Drawn from the private notebooks and correspondence of Roland Penrose, an intriguing firsthand account of the life and personality of Pablo Picasso. Published here for the first time, these lively writings bring to life with a rare vividness the work, ideas, and milieu of Roland Penrose"s friend?and the subject of his much-acclaimed 1958 biography?Pablo Picasso. What makes the notebooks and correspondence so important is also what makes them so exhilarating and fresh. They are not reconstructions after the event, filtered through memory or rephrased with an eye to literary style. The immediacy of the jottings gives the reader the uncanny sensation of actually being present during Penrose"s frequent encounters with Picasso and his circle?at home with the artist, at bullfights, at the beach, in the studio. The book is filled with anecdotes, incidents, sharp details, and actual conversations that are unconstrained by deference, objectivity, or...