Matisse and Picasso

Francoise Gilot is a very good writer and allows you to meet 2 wonderful characters and their idiosyncrasies. I read the book in 2 days and I loved it. The only thing is it was too short, and i finished it too quickly. I have bought other books written by her.

Francoise Gilot, who spent eight years as one of Picasso's women, wrote of the friendship of these two artists in a way that allows a reader to step back in time and be there. How I felt privileged so many times to be able to understand the nuances of the friendship of two so different men connected by their avid passion for art and the world in which their art lived at the time. Their mutual love of art and mutual will to push the art envelope, to use today's term, forced them into a push-pull competition that flowed through the book like a creek, sometimes dry, sometimes overflowing its banks. Imagine learning the story from the actual words of the artists, in their own chronological time-frames. "Matisse & Picasso, A friendship in Art" has it all, straight from an intimate who was there for eight years and, like his other women, watched from the sidelines afterwards. This book allows you to understand why "once-Picasso, always Picasso" became a mantra for so many women. And you will be treated to illustrations of paintings, graphics and photographs. When the book ended, I was as sorry as Picasso that their friendship ended with death and, in a small way, felt a bit lonely in finishing the book, like Picasso's women, wanting more, much more than was available to me.