John richardson biographer

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    • Famed Picasso biographer and art historian Sir John Richardson opens the doors of residences from his life, revealing an autobiographical sketch through handsomely decorated rooms filled with art, antiques, and intriguing mementoes, each with a special story.

    John Richardson's Bohemian Aristocrat interiors are, and have been throughout his life, filled with fine English and American antiques; interesting textiles; works of art by friends, legendary artists Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Lucian Freud, Andy Warhol, and Robert Mapplethorpe; vivid color combinations; and objects that prompt stories from a well-lived life. From London and the stately buildings of Stowe School, in the idyllic Buckinghamshire countryside, to the south of France, New York City, and the Connecticut countryside, Richardson shares the story of his life through places, objects, and people--a form of autobiography, gloriously illustrated, entertainingly told.
    In stories about his residences in the south of France (at the Château de Castille with celebrated art historian and collector Douglas Cooper), London (a set of rooms at the famed Albany apartment house), and the United States (glamorous New York City apartments and a country retreat in Connecticut), Richardson reveals his life through a mélange of interesting places, mementoes, works of art, furnishings that prompt stories, and an endlessly fascinating assortment of friends and acquaintances--Fernand Léger, Lady Diana Cooper, Fran Lebowitz, and Oscar and Annette de la Renta, to name a few. Essential reading for those interested in twentieth-century art and social history, grandly livable interiors, and the good life.

    Sir John Richardson, KBE, FBA is a British art historian and Picasso biographer. He ran the New York office of Christie's for nine years, starting in ; has consulted with galleries and a mutual fund specializing in works of art; and has contributed to The New Yorker and Vanity Fair.

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    • the art of Biography:

    Sir John Richardson’s

    “The Minotaur Years”

    Winter Issue

    Pepe Karmel celebrates the release of A Life of Picasso IV: The Minotaur Years, –, the final installment of Sir John Richardson’s magisterial biography.

    Sir John Richardson, New York, Photo: Janette Beckman/Getty Images

    Pepe Karmel teaches in the Department of Art History, New York University. His book Picasso and the Invention of Cubism was published by Yale University Press in He has curated or cocurated many exhibitions and has contributed to numerous exhibition catalogues, as well as to publications including Art in America and the New York Times.

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    John Richardson was fourteen years old in the fall of when Pablo Picasso sent his recently completed Guernica to an exhibition at London’s New Burlington Galleries. Richardson’s art teachers encouraged him to go to London to see the show, organized to raise money for victims of the Spanish Civil War. Years later he would recall, “I was so struck by the power of Guernica that I decided to find out more about this overwhelmingly exciting artist.”

    Richardson’s youthful curiosity bore fruit in his multivolume Life of Picasso, the greatest biography of an artist ever written. The Minotaur Years, –, published in November, , marks the last installment in this heroic enterprise, which extended over two decades. Richardson published the first volume, covering the years –, in The second volume, The Painter of Modern Life, –, appeared in That year, Richardson turned seventy-two. Perhaps foreseeing that he might not be able to carry the biography to its conclusion, he temporarily set it aside and wrote The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Picasso, Provence and Douglas Cooper, an enthralling memoir of the postwar art world recounting numerous personal conversations with Picasso and his wife Jacqueline. Richardson then returned to work on the biography. The third volume, The Trium

      John richardson biographer
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    • The most detailed biography of Picasso

    Interviews and notes

    Richardson’s fascination with Picasso dates back to his teenage years, when he tried to persuade his mother to lend him £50 to buy a print by the artist. Later on, from the s onwards, Richardson coincided with Picasso when they were both living in the south of France and remained close to him for years. Intending to write a biography, Richardson kept a diary of his meetings with Picasso and after the artist’s death his widow Jacqueline Roque agreed to collaborate with the author by allowing him access to the archives and documents she held. Richardson performed a mammoth task; he compiled and organised abundant documented details about the artist’s life with great narrative skill while also providing well-founded interpretations that give an insight into moments and situations. The result is the four volumes that make up A Life of Picasso: The Prodigy, − (vol. 1), ; The Cubist Rebel, − (vol. 2), ; The Triumphant Years, − (vol. 3), ; and The Minotaur Years, − (vol. 4), The first two volumes have been translated into Spanish and all of them are accompanied by numerous illustrations of works, people and places.

    The Minotaur Years

    Pablo Picasso, Minotaur Caressing the Hand of a Sleeping Woman with its Muzzle, Boisgeloup, 18 June Drypoint on copperplate, printed on paper, × cm. Date don plate in reverse lower left: Boisgeloup. 18 juin XXXIII. Museo Picasso Málaga. Gift of Bernard Ruiz-Picasso. © FABA Photo: Hugard & Vanoverschelde Photography © Sucesión Pablo Picasso, VEGAP, Madrid,

    Volume 4 examines the decade from to , a period full of tensions, crises and aesthetic discoveries for the artist. The title chosen by Richardson refers to the prints depicting the human and animal figure which Picasso borrowed from Greek mythology for his iconographic repertoire and translated visually into an embodiment of desire, an expression of aggression or guilt, joyfully humanised or with the violence of

    John Richardson (art historian)

    American art historian (–)

    For other people with the same name, see John Richardson.

    Sir John Patrick Richardson, KBE, FBA (6 February – 12 March ) was a British art historian and biographer of Pablo Picasso. Richardson also worked as an industrial designer and as a reviewer for The New Observer.

    In , he moved to Provence, where he became friends with Picasso, Fernand Léger and Nicolas de Staël. In , he moved to New York and organized a nine-gallery Picasso retrospective. Christie's then appointed him to open their U.S. office, which he ran for the next nine years. In he joined New York gallery M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., as vice president in charge of 19th- and 20th-century painting, and later became managing director of Artemis, a mutual fund specializing in works of art.

    In he started devoting all his time to writing and working on his Picasso biography. He was also a contributor to The New Yorker and Vanity Fair.

    In , Richardson was elected to the British Academy and in he was appointed Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford. He was awarded France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in and in was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

    Biography

    Youth and education

    John Patrick Richardson was born on 6 February in London, the elder son of Sir Wodehouse Richardson, Quarter-Master General in the Boer War, and founder of the Army & Navy Stores. His mother was Patty (née Crocker); he had a younger sister (b. ) and a younger brother. In , when he was five years old, his father died, and his mother sent him to board at two successive preparatory schools, where he was unhappy. When he was thirteen he became a boarder at Stowe School, where he admired the architecture and landscape and was taught something about the work of Picasso and other innovative painters.

    By and the outbreak of World War II, Richardson knew that he wanted to become an arti