The worldwide fame of the handsome, charismatic and photogenic Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) attracted many exceptional photographers, who captured his image, the art in his studios, his lovers,

children and friends. The Hungarians Brassa ï and Robert Capa, the Americans Man Ray, Lee Miller and David Douglas Duncan took pictures of Picasso from 1932 to 1960, from the age of about

50 to 80. They portray the colourful clothing, physical presence and fierce stare of the tanned and muscular artist. Though always anxious about his health, he ’ s usually smoking a strong

Gauloise cigarette. His character is serious and, despite his wit and charm, he rarely smiles in photographs. He usually appears close up, seated or standing in the distance to disguise his

painting. An enthusiastic amateur photographer in his twenties, Picasso took photos that made him question the value realistic art. His lover Fernande Olivier reported that in 1909, “ in a

state of nervous hysteria, he shouted that he had discovered photography, that he wanted to kill himself, he had nothing left to learn ” about realism. He had to change his whole approach

and began to create abstract paintings. In 1909 Picasso and Fernande spent their summer holiday in the remote Catalan village of Horta de Ebro, 15 miles northwest of Tortosa (a town on the

Mediterranean coast between Barcelona and Valencia.) In June Fernande wrote to Gertrude Stein: “ The people here thought we were photographers, and everyone in the region was thrilled to be

able to have their ‘ portraits shot , ’ which is a simple translation of their expression. This is all because of the camera Pablo owns. ” Fernande ’ s journal _ Loving Picasso _ (2001)

includes six of his early photos, taken between 1904 and 1909. The earliest one conventionally portrays his Catalan painter-friend Ricard Canals. Closely confined and sitting stiffly in a

chair, he ’ s formally dressed in a tight suit, holds a cat and is posed in front of a fireplace whose mantel is cluttered with photos and postcards. Four years later, Picasso ’ s high

rectangular portrait of the 64-year-old na ï ve painter Henri Rousseau is much more interesting. Balding, shadow-faced and white-moustached, wearing a white smock and black cravat, he ’ s

seated near the edge of his dense, jungly painting, and below many pictures on the walls above him, which are divided by a long stovepipe. Rousseau, his head tilted to the right, has a sad

and weary expression, as if resting from his labours and waiting for his long-delayed recognition. Picasso took four vivid photos of Horta de Ebro. The tall Fernande, standing straight on a

windy hill and looking at the camera, holds the hand of a village child dressed up for this special occasion. Fernande has thick dark hair and a half-shadowed face, wears a polka-dot pleated

blouse, full black skirt and long white shawl. Picasso also took a distant view, across a flat landscape and beneath a clear white sky, that shows the square, sharp-angled cubist houses of

the pyramidal hilltop village. His nine carefully composed policemen (a great many for a small rural area) stand before a forked tree trunk in a rigid line, their rifle butts on the ground

and barrels facing the sky. They have a double row of brass buttons on their military tunics and wear the shiny patent-leather Guardia Civil hats, round in front, flat and high in the back.

Their commander sits on horseback on the left and, rather sweetly, two little children stand in front and hold their fathers ’ hands. Picasso ’ s self-portrait of 1909 is more expressive

than his rigid traditional photo of Canals. Seated on a wide velvety sofa with carved arms and a mandolin (soon to appear in his paintings), he wears workman ’ s clothes, casually crosses

his legs, faces the camera and holds a perky staring cat. Women looking at him would, as Coleridge wrote, “ cry Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! ” His recent paintings

of Horta, and the cubist sketch that announce a new phase of his art, hang above him next to a flowery Spanish shawl. Later on, Picasso made perceptive observations about the limitations of

photography and the superiority of art. He told Cecil Beaton: “ Most photographers had eyes like lenses. Photographs were too mechanical. Drawings were more alive, and colour photographs

added nothing to black and white. ” Brassa ï wrote that Picasso thought there was no point in rendering what the lens can capture so well, that photography has freed painting from the

subject and given it a new freedom to do something different. In a vivid simile, he called Brassa ï’ s photos a “ blood sample ” that allowed Picasso “ to analyse and diagnose what I was at

those moments. ” Franç oise Gilot recalled Picasso ’ s belief that “ every photographer would like to be a painter. Brassa ï is a very gifted draughtsman, Man Ray is a painter of sorts. ”

Inside his lover Dora Maar, who photographed the daily evolution of _ Guernica _ , in 1937, “ was a painter trying to get out. ” Franç oise adds that Dora ’ s profession indirectly

influenced Picasso: “ Gradually, Dora gave up her photographic laboratory. Some of her equipment –spotlights, backdrops and so on—eventually found its way to Pablo ’ s studio. The black

curtains came in very handy for blackouts during the Occupation, and he often painted at night by training Dora ’ s spots on his canvas. ” Man Ray (1890-1978), born Emmanuel Radnitzky in

Philadelphia, came to Paris in 1921, created technically innovative photographs and exhibited with the Surrealists. He took photos of Joyce, Stein, Jean Cocteau, Antonin Artaud, Tristan

Tzara and Salvador Dal í , and published a portrait of Picasso in _Vanity Fair _(July 1922). They became friends in the 1930s through their connection to Surrealism, whose non-rational

emphasis on dreams and the unconscious influenced Picasso ’ s visual imagery.  Ray’s sculpted close-up portrays Picasso in 1932 as a working man with huge hands. One hand supports his head,

the other is placed on the table in front of him and shows his wedding ring, when he was married to the Russian ballerina Olga Khokhlova. He wears an open trench coat over his jacket and

tie, with his white shirt cuffs showing through the sleeves. His long dark hair is slicked down to the left, his smooth handsome face has a contemplative expression, and his monumental head

and body convey strength and power. Picasso’s pen-and-ink sketch of Ray, dated January 3, 1934, was included in Ray’s _Photographs 1920-1934._ Ray’s biographer Neil Baldwin writes that

Picasso “did the drawing as repayment for the exquisite album of photographs of his pre-Cubist canvases that Man Ray had assembled when he first arrived in Paris.” In August 1937, during the

dark days of the Spanish Civil War, the friends of Picasso and Dora Maar—including Man Ray, the poets Paul Eluard and Ren é Char, the art critic Christian Zervos, with their wives and

lovers freely shared among themselves—gathered at the H ô tel Vaste Horizon at Mougins in the hills above Cannes. Picasso began the day with a swim. He and Ray, both fond of _ bricolage _ ,

searched the beach for driftwood, shells and sun-bleached bones, and used them in their art. At lunch, Baldwin adds, the ever-creative Picasso tore and twisted a paper napkin “ into the

shape of some strange creature before the admiring eyes of the assembled group. One memorable portrait of Nusch Eluard was constructed with crayon, coffee, lipstick and wine on a paper

tablecloth. ” Brassai (1899-1984) was Hungarian, studied sculpture in Budapest, served in World War I, moved to Berlin in 1920 and to Paris in 1924. He came to take photos of Picasso ’ s

sculpture in 1932 and became a close friend. Brassa ï’ s first photo in _ Picasso and Company _ (1966) is the most revealing. Taken in Picasso ’ s fashionable Rue La Bo é tie studio in 1932

—when he was married to the socially ambitious Olga, the daughter of a Czarist general— he ’ s now light years away from the squalid studio in the Bateau Lavoir that he had shared with

Fernande Olivier in 1904. He wears a well-tailored double-breasted suit, with a gold watch chain dangling from his lapel and into his jacket pocket. His cigarette appears in an elegant

holder, and only the messy paint and rags on his left attest to his profession. As the standing Picasso, head slightly lowered, boldly confronts the camera, Brassa ï emphasises “ the

flashing intensity of that gaze, piercing you, subduing you, devouring you. ” In a more informal photo of September 1939, the month World War II broke out, Picasso sits in the Caf é de Flore

on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, with a cup of coffee on a metal tray in front of him. Bundled up in a raincoat and scarf and now _ holding _ a cigarette, he looks to the right while talking

to a dark-haired woman, seen from the back but showing her painted fingernails, probably Dora Maar. Jaime Sabart é s, his secretary, companion and whipping boy, who sits on Picasso ’ s

left, has a bald head, thick spectacles and double chin, and gesticulates while talking to a friend outside the frame. These casual shots convey the flavour of Paris life before the Nazi

Occupation. That year Brassa ï took another picture of Picasso, wearing the same, now shabbier, suit as in 1932, over a buttoned sweater, grey shirt and checked tie. His hair is slicked down

over his bald patch, his cigarette attached to his fingers. He stares at his tall bronze statue, which has a mottled texture, flat round head with crude nose and blubbery mouth, and

triangular body that ends in a grill-shaped skirt. Picasso grasps, even chokes, the neck as if wondering whether he ’ d actually created that monstrous object and refusing to release it.

Brassa ï’ s fourth photo of September 1939 shows Picasso seated cross-legged, with the same suit, tie and cigarette. Towering above him on the right is a 15-foot high stove with a thick base

and seven layers of metal ribs leading to a bent round pipe that disappears into the ceiling. The stove casts a magnified menacing shadow on the grey wall behind the artist, as if to

symbolise the war that has just broken out. The charismatic Robert Capa (1913-54)—Jewish like Man Ray, Hungarian like Brassa ï— was born in Budapest. A courageous combat photographer in the

Spanish Civil War and World War II, he was later killed by a land mine in Vietnam. In September 1944 he turned up at Picasso ’ s 11 o ’ clock open house, where he found the artist talking to

pretty Nusch Eluard and several Spanish Republican refugees. Capa got on well with Picasso, and four years later in August 1948, he joined Picasso, his young lover Fran ç oise Gilot and

their year-old son Claude, and took pictures of them at the beach of Golfe Juan on the Riviera. One of Capa ’ s most famous photos (used on the front cover of the Penguin edition of Gilot ’

s _ Life with Picasso _ ) portrays her striding along on the beach with the Mediterranean in the background. Behind her, in an amusing reversal of roles, the muscular Picasso carries a large

open umbrella like a humble and devoted servant. In another posed portrait the seated Picasso, white-haired and revealing his bald head, looks to the right. Wearing the same simple beach

dress, the attractive Fran ç oise has thick pulled-back hair, and tilts her head next to him with an expression that shows their passionate bond. In Capa ’ s close-up, chest-high photo

Claude, with wet hair and open-mouth, holds his fists like a childish boxer in front of his chubby face. Right behind Claude and holding him, the deeply tanned and barrel-chested Picasso

makes a fierce face as if to help his son ward off a frightening intruder. In another spontaneous shot—an affectionate echo of the Holy Family Trinity—Picasso, wearing a coloured shirt,

shorts and sandals, bends over to catch Claude who ’ s taking his first tentative steps. Fran ç oise, kneeling and wearing the same shell necklace as in the umbrella picture, holds Claude

under his arms and encourages him to walk. Capa took another dramatic photo at a bullfight in Villauris near Antibes in 1955. The poet Jean Cocteau, formally dressed in a jacket and tie,

sits next to Picasso, with Claude behind them, forming a pyramid. Cocteau has distinctive cropped hair, high forehead, narrow face, long nose and thin lips. Sitting behind Picasso with his

dark hair falling on his forehead and his mouth half-open, the eight-year-old Claude extends his left arm and in a spontaneous gesture puts his finger into his father ’ s mouth. Picasso,

completely absorbed in the _ corrida _ , doesn ’ t seem to notice. This superb image captures the strong bond between father and son at the “ moment of truth, ” when the bull is about to be

killed and the matador is in the greatest danger. The former model Lee Miller (1907-77), born in Poughkeepsie, New York, was the only female photographer in this group. She had an

extraordinary life, extensively documented photos of Picasso and the most intimate connection with him. The tall, well-proportioned, blue-eyed Nordic blonde, fashionably dressed and

exceptionally beautiful, reminded him of his lover (and Dora Maar ’ s rival) Marie-Th é r è se Walter. In 1929 Lee suddenly appeared at Man Ray ’ s Paris studio and offered herself as his

pupil and lover. Three years later she left Ray and opened her own studio in Manhattan. From 1934 to 1939 she was married to a handsome, rich Egyptian, but didn ’ t fit into his world. Lee

and her future husband Roland Penrose—a wealthy English artist, collector, critic and founder of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London—joined the guests at the H ô tel Vaste Horizon

in August 1937. The energetic Picasso, in his role as _ Le Ma ître _ , urged everyone to work after lunch, but most ignored his command and retired to their rooms for sex and sleep. While

Roland, as Picasso ’ s future biographer, was always humble and deferential, Lee teased Picasso and did as she pleased with him. Penrose pimped for his hero and offered Lee, his future wife.

Delighted with the generous gift, Picasso slept with Lee and painted her portraits. He distorted her fine features—gave her green hair, yellow face, red eyes and grimacing mouth—but

captured her essential vitality and beauty. Lee witnessed the Liberation of Paris in August 1944 and went straight to Picasso ’ s studio, where they had a joyous reunion and she saw his

latest paintings. She captured his energy and kindness in _ Vogue _ (October 1944): Picasso and I fell into each other ’ s arms and between laughter and tears and having my bottom pinched

and my hair mussed we exchanged news about friends and their work, incoherently, and looked at new pictures which were dated on all the Battle of Paris days. . . . Picasso is careless,

generous and voluble as always. He offered me his coffee, soap and cigarettes—what there was of any of them. He is as alert, as unpredictable and impetuous as ever. He darts around the

studio to find a drawing I ’ ll remember or like, a bibelot he acquired, an old painting he ’ d discovered. Lee also explained the symbolic importance of Picasso remaining in Paris during

the war, which made him a hero: From the point of view of art in Paris, the most valuable contribution has been the fact that Picasso stayed here under the Occupation as an inspiration to

others. The fact that he didn ’ t abandon the ship but went on about his business, quietly, unobtrusively, showing himself little in public other than in the immediate vicinity of his

studio. He has painted prodigiously during these four years. In any case there was nothing else to do except work and struggle for food and see one ’ s friends quietly and to look forward to

the day of freedom. After attending a Communist conference in Sheffield in November 1950, Picasso visited Lee ’ s farm in Sussex and formed a playful friendship with her three-year-old son

Antony. In _ Vogue _ (October 11, 1951) Lee wrote an appreciative review of Picasso ’ s exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts: “ There are contemplative lovers watching over

sleeping partners, beauties like Fernande Olivier, Picasso ’ s first girl friend, and Nusch Eluard, fragile, lovely Nusch, who died ” early of a massive stroke in 1946. Still attracted to

Picasso, Lee later emphasised the genial side of his character: “ his flashing black eyes have fascinated everyone who has only even seen Picasso, but those who meet him feel thrown into an

exciting new equilibrium by the personality of this small, warm, friendly man. ” Lee ’ s biographer Carolyn Burke writes that her images, included in Roland Penrose ’ s _ Visiting Picasso _

(2006), show their palpable relations: “ Picasso gazes at his former muse as if recalling the history of their affections—an unusually intimate portrait at a time when, increasingly, he held

himself in reserve. ” In Lee ’ s first photo Picasso appears on the balcony of the H ô tel Vaste Horizon in 1937, sitting sideways, framed by ferns and flowers, and turning his head toward

the camera. Under a loose open sweater, her wears a distinctive black polka-dotted shirt. Though she ’ s almost cut out of the picture, Dora Maar wears a matching shirt, which appears on her

right shoulder and arm to subtly link her to Picasso. His grey hair is still slicked over his bald head and, well aware of the impending European war, his expression is wary and severe. In

1954, in Picasso ’ s studio in the pottery town of Vallauris, the standing artist—his face now lined, his head bald, his sleeves rolled up—leans forward to show the seated, white-haired

Georges Braque two ceramic pigeons that he ’ s just made. Lee captures both the camaraderie with his old Cubist collaborator and Braque ’ s admiration of the lively pigeons that echo Picasso

’ s famous Dove of Peace poster of 1949. In 1956, in Picasso ’ s home La Californie, above Cannes, he wears a white shirt and black trousers, and squats on the tiled floor. He has wide

staring eyes, one arm across his leg, the other supporting him behind a painting. Four massive pictures, including a portrait of his second wife Jacqueline Roque, surround him beneath a high

window and a vaulted ceiling. The following year at La Californie, Picasso, who loved costumes and dressing up, has playfully painted and masked his face like a clown. He wears a tilted

derby hat, whitewashed forehead, thick eyebrows, shadowed eyes, false bulbous nose, charcoaled mustache and faint smile. His left hand holds a cigarette, his right hand disappears into the

pocket of his loud plaid pants. Behind him, in the high-arched, chandeliered, two-room studio, are a cluttered work bench and table, ceramics, bric- à -brac, books on the floor, arc lights

for nighttime painting, and both realistic and distorted portraits of Jacqueline. All these chaotic attributes provide a vivid impression of his creative ambience. In 1958, 26 years after

Man Ray ’ s powerful image, Picasso is seated and wearing an open-necked grey shirt and black sweater. Looking contemplatively into the camera, he rests his left thumb on his cheek and holds

a cigarette. His slightly blurred portrait of Lee appears next to the window in the background to link the old lovers. David Douglas Duncan was born in Kansas City in 1916 and died in

Grasse, France, at the age of 102. He was a combat photographer (like Capa and Lee Miller) with the Marine Corps in the Pacific islands in World War II and in Korea. A friend of Capa, he met

Picasso at La Californie in February 1956. Jacqueline impulsively led him upstairs where Picasso allowed Duncan to capture him in soaping his back the bathtub. Duncan spent six months

taking the first color photos of Picasso ’ s personal collection of 500 paintings from 1895 to 1960, and they appeared in Duncan ’ s _Picasso_ _ ’ s Picassos _ (1961). He eventually

published seven books of photos of the artist and his work. After setting up his lights, choosing his lenses and film, and even adjusting the voltage of the villa, Duncan had plenty of time

to talk to Picasso about his life and work. He was most struck when Picasso compared his early poverty to his present celebrity, which made intolerable demands on his time and constantly

interfered with his work: “ Of all—hunger, misery, the incomprehension by the public—fame is by far the worst. It is the castigation by God of the artist. It is sad. It is true. ” Duncan ’ s

unusual outdoor photo shows Picasso standing in front of his vast 17th-century ch â teau, with three storeys, pointed towers, balustrade and iron-barred windows, at Vauvenargues near

Aix-en-Provence. Wearing a black hat and thick down jacket over a blue-ribbed sweater, he looks upward. A bright rainbow slashes the sky above him as the Lord of the Manor surveys his

impressive sunlit estate. Moving indoors, Duncan ’ s wide-angle long-shot shows Picasso seated in the middle of a high-ceiling room, the walls elaborately decorated with high-relief plaster

statues, busts and coat-of-arms. Seen from the back, he gazes at the fireplace, neatly filled with one of his pictures, while two others stand on a tall easel. His work table is filled with

paint, an open door (as in Vel á zquez ’ s Las Meninas ) leads to another chamber, and two barred windows with open shutters cast gentle light across the red-tiled floor. Another unusual

photo shows Picasso seen in profile, bending over a table, mixing colors with a palette knife and deeply absorbed in his work. He wears black-rimmed glasses, a wedding ring, and blue polo

shirt trimmed with yellow, and rolls up his sleeve to reveal a muscular arm. Ceramic cups stand on a table, a bulging statue of Marie-Th é r è se rests behind him and a fine portrait of

Jacqueline stands above, defining his past and present lovers. Duncan ’ s most carefully composed image portrays Picasso as a Spanish hidalgo . He stands on a hexagonal-tiled floor, in front

of a tall wood-panelled chest, and next to a polished wooden table and bench. A single tall yellow candle in a shining metal holder provides the only light in the dark room. Picasso, his

left eye and cheek in shadow, is draped in a huge black cape that touches the floor and shows the tips of his black slippers. His left hand is hidden, his right fist pushes through the

scarlet ribbon around the collar of the cape. Instead of a characteristic flat C ó rdoba hat, he wears a peculiar black-and-white checked, high-crowned, narrow-brimmed hat that almost spoils

the picture. Duncan ’ s close-up recalls Man Ray ’ s powerful image of 1932. Picasso wears a red-and-black cap and a heavily embroidered high-collared peasant ’ s shirt, with zig-zag

stitching on the sleeve, which he may have brought back from the Communist conference in Poland in 1948. The white shirt, open to the chest, shows a mass of snowy hair. Though his neck

tendons stick out and his cheeks are heavily lined, he ’ s still tanned and vigorous, and stares defiantly at the camera. The photos Picasso took, moving from conventional to imaginative in

the Catalonian village that influenced Cubism, show his early interest in the medium. Man Ray ’ s icon reveals Picasso ’ s creative energy and power. Brassa ï , Capa and Duncan came to take

pictures and became Picasso ’ s friends. Brassa ï caught him early on when he was still respectably married to the snobbish Olga. Capa shot him more spontaneously on the beach and at the

bullfight. Lee Miller, Picasso ’ s lover, captured his charming character and astonishing art. Duncan, in colour and with carefully composed shots, emphasized his Spanish origins and his

manorial grandeur. All these talented photographers, using traditional techniques and attributes of portraiture, provided perfect visual complements to the written memoirs of the mercurial

and incandescent Picasso. Jeffrey Meyers, FRSL, has published _Painting and the Novel, Impressionist Quartet, Modigliani: A Life _ and _ Alex Colville: The Mystery of the Real. _ A MESSAGE

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