Pablo Picasso

Posted by Kiki Anderson Feb 21, 2009

While taking notes on Pablo Picasso for the review, I wrote the following:

Women

-mistresses

-mistress v. wife

-Carolyn Lanchner's essays

As I was writing, though, I realized that I just couldn't tackle Picasso and women. It's been covered before, and Lanchner touches on the subject several times in the book. But it seemed just impossible for me to discuss Picasso and women in passing, and then if I gave it a section or a paragraph, it would take on more weight than I wanted. And yet, it's a central theme in his work. He made so many portraits of women, and the iconography is often unsettling and complicated. It's also fascinating, and in no way diminishes his stature; in fact if anything it enhances it.