifteen year period.  It may be significant that the author has not yet published the projected fourth and final volume of his biography.