Loving Picasso: The Private Journal of Fernande Olivier - Hardcover

Honest to the point of bluntness, Olivier--whom Picasso eventually abandoned for Eva Gouel, a younger, more passive friend of hers--sums up her lover as a workaholic, an impulse buyer (when he had cash) of bric-a- brac and good furniture, a contrarian who found charm in wearing peculiar outfits and pretending he had no taste, and a jealous lover who often kept her locked up when he went out. She describes their home, the Bateau Lavoir in Montmartre, as "a weird, squalid building echoing from morning to night with every kind of noise: discussion, singing, shouting, calling, the sound of buckets used to empty the toilet clattering noisily on the floor ... doors slammed, suggestive moaning coming through the closed doors of the studios."

As Picasso biographer John Richardson relates in an afterword, Olivier never rebounded from her rejection by Picasso. Her middle years were dogged by faithless lovers, financial woes, and Gertrude Stein's deviousness (agreeing to help Olivier publish her memoirs, Stein instead wrote her own version of the era). --Cathy Curtis

John Richardson is a noted authority on Picasso's life and work. He is currently working on the third volume of his acclaimed biography of the artist, A Life of Picasso. He lives in New York City.