when he was working on a study of Picasso’srnportraits and going through hundredsrnof photographs with him, the artistrn”pointed out the iconographical complexitiesrninvolved [aird revealed] how certainrnimages represented not only DorarnMaar but also her predecessor, MariernTherese, as well as Lee Miller and Inez,rnthe maid.”rnThe Picasso that emerges from thisrnbook (foreshadowing the later volumes ofrnRichardson’s biography) is small and delicate,rnwith unassuming courtesy and a radiantrnsmile. He had to be surrounded byrnan entourage who believed in him andrnhis work. He receix’ed or refused visitors,rnplaying them off against each other inrnkingly fashion. When eating fried octopus,rnhe would wipe his oily fingers on hisrnbald pate to make his hair grow. Hernloved to get unusual gifts and generouslyrngave away his own drawings. (Cooperrnkept all those given to both himself andrnRichardson.) Like a magician, Picassorncould transform old rubbish into sculpture.rnHis astonishing personal magnetismrnlasted right into his 90’s, and hernwould feed on the energ}’ of his followersrnand use it to fuel a night’s work in his studio.rnSuperstitious about the merest mentionrnof death, he always remained an exilernfrom Spain. Richardson describesrnhim in the frontier town of Port Bou,rn”glowering at his beloved country, a fewrnhundred yards avsay, which he had beenrnunable to visit for almost hvent}’ years andrnwould never visit again.”rnJust as Fitzgerald observed that Hemingvv’a)’rn”needs a new woman for each bigrnbook,” so Dora Maar, one of Picasso’srnmany mistresses, said that when thernwoman in his life changed, “virtually even,rnthing else changed; the style that epitomizedrnthe new companion, the housernor apartinent thev shared, the poet whornser’ed as a supplementar}’ muse, the tertuliarn(group of friends) that provided thernunderstanding and support he craved,rnand the dog that rarelv left his side.” ButrnPicasso devoured women like a minotaur.rnHe reduced Dora to tears, long afterrnhe’d left her, by compelling her to showrnRichardson an old sketchbook that portrayedrnher sexual organs, reasserting hisrnrights over her and turning her back intorna tearful victim. After he’d left Fran9oisernGilot, he severely tested the limits of herrnsuccessor’s devotion. No matter how callouslyrnhe treated Jacqueline Roque, “shernreferred to him as her God, spoke to himrnin the third person and frequently kissedrnhis hands.” .After his death, she shot herselfrnRichardson’s fascinating, stylish, andrnperceptive portraits are etched with acid.rnWriter Bruce Chahvin wore “a superciliousrnsmirk on his prett)’ face.” Sir JohnrnRothcnstein, director of the Tate Gallery,rnwas a toady and a smug chauvinist. AngusrnWilson moved from writing cattyrnshort stories to turning out tiirgid romansrna these. Henn,’ Moore’s assistants wouldrnblow up his “niaquettes into somethingrnairport-sized, or shrink them into saleablernKleinkunst, or slice them, eye-catchingly,rnin half” The pain and degradation ofrnFrancis Bacon’s imagery was based onrn”the violence that he challenged hisrnlovers to inflict on his infinitely receptivernbody.” Richardson, unable to resist evenrnpulling down his idol, quotes Braque’srnclever but meaningless mot: “Picassornused to be a great painter. Now he isrnmerely a genius.”rnNo one has ever been subjected tornmore mythologizing and denigrationrnthan Hemingway. Richardson, professionallyrndedicated to establishing therntruth, offers an eyewitness account of anrnevent that supposedly took place during arncorrida at Nimes in the summer of 1959:rnAs the band struck up the Marseillaise,rnwe all stood. Suddenly Picassornlaughed and pointed down atrnHemingway. The author of Deathrnin the Afternoon was standing rigidlyrnto attention, his right hand up tornhis peaked cap in a military salute.rnWhen Hemingway looked aroundrnand saw that nobody else was salutingrn. . . he withdrew his hand andrnever so slowly repositioned it in hisrnpocket.rnRichardson, having concluded from thisrnincident that Hemingway’s stories werernspurious, proceeds to call the boring andrnpretentious Michel Leiris “a great writer.”rnThe point of the anecdote is to showrnRichardson’s intimacy with Picasso andrnthe artist’s superiority to the naively absurdrnHemingway (an old and greatly respectedrnfriend of Picasso). The incident,rnhowever, seems out of character. Hemingway,rnhaving attended thousands ofrnbullfights in France and Spain under therngaze of many eyes scrutinizing his behavior,rnwould surely have known how to actrnwhen the national anthem was played.rnIn fact, he was not even present at the corridarnto which Richardson refers. In ThernDangerous Summer, Hemingway’s accountrnof the bullfights of 1959, he wrote:rn”I love Nimes but did not feel like leavingrnMadrid, where we had just arrived, tornmake such a long trip to see bulls with alteredrnhorns fought, so decided to stay inrnMadrid.” And, since Richardson is suchrna smarty-pants, it’s worth pointing outrnsome other notable errors: Helena Rubinstein’srnfirst husband was Edward (notrnHorace) Titus; Connie Mellon was thernex-wife of a trustee (not the director) ofrnthe National Gallery’ in Washington; BrianrnUrquhart was Under Secretary-Generalrnfor Political Affairs (not Secretary-rnGeneral) of the United Nations; thernSchatzalp (not the Waldhaus) Hotel inrnDavos inspired the sanatorium inrnThomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain;rnCaptain Cook was killed and eaten inrnHawaii (not Tonga); and Ferragosto is notrnItaly’s Fourth of July—the latter is a patrioticrnholiday, the former (the F’east of thernAssumption on August 15), a religiousrnone.rnRichardson’s 12-year connection withrnCooper ended badly. W’Tien he decidedrnto leave, having learned all he could fromrnhis mentor, he tried to recover his possessionsrnbefore moving to New York. Cooperrnspitefully burned all of Richardson’srnclothes and papers, and refused to returnrnthe precious gifts he’d received from Picasso,rnBraque, and several other artists.rnThere being no locks or burglar alarms atrnthe chateau, Richardson raided thernplace, filled a car with his valuables, andrndrove off.rnAt one point in the book, Richardsonrncompares Cooper to the English criticrnCyril Connolly: “Whereas Douglas usedrnhis wit to wound, Cyril used his to seduce.rnOtherwise they were too alike —rntoo bullied and bullying, bossv and babyish,rnvain and self-hating and fat—to standrneach other for long.” Reviewing Connolly’srnnovel The Rock Pool (1936), aboutrnEnglish expatriates in France, GeorgernOrwell defined the moral chasm betweenrnhis own values and the hedonisticrnand decadent life that Connolly—likernCooper and Richardson—chose to lead:rn”even to want to write about so-calledrnartists who spend on sodomy what theyrnhave gained by sponging betrays a kind ofrnspiritual inadequac}.”rnJeffrey Meyers will publish, this fall, a lifernof George Orwell (Norton), PrivilegedrnMoments: Encounters with Writersrn(Wisconsin), and Hemingway: Life intornArt (Cooper Square).rnAUGUST 2000/33rnrnrn