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Informationen zum Autor Jeanne Mackin Klappentext "A lushly drawn drama of Pablo Picasso's muses, the secret love affairs that inspired some of his greatest works, and the enduring influence of love and art Alana Olson always felt connected to Pablo Picasso. Sure, as a recently graduated art historian and aspiring writer in 1950s New York, Alana was bound to encounter the most renowned artist of the era, but it was her late Italian mother's particular fascination with the man that inspired Alana's doctoral thesis on his work. An assignment for a profile on Picasso from her dream publication leads Alana to intimate interviews with Sara Murphy and Irene Legut-women from a once-vibrant social circle that included the artist. Through their conversations, the women paint a luxurious picture of their time along the French Riviera in 1923, revealing to Alana not only an intimate glimpse into the life and work of the genius, but also unseen works of art, memories of a whirlwind romance, and hidden details that bring Alana closer to Picasso then she ever imagined. Desperate to know the man who influenced so many parts of her life, Alana dives into the glamorous lives of the past. But to do so she must contend with her own reality, including a strained engagement, the male-dominated world of art journalism, and the rising threat to communists in America"-- Leseprobe One Paris 1953 Irène Lagut Pablo Picasso, my lover, the greatest artist who ever lived, almost didn't. At birth, he was a blue-and-white wax statuette of a newborn who didn't move, didn't cry. "Stillborn," the nurse whispered. His mother was almost too exhausted from the birth to notice. But an uncle who had been pacing in the hall with Pablo's father had never seen a stillbirth before and was curious. He leaned over the infant, so close that the burning tip of his cigar touched the baby. Pablo, white and blue, squirmed. He whimpered. His face turned angry red. He wailed lustily. The greatest artist who has ever lived-and that's not just my opinion, I assure you-decided to live. Fire brought him to life. Fire keeps him alive. "Born of fire," I say. "What was that?" Pablo, many years after that miracle birth, turns away from the washstand mirror and glares at me with those all-seeing black eyes. We had dined together at Café de Flore and spent the night at his studio in the Quai des Grands Augustins. We had bedded down among the crates and canvases and statues, decades of his work crammed into the one space he had hoped would be safe from the Germans during the occupation. Mostly, it had been. In fact, they had come sometimes to buy from him, though their regime had declared him a decadent. He sold them a few paintings. And he listened. Listened very carefully, in case he heard anything useful for the resistance. He made jokes to those German soldiers who marched down our avenues and sat in our cafés during the occupation, jokes in secret French slang, which the soldiers only pretended to understand. Those jokes insulted them, as Pablo intended. People used to say of my lover that he lived only for art, that women and politics did not matter to him the way his art mattered. But people change. When Franco and Hitler destroyed that Spanish town, Guernica, Pablo changed. You cannot look at that painting, at the screaming mothers and murdered children and violence of it, and think, This is a man who does not care about people and politics. And I have seen how his face changes when he speaks of Françoise, the woman who is leaving him. "I think it will be a fine day," I said. "But come back to bed, Pablo. It is still early." I smoothed and patted the rumpled sheet that was still damp from our little bacchanal. "The car will be here soon. If I'm not ready, Paulo will honk the horn and make a scene in the street. He's as mad as his mother." "Has Olga really...
