John richardson picasso biography article

American art historian (–)

For other people with the same name, see John Richardson.

Sir John Patrick Richardson, KBE, FBA (6 February – 12 March ) was a British art historian and biographer of Pablo Picasso. Richardson also worked as an industrial designer and as a reviewer for The New Observer.

In , he moved to Provence, where he became friends with Picasso, Fernand Léger and Nicolas de Staël. In , he moved to New York and organized a nine-gallery Picasso retrospective. Christie's then appointed him to open their U.S. office, which he ran for the next nine years. In he joined New York gallery M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., as vice president in charge of 19th- and 20th-century painting, and later became managing director of Artemis, a mutual fund specializing in works of art.

In he started devoting all his time to writing and working on his Picasso biography. He was also a contributor to The New Yorker and Vanity Fair.

In , Richardson was elected to the British Academy and in he was appointed Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford. He was awarded France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in and in was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Biography

Youth and education

John Patrick Richardson was born on 6 February in London, the elder son of Sir Wodehouse Richardson, Quarter-Master General in the Boer War, and founder of the Army & Navy Stores.

Mary Ann Caws and Charles Stuckey discuss the presence of food and the dining table in the history of modern art. Please upgrade your browser and improve your visit to our site. People everywhere, including those who knew nothing of painting, knew the creator of Guernica , widely accepted as the quintessential prewar masterpiece, and of the violently distorted portraits of women, and of weeping women in particular, that critics declared objects of surpassing beauty. What was he thinking of?

His mother was Patty (née Crocker); he had a younger sister (b. ) and a younger brother.^[1] In , when he was five years old, his father died, and his mother sent him to board at two successive preparatory schools, where he was unhappy. When he was thirteen he became a boarder at Stowe School, where he admired the architecture and landscape and was taught something about the work of Picasso and other innovative painters.

By and the outbreak of World War II, Richardson knew that he wanted to become an artist, and, a month short of seventeen, enrolled at the Slade School of Fine Art (at that time evacuated to Oxford), where he became a friend of Geoffrey Bennison and James Bailey. When he was called up for military service, he obtained a position in the Irish Guards, but almost immediately contracted rheumatic fever and was invalided out of the army.^[2] During this period he met and made friends with Francis Bacon^[3][4][5] and Lucian Freud,^[6] both of whom later painted portraits of him.^[7] He spent the rest of the war with his mother and siblings in London.^[8] During daytime, he worked as an industrial designer before becoming a reviewer for The New Observer.^[9] A homosexual, in he became acquainted with art historian and collector Douglas Cooper, with whom he would share his life for the next ten years.^[10]

Liaison with Douglas Cooper

Richardson moved to Provence in the south of France in , when Cooper acquired the Château de Castille in the vicinity of Avignon and transformed the run-down castle into a private museum of early Cubism.^[11] Cooper had been at home in the Paris art scene before World War II and had been active in the art business as well;^[12] by building his own collection, he also met many artists personally and introduced them to his friend.

Richardson became a close friend of Picasso,^[13]Léger and de Staël as well. During this period of his life he developed an interest in Picasso's portraits and contemplated creating a publication; more than 20 years later, these plans expanded into his four-part Picasso biography A Life of Picasso, the final volume of which was published in ^[14]

New York

In , Richardson left Cooper and moved to New York City, where he organized a nine-gallery Picasso retrospective in and a Braque retrospective in Christie's, the auction house, then appointed him to open their US office, which he ran for the next nine years.^[15] In , he joined New York gallery M.

Knoedler & Co., Inc., as Vice President in charge of 19th- and 20th-century painting, and later became Managing Director of Artemis, a mutual fund specializing in works of art.^[16]

In , Richardson decided to devote all his time to writing.

Item 1 of 1: The first two volumes have been translated into Spanish and all of them are accompanied by numerous illustrations of works, people and places. Richardson then returned to work on the biography. This list is incomplete ; you can help by adding missing items. Hidden categories: Webarchive template wayback links Pages containing London Gazette template with parameter supp set to y Articles with short description Short description is different from Wikidata Use dmy dates from July Use British English from July Articles with hCards Incomplete lists from June

Besides working on his Picasso biography, he was a contributor to The New York Review of Books,^[17]The New Yorker^[18] and Vanity Fair.^[19] In , Richardson was elected to the British Academy and in he was appointed Slade Professor of Art at the University of Oxford.^[15]

Picasso biography

The first of four planned volumes of Richardson's A Life of Picasso biography, (originally planned to be published in one single volume), was published in This described 25 years from his birth to and won a Whitbread Award.

The second volume was published in November , dealing with the period –, and thus covering the birth of Cubism, followed by the third volume in , devoted to the period up to , when Picasso turned ^[20] The fourth volume was originally to span the early s to the liberation of Paris in Though the fourth volume fell behind schedule (it was to be published by Alfred A.

Knopf in ), Richardson spoke of still progressing with it in a February interview with Alain Elkann. Richardson stated then that he was working daily, "even weekends", on the project with three assistants who were aiding him with writing and research. He stated that he was "up to ", and that he hoped to "get through the war".^[21][22] The fourth volume, covering Picasso's life until was eventually published posthumously in November ^[23]

Fifteen years after Cooper's death, Richardson published a memoir (The Sorcerer's Apprentice.

Picasso, Provence, and Douglas Cooper) in and a collection of essays in (Sacred Monsters, Sacred Masters). He was curator of an exhibition of the late Picasso with title Mosqueteros in the Gagosian Gallery in New York City. For the London Gagosian Gallery, he curated another such exhibition in Picasso - The Mediterranean Years (), which ran from 4 June until 28 August ^[24] In , Richardson and Diana Widmaier Picasso co-curated another sizable Picasso exhibition, "Picasso and Marie-Thérèse: L’amour fou", at the Gagosian gallery in New York City for which Richardson also wrote a related book.^[25][26][27]

Also in , Richardson was awarded France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in recognition of his contributions to furthering the arts in France and throughout the world.

Richardson was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) in the New Year Honours for services to art.^[28][29]

Death

Richardson died in New York City on 12 March , at the age of ^[30]

Bibliography

Books

• Picasso, Pablo: Aquarelle und Gouachen. Dt.

  Buch-Gemeinschaft, Berlin

• Manet, Edouard: Gemälde und Zeichnungen.Phaidon Verlag, Köln
• Picasso, Pablo (). Watercolors and gouaches. Text by John Richardson. London: Barrie and Rockliff.
• Juan Gris.Museum am Ostwall, Dortmund
• Dorothy M. Kosinski, John Richardson, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung Basel: Douglas Cooper und die Meister des Kubismus.Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel , ISBN&#;
• A Life of Picasso ( - ):
  • The Prodigy, (Vol 1).Random House, New York , ISBN&#; (German edition: Kindler, München, )
  • The Cubist Rebel, (Vol 2). Random House, New York , ISBN&#; (German edition: Kindler, )
  • The Triumphant Years, (Vol 3).Alfred A.

    Knopf, New York , ISBN&#;

  • The Minotaur Years, (Vol 4).Alfred A. Knopf, New York , ISBN&#;
• The Sorcerer's Apprentice Picasso, Provence, and Douglas Cooper, Jonathan Cape London ISBN&#;
• Sacred Monsters, Sacred Masters: Beaton, Capote, Dalí, Picasso, Freud, Warhol, and More. Random House, New York , ISBN&#;
• (with Brenda Richardson) Warhol from the Sonnabend Collection (Rizzoli, )
• (with others) Picasso Mosqueteros: The Late Works ()
• (with others) Picasso & the CameraISBN&#; (Gagosian Gallery, New York, )

Essays and reporting

Filmography

References