It’s coming up to 7am, the night after my pal Dan’s 50th birthday party. After a few hours sleep, I’m awake again, and not likely to get back to sleep for a while. So I decided to add a few more of my book reviews to Good Reads.
Two of the additions were titles by Catalan writer, poet and Picasso expert Josep Palau i Fabre (read more on him here). The first was my first plush art book purchase (pictured above), bought whilst still in my teens. The second (below) I bought many years later.
And tonight, whilst doing the reviews and unable to sleep, I ordered, via Amazon, i Fabre’s third in the series, Picasso: From the Ballets to Drama, 1917-1926.
Was i Fabre planning to cover Picasso’s whole life, ultimately? I’ve found another title, possibly the next in such a series. But, rather oddly, there’s no mention of any such book on the Wikipedia page about his life and works I’ve linked to above.
Whatever his plans and ambitions may have been in this respect (and the writings of John Richardson, also on Picasso, spring to mind in this connection), i Fabre died in 2008, aged 90, not having got further – in terms of the chronological catalogue raisonne type works – than either this, or the possible sequel, Picasso: From Minotour To Guernica 1927-1939.
So far I have just the first two volumes, both big fat chunky hardbacks, The Early Years, 1881-1907, and Cubism, 1907-1917, purchased many years apart. Having ordered number three in the series, Ballets & Drama, 1917-1926 – at a very reasonable £27.75 (inc. postage!) – I’m very excited at the prospect of both enlarging my collection and, best of all, perusing all the artworks.
I’d get the next one, as well, if I could find it at an affordable price. The cheapest copy on Amazon UK when I made my most recent order was priced at £220! I think I’ll try shopping around a bit. Mind you, the three copies listed on Abebooks.com right now range from £360 to £1,400! Making the initially exorbitant £220 seem quite reasonable!
If I’m honest the textual content, whilst of interest, is a distant second to the images. Like a lot of art history or related literature, the texts of the two I have are hardly the main selling point, for me; rather hagiographic, and a bit lumpen – is this partly the translation? (I’m not in a rush to read his poetry!) – I do dip into it.
But the pictorial content, Picasso’s work, is what it’s all about for me.