Reviews

Daix knew Picasso well for a quarter-century and has written two major Picasso catalogues. In this illuminating, thorough critical biography first published in France in 1986 and now updated, Picasso springs to life as actor, witness and didactic explorer of the convulsions of the 20th century. Daix sets the Spanish artist firmly in the context of his circle in France where cross-fertilization of ideas with Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Cocteau, Breton and Gertrude Stein led Picasso to a Faustian view that art must surpass itself and wrest meaning from life. Daix claims Picasso as a forerunner and pioneer of surrealism who used surrealist technique for his own ends-- probing the unconscious. Illustrated with 24 pages of photographs and artworks, this study unravels the creative process in an ``explorer of women'' who loved them for the new dimensions of imagination they unlocked. (Jan.)

Daix, who has been revising his ideas continuously since the appearance of The Private Picasso (co-authored by Edward Quinn, New York Graphic Society, 1987), has produced perhaps the best single-volume study available on Picasso. The facts of his life and work are available in numerous publications, but this work combines Daix's personal knowledge of the artist and his colleagues with the scholar's talent for nuance and the critic's passion for inquiry and insight. Daix's earlier ideas are modified in light of new information and new works recently made public, particularly those of the youthful artist as seen in the Museum of Modern Art's 1989 Picasso and Braque exhibition (see Picasso and Braque: A Symposium, LJ 10/1/92). His book is thus a fine example of the ability of a responsible critic to expand, alter, and even change his views. This is an excellent synthesis of Picasso's private sensual life, his public creative life, and the exhilarating extremes to which art can be taken. Recommended for all collections focusing on the fine arts.-- Paula Frosch, Metropolitan Museum of Art Lib., New York