Picasso Total

Nearly a decade after its initial publication, Picasso: The Monograph 1881-1973 is back in print, updated and redesigned in a more user-friendly format. Poligrafa’s brand new edition of this classic volume offers more than 1,200 newly scanned reproductions, spanning Picasso’s entire career and illustrating his breathtaking range of artistic expression, including paintings, drawings, lithographs, ceramics and sculpture. Elegantly translated from the original French, the monograph weaves biographical details with thorough elucidations of the artist’s work into a concise and seamless narrative. All three contributors are highly regarded in Picasso scholarship: Brigitte Leal and Marie-Laure Bernadac, both former curators of the Musee Picasso in Paris, are now respectively curators of the Centre Pompidou and the Louvre Museum, while Christine Piot co-authored the catalogue raisonne of Picasso’s sculpture. Leal covers Picasso’s formative years through 1916, including his co-invention of Cubism with Georges Braque. Piot focuses on the artist’s glory years from 1917 through 1952, and Bernadac discusses the vigor of Picasso’s later years, from 1953 until his death in 1973. With clearly organized visual sources, acknowledgements of leading art historians’ interpretations and quotes from Picasso’s contemporaries, this book remains unsurpassed as the definitive Picasso monograph for students and art lovers alike.