Picasso

With the pile next to my bed teetering close to collapse I thought it was time to eliminate the fattest offender so I'm reading the Picasso biography by John Richardson. Not exactly a page turner. And I'm only half way through it but I am sorry that the photos are not in color---black and white doesn't do justice to the Blue Period and I think to tell the story visually you need that progression of color in the work. Richardson seems to be a bit petty in the begining hinting that Picasso rather than acknowledging his juvenalia instead destroyed it all to preserve the myth that he sprang fully formed as an artist from the head of his very mediocre artist father.
But it reads a bit like a social diary recounting names of everyone he ever crossed paths with and all his addresses and mistresses, most of them described by Richardson as "Cecilia, a whore, Rosita, a whore...".
It's fun to read about Picasso's supersticions about age, he would never let old people sleep in his house in case it rubbed off. So when an 80 year old bosom friend visits, the 80 year old Picasso makes him stay in a hotel just in case death enters the house. Apparently he would also steal his son's clothes and keep his toys near him in case "the youthfulness might still cling to them" and rejuvenate him . I have taken to carrying a couple of Liv's Hamtaro's in my pockets. I'll get back to you on the results.