A quiet, satisfying ending to a masterful accomplishment.
The final chapter of a magisterial biography.
It has been 30 years since Richardson (1924-2019) published his first volume in this grand, highly detailed, and intimate four-volume biography of his close friend. Though this volume ends in 1943, Picasso would go on to create for another three decades. The author’s unique, extensive knowledge and insider information about Picasso—both the man and artist—informs insightful explications of the nuances and symbolism in Picasso’s works; his personal relationships with other artists, writers, and women; and his work habits. By the early 1930s, Picasso’s marriage with Olga was broken, and he was deeply enmeshed with a new, young mistress and model, Marie-Thérèse Walter. That year, he created one of his finest sculptures, Woman With a Lamp (aka Woman With Vase), which graces his gravesite. Richardson believes that sculpture represents Picasso’s long-dead sister, Conchita. The artist’s 1934 Blind Minotaur “commemorates Picasso’s lifelong obsession with his eyesight.” When the surrealists launched a new magazine, Minotaure, Picasso contributed an engraving of a minotaur for the magazine’s cover, thus securing his place within the controversial movement. During lengthy divorce proceedings, he turned to poetry, “painting with words.” Busy juggling multiple mistresses, he settled on a relationship with Dora Maar, “a striking and sophisticated twenty-nine-year-old surrealistic photographer.” During the Spanish Civil War, Richardson notes, Picasso’s works took on a “potent political symbolism” that would inspire one of his greatest paintings, Guernica, which vividly captures his loathing for fascism. He had already done some pieces indicting Franco, but the bombing of the Basque town inspired a massive mural. First exhibited at the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris, “Guernica would establish Picasso as the world’s most celebrated modern artist.” Richardson notes that Picasso’s pieces during this period reflect the substantial influence of Vincent van Gogh, “enthroned in his visual memory.” This final, lavishly illustrated volume softly slips away with Richardson continuing to chronicle Picasso obsessively creating.
A quiet, satisfying ending to a masterful accomplishment.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-307-26666-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.
The iconic model tells the story of her eventful life.
According to the acknowledgments, this memoir started as "a fifty-page poem and then grew into hundreds of pages of…more poetry." Readers will be glad that Anderson eventually turned to writing prose, since the well-told anecdotes and memorable character sketches are what make it a page-turner. The poetry (more accurately described as italicized notes-to-self with line breaks) remains strewn liberally through the pages, often summarizing the takeaway or the emotional impact of the events described: "I was / and still am / an exceptionally / easy target. / And, / I'm proud of that." This way of expressing herself is part of who she is, formed partly by her passion for Anaïs Nin and other writers; she is a serious maven of literature and the arts. The narrative gets off to a good start with Anderson’s nostalgic memories of her childhood in coastal Vancouver, raised by very young, very wild, and not very competent parents. Here and throughout the book, the author displays a remarkable lack of anger. She has faced abuse and mistreatment of many kinds over the decades, but she touches on the most appalling passages lightly—though not so lightly you don't feel the torment of the media attention on the events leading up to her divorce from Tommy Lee. Her trip to the pages of Playboy, which involved an escape from a violent fiance and sneaking across the border, is one of many jaw-dropping stories. In one interesting passage, Julian Assange's mother counsels Anderson to desexualize her image in order to be taken more seriously as an activist. She decided that “it was too late to turn back now”—that sexy is an inalienable part of who she is. Throughout her account of this kooky, messed-up, enviable, and often thrilling life, her humility (her sons "are true miracles, considering the gene pool") never fails her.
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9780063226562
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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