The Success and Failure of Picasso

John Berger

Pantheon Books, 1989 - 220 pages

At the height of his powers, Pablo Picasso was the artist as revolutionary, breaking through the niceties of form in order to mount a direct challenge to the values of his time. At the height of his fame, he was the artist as royalty: incalculably wealthy, universally idolized--and wholly isolated.In this stunning critical assessment, John Berger--one of this century's most insightful cultural historians--trains his penetrating gaze upon this most prodigious and enigmatic painter and on the Spanish landscape and very particular culture that shaped his life and work.

Contents

• Woman in a Red Armchair 1932 reproduced by courtesy: 89
• the Trustees of the Tate Gallery London: 156
• Nude 1933: 158

About the author

John Peter Berger was born in London, England on November 5, 1926. After serving in the British Army from 1944 to 1946, he enrolled in the Chelsea School of Art. He began his career as a painter and exhibited work at a number of London galleries in the late 1940s. He then worked as an art critic for The New Statesman for a decade. He wrote fiction and nonfiction including several volumes of art criticism. His novels include A Painter of Our Time, From A to X, and G., which won both the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Booker Prize in 1972. His other works include an essay collection entitled Permanent Red, Into Their Labors, and a book and television series entitled Ways of Seeing. In the 1970s, he collaborated with the director Alain Tanner on three films. He wrote or co-wrote La Salamandre, The Middle of the World, and Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000. He died on January 1, 2017 at the age of 90.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Success and Failure of Picasso; Art History : Criticism
• Author: John Berger
• Edition: 2, revised
• Publisher: Pantheon Books, 1989
• Original from: the University of Michigan
• Digitized: Nov 14, 2007
• ISBN: 0679722726, 9780679722724
• Length: 220 pages