The first book dedicated to Picasso's self-portraits many held in private collections and
published here for the first time. Much has been said and written about Picasso's life and art
but until now his self-portraits have never been studied and presented in a single book
perhaps because the artist always left many doubts about his work. However there is no doubt
that Picasso represented himself ceaselessly whether in a dashed-off pencil sketch as a
flourish at the bottom of a letter or on a giant canvas. At the suggestion of Picasso's widow
Jacqueline the distinguished art historian Pascal Bonafoux began researching Picasso's
self-portraits more than forty years ago. This meticulously researched book presents the fruits
of his decades-long project. From the first attributed painting in 1894 as a thirteen-year-old
boy until Picasso's final self-portrait in 1972 a year before his death Bonafoux charts the
evolution of the artist's life and art. Here is Picasso as a student as a young bohemian an
impetuous artist in Paris as harlequin as lover husband and father and finally as an old
man confronting his mortality. The book comprises about 170 drawings paintings and photographs
some from private collections and previously unpublished bringing together for the first time
theattributed self-portraits of this genius of 20th-century art.
