Conversations with Picasso

"Brassai is a living eye", - wrote Henry Miller. The above is fair not only because the author of this book is one of the greatest photographers. His gaze is the view of the artist, whom nothing leaves indifferent and from which nothing escapes. But the world is too diverse for Brassai to limit itself to one way of expression. He left us the creations of the photographer, but also the artist, drawer, sculptor, filmmaker and writer. One of his first literary works - the History of Maria - is an amazing experiment. Brassai recorded his conversations with the housekeeper so vividly and with such art that the reader had the feeling that the heroine of the book had long been familiar with him.
And then he repeated a successful experience, but not with a modest woman, but with the great Picasso. In the castle of Boagela, Brassai photographed the artist’s sculptures in the light of the headlights of his "Spanish-Suiza". He knew Picasso in those years when he lived on Bosya Street. And then, when the artist moved to the street of Grand-Ogunen. And finally, Brassai comes to him on the Cote d"Azur. Close and friends surround the central figure: Prever, Eluer, Reverydi, Sartre, Camus, Cocteau, Michah ... The book abounds with all kinds of stories, and Brassai, who has the gift of the narrator, reports them in all its splendor and charm. At the same time, his book is a deep analysis, which converts to the reader the scale of giving Picasso and the problems that the artist faced in his work. Dozens of books have been written about the ingenious artist. But in none of them he does not appear before the reader as alive, direct and understandable as in "conversations with Picasso"