Picasso: A Biography

(Paperback, 50th Anniversary edition)

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The life of the worlds greatest modern artist by one of Britains greatest artists.

'Positive, original, diverting and highly effective. Sunday Times

This biography achieves that rare distinction of never having a dull page. Independent on Sunday

Everything about Picasso, except his physical stature, was on an enormous scale. His appetitel for sex and money, eating and drinking, friends and quarrels, comedy and tragedy, are legendary. No artist of the first rank has been so aw-inspiringly productive. No artist of any rank has made so much money. A few artists have rivalled his life-span of ninety years, but none has attracted so insatiable a public interest.

Patrick OBrian, author of the famous Aubrey-Maturin novels, was a near neighbour of Picassos in the south of France for many years and knew him well. His much admired biography gives full weight to hte distinctly Mediterranean origins of Picassos character and art. The man that emerges from teh pages of this scholarly and passionate biography is one of many contradictions: hard and tender, mean and generous, affectionate and cold, private despite his relish of fame. A man who, despite the professed communism of his later years, in OBrians view, retained to the end of his life a residual Catholic mentality.

Reviews

'Positive, original, diverting and highly effective. Sunday Times

Awe-inspiring; as a piece of writing this biography achieves that rare distinction of never having a dull page. Independent on Sunday

Much the best biography of Picasso. It is full of information, the judgements both of Picasso as a man and as an artist seem to me remarkably convincing, and it is extremely well written. Kenneth Clark

Author Bio

Patrick OBrian, until his death in 2000, was one of our greatest contemporary novelists. He is the author of the acclaimed AubreyMaturin tales and the biographer of Joseph Banks and Picasso. He is the author of many other books including Testimonies, and his Collected Short Stories. In 1995 he was the first recipient of the Heywood Hill Prize for a lifetimes contribution to literature. In the same year he was awarded the CBE. In 1997 he received an honorary doctorate of letters from Trinity College, Dublin. He lived for many years in South West France and he died in Dublin in January 2000.