Portrait of Picasso [antikvár]

Preface to first edition by Alfred H. Barr, Jr Suppose the camera had been invented 500 years before Picasso. Think what photographs we might have had! Ghiberti standing beside his prize-winning relief for the Baptistry doors ('third from the left, with the disgruntled expression, is Brunelleschi, the runner-up'); Grand Duke Basil Dmitrevich handing Andrei Rublyov the contract for the new frescoes in the Cathedral of the Dormition; Tetrus Christus Paints a Picture' - a series of documentary photographs with captions by Antonello da Messina; Michelangelo, perched on his scaffolding under the Sistine ceiling, his beard clotted with plaster, shouting his anger at Pope Julius down below; or, finally, and just to settle a long argument, Hubert van Eyck, himself, at work on the Ghent altarpiece. How Picasso will ultimately rank with these heroes of the past we cannot be sure. There may even be a few stubborn eccentrics who would deny that he is the greatest contemporary artist. But no one can convincingly refute the statement that he is far and away the most photographed of living artists. As evidence of this one may point to the number of photographs Roland Penrose has chosen for this volimie, and even more to the hundreds he has had to omit.