Introduction
‘My inner self is bound to be in my canvas . . .’: Pablo Picasso, in Hélène Parmelin, Picasso Says . . ., p. 70
‘All the rest’: ibid.
‘like a kaleidoscope slowly turning’: quoted in Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, p. 98
‘a new beauty: the beauty of speed’: F.T. Marinetti, ‘The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism, 1909’, in Umbro Apollonio (ed.), Futurist Manifestos, p. 21
Part I: The World Fair and Arrivals
‘Me’: in Dan Franck, The Bohemians: The Birth of Modern Art: Paris 1900–1930, p. 18
‘Every member . . . had a listening-tube . . . with the pictures’: Claude Lepape and Thierry Defert, From the Ballets Russes to Vogue: The Art of Georges Lepape, p. 15
‘visions d’art’: Richard Abel, The Ciné Goes to Town: French Cinema 1896–1914, p. 17
‘roses twelve feet in diameter . . .’: Lepape and Defert, From the Ballets Russes to Vogue, p. 16
‘the Fair shows . . . a new era in the history of humanity’: Jeanine Warnod, Washboat Days: Montmartre, Picasso and the Artists’ Revolution, p. 50
‘modernisme’: John Richardson, A Life of Picasso, 1881–1906, Volume I, p. 110
‘Catalan art nouveau with overtones of symbolism’: ibid.
‘to translate eternal verities . . . as it contemplates the pit’: ibid., p. 113
‘We prefer to be . . . unstable . . . rather than fallen and meek’: ibid.
‘full of crazy places . . . a goldmine . . .’: ibid., p. 161
‘with extensions’: ibid.
‘À la moule! . . . Couteaux! Couteaux!’: Jean-Paul Crespelle, La Vie quo-tidienne à Montmartre au temps de Picasso, 1900–1910, p. 21
‘as if they were breaking stones’: Hilary Spurling, Matisse: The Life, p. 80
‘a kind of hell-hole near the Buttes Chaumont’: Francis Carco, L’Ami des peintres, p. 231
‘a world of exotic fantasies . . . under a veneer of religious iconog-raphy’: Bernard Denvir, Post-Impressionism, p. 148
‘a kind of literary and symbolic idealism’: Raymond Escholier, Ma-tisse from the Life, p. 28
‘pure painting’: ibid.
‘Don’t be satisfied . . . go down into the street’: ibid., p. 33
‘un grand comic triste de café-concert’: Georges Hilaire, Derain, p. 9
‘to me . . . pure, absolute painting’: Escholier, Matisse from the Life, p. 32
‘transposing rather . . . pure vermilion’: André Derain, in ibid., p. 32
‘pommes frites and chloroform’: Rainer Maria Rilke, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, p. 4
‘pompous bachelors . . .’: Richardson, A Life of Picasso, Volume I, p. 160
‘lots of deaths, shootings, conflagrations . . .’: ibid., p. 161
‘The workmen pay for the oil . . . I am safe from a strike’: Ambroise Vollard, Recollections of a Picture Dealer, p. 219
‘SPECULATORS! Buy art! . . . worth 10 000 Francs in ten years’ time’: Franck, The Bohemians, p. 15
‘never a real Impressionist . . . since Cézanne’: Maurice Sembat, in Escholier, Matisse from the Life, p. 38
‘as still as an apple’: Richard Verdi, Cézanne, p. 155
‘a man of learning and introspection’: ibid.
‘a head like a door’: Alex Danchev, Cézanne: A Life, p. 296 (quoting Giacometti, interviewed by Georges Charbonnier, 16 April 1957, in Le Monologue du peintre (1959) (Paris: Durier, 1980), pp. 186–7
‘beginning to catch on with the public’: Verdi, Cézanne, p. 196
‘masterpieces everywhere, and going . . . for a song’: Vollard, Recollections of a Picture Dealer, p. 22
‘la cave’: Isabelle Cahn, Ambroise Vollard: un marchand d’art et ses trésors, p. 22
‘the painter, utterly and beautifully . . .’: Marilyn McCully, ed., Picasso: The Early Years, 1892–1906 (exhibition catalogue), p. 35
‘youthful impetuous spontaneity . . . easy success’: ibid.
‘every kind of courtesan’: Richardson, A Life of Picasso, Volume I, p. 198
‘I believe the Realist period is over . . .’: André Derain, October 1901, in Gaston Diehl, Derain, p. 25
‘feeling and expressing are two entirely separate actions . . .’: ibid.
‘bougre des guinguettes fleuries’: Maurice Genevoix, Vlaminck, p. 7
‘You need to be rich to paint!’: Carco, L’Ami des peintres, p. 59
‘I must have been about eight or ten . . .’: ibid.
‘Hey, look, André . . .’ . . . ‘Oh yes . . . all in black!’: ibid., p. 20
‘a nobler occupation . . .’: Maurice Vlaminck, Dangerous Corner, p. 61
‘wrapped in an expensive fur . . .’: ibid., p. 65
‘more serious, more worthwhile’: ibid., p. 67
‘with a few colours in a box . . .’: ibid., p. 66
‘a tremendous urge to re-create . . .’: ibid., p. 74
‘Je n’ai pas pu dormir de la nuit’: Carco, L’Ami des peintres, p. 21
‘I really do not care’: ibid., p. 61
‘hard-bitten and tenacious old liberals’: Vlaminck, Dangerous Corner, p. 64
‘I heightened all my tone values . . .’: ibid., p. 74
‘pommes frites’ . . . ‘gâteaux’: Paul Poiret, King of Fashion: The Autobiography of Paul Poiret, p. 30
‘ferocious air and savage look’: ibid., p. 54
‘they produced quite a good impression’: ibid., p. 55
‘I can still see them by the flowery banks . . .’: ibid.
‘dressed the passing moment’: ibid., p. 35
‘all Paris had stopped at least once’: ibid.
‘orgy of colours’: Palmer White, Poiret, p. 17
‘anything that was cloying . . .’: ibid., p. 23
‘and my sunburst of pastels made a new dawn’: ibid.
‘the inspiration for my creations . . .’: ibid., p. 28
‘To dress a woman . . .’: ibid., p. 39 (Vogue, 15 October 1913)
‘All the talent of the artist consists in a manner of revealment’: ibid.
‘facility in capturing attitudes’: McCully (ed.), Picasso: The Early Years, p. 37
‘brilliant, clamorous’: ibid.
‘all nerve, all verve, all impetuosity’: ibid.
‘cameos showing painful reality . . .’: ibid., p. 39
‘What drawing! . . .’: ibid.
‘the greatest swindle of the century’: Hilary Spurling, La Grande Thérèse, p. 77
Georges Lepape . . .: Note: Lepape dates his entry to the Académie Humbert as 1902, but this must be a typographical or other form of error, as he entered the same year as Braque, 1903. Lepape and Defert, From the Ballets Russes to Vogue, p. 19
‘And what a teacher . . .’: ibid., p. 21
‘If only he’d been willing to pass on his tips . . .’: ibid.
‘the oil to use as an additive . . .’: Alex Danchev, Georges Braque: A Life, p. 19
‘I’m quite good at marbling . . . quite fascinating’: Lepape and Defert, From the Ballets Russes to Vogue, p. 20
‘Here? Never . . .’: ibid.
‘I’ll never be a painter’: Flora Groult, Marie Laurencin, p. 49
‘colours . . . terrified me’: ibid., p. 53
‘Our lonely Sundays . . .’: Marie Laurencin, Le Carnet des nuits, p. 22
‘without the music and the airs . . .’: Groult, Marie Laurencin, p. 40
‘nothing else at all . . .’: ibid., p. 44
‘Yesterday Braque and I were being lazy . . .’: Danchev: Georges Braque, p. 27
‘the shoulders of a gorilla and the neck of a bull’: Lepape and Defert, From the Ballets Russes to Vogue, p. 26
‘If a couple indulged in wayward behaviour . . .’: ibid., p. 27
‘like a Spanish guitarist’: Fernande Olivier, Souvenirs intimes: écrits pour Picasso, p. 173
Part II: The Rose Period
‘Et couché, el soir . . .’: André Salmon, L’Air de la Butte: souvenirs sans fin, p. 16
‘I just tell them, you didn’t win’: ibid., p. 17
‘C’est ici’: ibid., p. 18
‘The artists Messrs . . .’: John Richardson, A Life of Picasso, 1907–1917: The Painter of Modern Life, Volume II, p. 293
‘travelling jugglers and acrobats . . .’: Norman Mailer, Picasso: Portrait of Picasso as a Young Man, p. 171
‘not so much the circus proper . . .’: ibid., pp. 171–2
‘“How much?” asked Vollard . . .’: Jean-Paul Crespelle, La Vie quotidienne à Montmartre au temps de Picasso, 1900–1910, p. 75
‘There is a Spanish painter . . . personnalité émouvante’: Fernande Olivier, Souvenirs intimes: écrits pour Picasso, p. 165
‘like a heated roof’: ibid., p. 111
‘canvases which restore light . . . are they not also decorations?’: Hilary Spurling, Matisse: The Life, p. 112
‘a tall, powerful fellow . . .’: Ambroise Vollard, Recollections of a Picture Dealer, p. 200
‘squeezed out of tubes of paint in a fit of rage’: ibid.
‘a wooden tie of his own invention . . .’: ibid., p. 201
‘but . . . what chaos!’: Olivier, Souvenirs intimes, p. 192
‘strange, tender and infinitely sad’: Fernande Olivier, Picasso and His Friends, p. 28
‘a deep and despairing love of humanity?’: ibid.
‘étrange et sordide maison . . . like the doorway of a Protestant chapel’: Olivier, Souvenirs intimes, p. 111
‘C’est moi qui les fais . . .’: ibid., p. 113
‘en grand tralala’: ibid., p. 125
‘perhaps I could love this boy one day’: ibid., p. 186
‘Le premier devoir d’un honnête homme . . .’: Francis Carco: Promenades pittoresques à Montmartre, p. 12
the work may have been painted earlier: See Crespelle: La Vie quotidienne, p. 162
‘Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté . . .’: Charles Baudelaire, ‘L’invitation au Voyage’, Les Fleurs du Mal (Paris: 1st edn published 1857; 2nd edn published 1861)
‘crude, violent . . . altogether bizarre canvases’: Anonymous, ‘Autumn Salon is Bizarre’, New York Sun, 27 November 1904, quoted in Lyn Hejinian, and author cited as James G. Huneker, in Introduction to Gertrude Stein, Three Lives, p. 15
‘tang of the soil’: ibid., p. 16
‘“Now,” . . . “the picture is ours!”. . . someone they loved’ Vollard, Recollections of a Picture Dealer, p. 137
‘a bit like a desperado’: Janet Hobhouse: Everybody Who was Anybody: A Biography of Gertrude Stein, p. 36
‘felt myself growing into an artist’: ibid.
‘atmosphere of propaganda’: ibid., p. 45
‘I said that I did not . . .’: ibid.
‘Cézanne debauch’: ibid.
‘As this was regarded as a criminal waste . . .’: ibid., p. 46
‘the obligation that I have been under . . .’: ibid.
‘Big Four’: ibid.
‘It’s such a terrible waste of time . . . everything I’m showing’: Marilyn Cully (ed.), Picasso: The Early Years, pp. 44–5
‘a good image maker’: ibid., p. 44
‘flowers, draperies, dresses . . .’: ibid.
‘Exposition Picasso – Lundi . . .’: Max Jacob and André Salmon, Correspondance 1905–1944, p. 21
‘chef d’école’: Spurling, Matisse, p. 115
‘Monsieur André’: François Bernadi, Matisse et Derain à Collioure été 1905, p. 22
‘a sort of giant . . .’: ibid., p. 26
‘Poor me! He’d have made . . . five of me’: ibid.
‘blonde, gilded light . . .’: André Derain, Lettres à Vlaminck, p. 148
‘But what can he possibly see in them?’ . . . ‘. . . pictures in the calendar’: Bernadi, Matisse et Derain, p. 34
‘la couleur pour la couleur’: ibid., p. 30
‘I’m taking advantage of the rain’: Derain, Lettres à Vlaminck, p. 154
‘a new conception of light’: ibid.
‘I’m fed up, but not really about anything . . . on the ground’: ibid., p. 159
‘oh, to never have to go back to Paris’: ibid., p. 160
‘pecuniary embarrassments’: Maurice Vlaminck, Dangerous Corner, p. 73
‘I had had quite enough of Paris . . .’: ibid.
‘A yellow moon in a green sky! . . .’ Bernadi, Matisse et Derain, p. 36
‘little girls’: Olivier, Picasso and His Friends, p. 40
‘A caprice had flung me into your arms . . .’: Olivier, Souvenirs intimes, p. 188
‘Mais je m’en f—’: ibid., p. 191
‘erected in memory of a woman he had loved’: ibid., p. 47
‘inherited with his mother’s Italian blood’: ibid., p. 48
‘always thick with the hot, slightly sickening smell’: ibid., p. 127
‘Mme Conception facilitates . . .’: Salmon, L’Air de la Butte, p. 32
‘He loved anything with strong local colour . . .’: Olivier, Picasso and His Friends, p. 126
‘How foreign he was in France’: ibid.
‘the coarsest people imaginable’: ibid., p. 127
‘I was completely captivated by the circus! . . .’: Brassaï, Conversations with Picasso, pp. 18–19
‘tornadoes of laughter and hysteria’: Olivier, Picasso and His Friends, p. 127
‘very much like the circus . . .’: Entretiens avec Federico Fellini: Les Cahiers RTB Séries Télécinéma (1962), reprinted in Suzanne Budgen, Fellini (London: BFI Education, 1966), p. 62; quoted in Helen Stoddart, Rings of Desire: Circus History and Representation, p. 147
‘So that you can make a study of them . . .’: Olivier, Picasso and His Friends, p. 43
‘Fauvism was our ordeal by fire’: Denys Sutton, Andreé Derain, p.20
‘It was the era of photography. This may have influenced us . . .’: ibid.
‘Was it because I had been working in the blazing sun? . . .’: Jeanine Warnod, Washboat Days: Montmartre, Picasso and the Artists’ Revolution, p. 125
‘the same feeling of wonder . . .’: Vlaminck, Dangerous Corner, p. 71
‘That’s not painting’: Spurling, Matisse, p. 131
‘Matisse has been a disappointment . . .’: Vollard, Recollections of a Picture Dealer, p. 201
‘Forsaking those greys . . .’: ibid., pp. 201–202
‘Poor Matisse! . . . friends here!’: ibid., p. 202
‘a Donatello among the wild beasts’: Louis Vauxcelles, quoted in Spurling, Matisse, p. 132
‘long lines of revolutionaries . . .’: ibid.
‘felt he had been decidedly outflanked’: ibid.
‘something decisive’: Hobhouse, Everybody Who was Anybody, p. 46
‘a tremendous effort’: ibid.
‘the nastiest smear of paint . . .’: ibid.
‘the unpleasantness of the putting on of the paint’: ibid., p. 47
‘really intelligent’: ibid., p. 48
his ‘explaining’ period’
‘amazing, wildly expressive’: Gaston Diehl, Derain, p. 42
‘I got a green suit and a red jacket . . .’: Crespelle, La Vie quotidienne, p. 50
‘You look as if you’re just back from Monte Carlo’: ibid.
‘No . . . This is the real thing’: Hobhouse, Everybody Who was Anybody, p. 49
‘monkey’s’ feet: ibid., p. 50
‘But my dear lady . . . your last day is imminent’: Olivier: Picasso and His Friends, p. 45
‘one of those characters . . . an introducer’: Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, p. 50
‘He had . . .“Roché is very nice but he is only a translation”’: ibid.
‘surprised that there was anything left . . .’: Richardson, A Life of Picasso, Volume I, p. 398
‘just completely there . . .’: ibid.
‘thin, dark, alive with big pools of eyes . . .’: ibid., p. 400
‘beautiful masterpieces’: Olivier, Picasso and His Friends, p. 89
‘solemnly and obediently looked . . . understood each other’: Richardson, A Life of Picasso, Volume I, p. 400
‘outsiders might easily have imagined themselves . . .’: Vollard, Recollections of a Picture Dealer, pp. 136–7
‘excellent for the digestion’: ibid., p. 137
‘the investigator whom nothing escapes’: ibid., p. 138
‘the fellow leaning with both hands . . .’: ibid.
‘the normal is so much more simply complicated . . .’: Hobhouse, Everybody Who was Anybody, p. 17
‘just like Dickens . . .’: ibid., p. 31
‘Picasso sat very tight on his chair . . .’: Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, p. 53
‘Non,’ he replied’: ibid.
‘millionaires from San Francisco . . .’: Salmon, L’Air de la Butte, p. 144
‘some kind of visceral reverence’: Richardson, A Life of Picasso, Volume I, p. 407
on first-name terms from the beginning: Matisse, Cézanne, Picasso . . . l’aventure des Stein, p. 327
‘what was inside myself . . .’: Hobhouse, Everybody Who was Anybody, p. 16
‘bottom nature’: Gertrude Stein, The Making of Americans. Being a History of a Family’s Progress, p. 343
‘“Melanctha Herbert,” began Jeff Campbell . . .’: Gertrude Stein, ‘Melanctha’, in Gertrude Stein, Three Lives, pp. 245–6
‘I was obsessed by this idea of composition . . .’: Gertrude Stein, interview with Robert Haas (1942), p. 15, quoted by Lyn Hejinian, ibid., p. 42
‘I began to play with words then. Picasso was painting my portrait . . .’: Gertrude Stein, interview with Robert Haas, Gertrude Stein, ‘What are Master-pieces . . .?’, in Gertrude Stein, What are Master-pieces . . .? p. 100
‘After all’ . . . ‘to me one human being is as important as another’: ibid., p. 98
‘you might say that the landscape has the same values . . .’: ibid.
‘the essence or as the painter would call it value’: ibid
‘largely from Cézanne’: ibid
‘continuous present’: Gertrude Stein, ‘Composition as Explanation’, in Stein, What are Master-pieces . . .?, p. 31
‘I was doing what the cinema was doing’: Gertrude Stein, ‘Portraits and Repetition’, in Gertrude Stein, Look at Me Now and Here I Am, Writings and Lectures 1909–1945, p. 106
‘the time-sense in the composition’: Stein, ‘Composition as Explan-ation’, in Stein, What are Master-pieces . . .?, p. 37
‘the quality in a composition that makes it go dead . . .’: ibid.
‘And yet time and identity is [sic] what you tell about’: Stein, ‘What are Master-pieces . . .?’, in Stein, What are Master-pieces . . .?, p. 92
‘I am I not any longer . . .’: Gertrude Stein, ‘Henry James’, in Stein, Look at Me Now and Here I Am, p. 292
‘Time is very important in connection with master-pieces . . .’: Stein, ‘What are Master-pieces . . .?’ in Stein, What are Master-pieces . . .?, p. 92
‘everything pushed him to it . . .’: Gertrude Stein, ‘Picasso’ (1938), in Gertrude Stein, Picasso: The Complete Writings, p. 34
‘And so Jeff went on every day . . .’: Stein, ‘Melanctha’, in Stein, Three Lives, pp. 330–31
‘And to think . . .’: Salmon, L’Air de la Butte, p. 29
‘marvellous amber-coloured bamboo pipe . . .’: ibid., p. 49
‘that wonderful oblivion . . .’: ibid., p. 50
‘Everything seemed to take on a special beauty . . .’: ibid.
‘Oh, those are old things . . .’: the meeting is described in various sources, the exact words of the (possibly apocryphal) conversation quoted variously, e.g. Christian Parisot, Modigliani, pp. 83–5; André Salmon: Modi-gliani: A Memoir, pp. 41–3
‘those intelligent hands . . .’: François Bergot, quoted in Noel Alexandre, The Unknown Modigliani: Drawings from the Collection of Paul Alexandre, p. 9
‘My damned Italian eyes are to blame . . . dark ochre’: Pierre Sichel, Modigliani: A Biography of Amedeo Modigliani, p. 101
‘accost the girl with a certain formality . . .’: Salmon, Modigliani, p. 46
‘his occasional remarks . . . incoherent brilliance’: ibid., p. 47
‘The illusion was perfect after the third mominette’: ibid.
‘Just paint to please yourself . . . lessons’: Olivier, Souvenirs intimes, p. 194
‘Druet process’: Alfred H. Barr Jr, Matisse: His Art and His Public, p. 82
‘meretricious showman’: anonymous reviewer quoted in Spurling, Matisse, p. 137
‘gone to the dogs’: Paul Signac, quoted in ibid., p. 136
‘multicoloured flats arching over a vista . . .’: Barr, Matisse, p. 89
‘How old are you?’ . . .: Dan Franck, Les Années Montmartre: Picasso, Apollinaire, Braque et les autres, p. 24
‘frightened of any revelations . . .’: Vlaminck, Dangerous Corner, p. 75
‘undoubtedly the happiest and most fruitful period . . .’: Jean Leymarie, quoted by Denys Sutton in his Introduction to ibid., p. 13
‘something very pleasing about Matisse . . .’: Olivier, Picasso and His Friends, p. 88
‘precise, concise and intelligent’: ibid.
‘a good deal less simple . . .’: ibid.
‘Matisse talks and talks . . .’: Picasso, quoted in Spurling, Matisse, p. 142
‘As different as the North Pole is from the South Pole’: Olivier, Picasso and His Friends, p. 84
‘gross, mad, monstrous products . . .’: Spurling, Matisse, p. 141
‘I want you to buy or send me . . .’: Richardson, A Life of Picasso, Volume I, p. 444
‘M’sieur Picasso, M’sieur Picasso . . .’: Warnod, Washboat Days, p. 12
‘I can’t see you any more when I look’: Hobhouse, Everybody Who was Anybody, p. 74
‘It is well for young men to have a model . . .’: Gauguin, quoted in John Berger, The Success and Failure of Picasso, p. 54
‘But it doesn’t look like me’ . . . ‘It will’: variously quoted and translated, e.g. Mailer, Picasso; p. 214; Franck, Les Années Montmartre, p. 68
‘I was and I still am satisfied . . .’: Stein, ‘Picasso’ (1938), in Stein, Picasso, p. 34
‘still a little rose . . .’: ibid., p. 51
‘Picasso was the only one in painting . . .’: ibid., p. 52
‘The rose period ended with my portrait . . .’: ibid., p. 51
‘he contented himself with seeing things . . .’: ibid.
‘while thundering for the Republic’: Félix Fénéon, Novels in Three Lines, p. 6
‘27 violations’: ibid.
‘Too old to work’: ibid., p. 17
‘horrible monsters and efflorescent skin diseases’: ibid., p. 110
‘More and more the struggle to express it intensified’: Stein, ‘Picasso’ (1938), in Stein, Picasso, p. 52
‘From rooms where the plaster was falling . . .’: Romola Nijinsky, Nijinsky, p. 73
‘The Hour of Reckoning’: Sjeng Scheijen, Diaghilev: A Life, p. 133
‘the length and breadth of infinite Russia’: ibid., p. 134
‘The end was here in front of me’: ibid.
‘palaces frightening in their dead grandeur . . . the new aesthetic’: ibid.
‘an invasion of Petersburgers’: ibid., p. 150
‘surrounded by drawings . . .’: Spurling, Matisse, p. 149
Part III: Carvings, Private Lives, ‘Wives’
‘Oh la la! Quel beau corps . . .’: Alfred H. Barr Jr, Matisse: His Art and His Public, p. 95
‘Does that interest you?’ . . . ‘ . . . make a design’: Hilary Spurling, Matisse: The Life, p. 153
‘two-man race’: ibid., p. 142
‘At that moment I understood that I was a painter . . .’: Alex Danchev, Georges Braque: A Life, p. 42
‘Just imagine . . . I left the drab, gloomy Paris studios . . .’: ibid., p. 41
‘memories in anticipation’ . . . ‘Braque, Friday’: John Richardson, A Life of Picasso, 1907–1917: The Painter of Modern Life, Volume II, p. 68
‘d’une beauté grave’: Richardson, A Life of Picasso, Volume II, p. 29
‘less wild, more brilliant . . .’: Fernande Olivier, Picasso and His Friends, p. 93
‘outside society, of a different species’: ibid., p. 94
‘took a good deal of trouble . . .’: ibid., p. 85
‘“It’s the cry of the Grand Lama” . . .’: ibid., p. 86
‘thoroughbred marionettes . . .’: ibid., p. 51
‘the art of arranging in a decorative manner . . .’: Barr, Matisse, p. 119
‘What I am after, above all . . .’: ibid.
‘I cannot copy nature in a servile way . . .’: ibid., p. 121
‘the very nature of each experience’: ibid.
‘an appeasing influence, like a mental soother . . .’: ibid., p. 122
‘the year of the cinema’: Richard Abel, The Ciné Goes to Town: French Cinema 1896–1914, p. 25
‘Between nine o’ clock and midnight . . .’: Paul Éluard, Foreword to Nicole Védrès: Images du cinéma français, p. 7
‘Picasso and Braque saw the flaw in photography’: David Hockney, Picasso, p. 49
‘Would you like to hear some big news? . . .’: Fernande Olivier, Souvenirs intimes: écrits pour Picasso, p. 218 (24 August 1907)
‘Tell Alice I can’t write to her . . .’: ibid., p. 219 (postscript to letter of 24 August 1907, above)
‘of Madame Matisse with a green line . . .’: Alice B. Toklas, What is Remembered, p. 18
‘I once said to her . . .’: ibid., p. 10
‘tactless choice’: ibid., p. 19
‘busier and noisier . . .’: ibid., p. 22
‘It was Gertrude Stein . . . primitive Greek’: ibid., p. 23
‘vengeful goddess’: ibid.
‘Now you understand . . .’: ibid., p. 24
‘golden’: ibid., p. 26
‘astonishing virility’: Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, p. 42
‘She always placed a large black hat-pin . . .’: ibid., p. 41
‘bringing her eye close and moving . . .’: ibid., p. 68
‘as for myself I prefer portraits . . .’: ibid.
‘wonderful tales’: Matisse, Cézanne, Picasso . . . l’aventure des Stein, p. 327
‘if you love a woman you give her money’: Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, p. 23
‘a loud knocking . . .’: Toklas, What is Remembered, p. 27
‘marvellous all-seeing brilliant black eyes’: ibid.
‘You know how as a Spaniard . . .’: ibid., p. 27
‘a large heavy woman . . .’: ibid.
‘a group of Montmartrois . . .’: ibid., p. 28
‘Ah, the Miss Toklas . . .’: Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, p. 28
‘Mees Toklas’: Toklas, What is Remembered, p. 29
‘a very small Russian girl was holding forth . . .’: ibid.
‘To exhibit frescoes for a cathedral . . .’: Félix Vallotton, quoted in Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale, Misia: The Life of Misia Sert, p. 127
‘In an orange, an apple, a ball . . .’: Cézanne, quoted in John Rewald, Cézanne: A Biography, pp. 225–6
‘Quand la couleur est à sa richesse . . .’: Cézanne, quoted by Merleau-Ponty in Émile Zola, et al. Cézanne vu par . . ., p. 34
‘see in nature the cylinder, the sphere, the cone . . .’: Cézanne, quoted in Rewald, Cézanne, p. 226
‘dense quilted blue’, ‘shadowless green’: Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters on Cézanne, p. 29
‘the apples are all cooking apples . . .’: ibid.
‘la réalisation’: ibid., p. 34
‘the conviction and substantiality of things . . .’: ibid.
‘it’s natural, after all . . .’: ibid., p. 50
‘was my one and only master! . . .’: Picasso, quoted in Brassaï, Conversations with Picasso, p. 107
‘The poets of that time were our best disseminators’: Danchev, Georges Braque, p. 47
‘a new classicism . . .’: Adrienne Monnier, The Very Rich Hours of Adrienne Monnier, p. 84
‘columns of tenderness’: June Rose, Daemons and Angels: A Life of Jacob Epstein, p. 76
‘a brilliant rectangle . . .’: Noel Alexandre, The Unknown Modigliani: Drawings from the Collection of Paul Alexandre, p. 62
‘What I am searching for . . . in the human Race’: Modigliani, in ibid., p. 91
‘It was a gorgeous surprise . . .’: Toklas, What is Remembered, p. 30
‘a certain wild quality . . .’: Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, p. 29
‘That settled the matter’: ibid.
‘Of course to have a lesson in French . . .’: ibid., p. 31
‘like real bottled liquid smoke’: ibid.
‘first category sables, second category ermine . . .’: ibid.
‘our hats are a success’: ibid., p. 19
‘one ideal’: ibid., p. 33
‘Fernande adored her . . .’: ibid.
‘THAW MURDERS STANFORD WHITE . . . ’: Gerald Langford: The Murder of Stanford White, p. 22
‘the most exquisitely lovely human being . . .’: ibid., p. 93
‘She could never have counterfeited it . . . done it as well’: ibid., p. 118
‘But she went into ecstasies over Evelyn Thaw . . .’: Toklas, What is Remembered, p. 35
‘The performance at the Folies Bergère . . .’: ibid., p. 33
‘Find a hotel in our quarter . . .’: ibid.
‘You ought to do caricatures’: Hélène Parmelin: Picasso Says . . ., p. 36
‘And yet Fénéon was quite somebody’: ibid.
‘What a loss for French art!’: Richardson, A Life of Picasso, Volume II, p. 106
‘My true meeting with him . . .’: Danchev, Georges Braque, p. 51
‘It’s as if you wanted to make us eat tow . . .’: ibid., p. 52
‘For me the role of painting . . . halt an image’: Parmelin, Picasso Says . . ., p. 39
‘he cannot look at the world any more . . .’: Gertrude Stein, ‘What are Master-pieces . . .?’, in Gertrude Stein, What are Master-pieces . . .?, p. 87
‘You have to give whoever is looking at it . . .’: Parmelin, Picasso Says . . ., p. 92
‘Everything is against them . . .’: Stein, ‘What are Master-pieces . . .?’, in Stein, What are Master-pieces . . .?’ p. 91
‘it is about identity and all it does . . .’: ibid.
‘It is very interesting that no one is content . . .’: ibid., pp. 93–4
‘Fit your parts into one another . . .’: Barr, Matisse, p. 550
‘To feel a central line . . .’: ibid., p. 551
‘The model must not be made to agree . . .’: ibid.
‘He does not leave me alone . . .’: Toklas, What is Remembered, p. 64
‘Is Fernande wearing her earrings?’ . . . ‘. . . And it was’: Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, p. 33
‘held Pablo by her beauty’: Toklas, What is Remembered, p. 35
‘taking Fernande off his hands’: ibid., p. 36
‘a new and alarming development occurred’: ibid.
‘I have seen God’: ibid., p. 37
‘large’ laughs: ibid.
‘le cher maître . . .’: ibid., p. 38
‘unsympathetic as a man . . .’: ibid., p. 39
‘an old maid mermaid . . . quite unbearable’: ibid., p. 44
‘wore thin and finally blew away entirely’: ibid.
‘By the time the buttercups were in bloom . . .’: ibid.
‘You have seated yourselves admirably’ . . . ‘a sort of man and woman’: Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, p. 23
‘the feeling between the Picassoites and the Matisseites . . .’: ibid., p. 72
‘powerful head which made him look like a white negro’: Fernande Olivier, Picasso and His Friends, p. 103
‘suspicious, able and clever’: ibid.
‘his nose swollen like a potato . . .’: ibid., p. 104
‘ma femme’: Danchev, Georges Braque, p. 107
‘disciple’: Richardson, A Life of Picasso, Volume II, p. 83
‘She set Braque apart . . .’: Danchev, Georges Braque, p. 29
‘the most sensational of entrances’: Olivier, Picasso and His Friends, p. 115
‘Oh! Remarkable! Delightful! . . .?’ ‘Yes . . . by Madame?’: ibid.
‘The fashionable figure is growing straighter . . .’: Palmer White, Poiret, p. 41
‘He saw things on a large, a grand scale . . .’: Olivier, Picasso and His Friends, p. 116
‘eyeglass in one hand and foil in the other . . .’: Claude Lepape and Thierry Defert, From the Ballets Russes to Vogue: The Art of Georges Lepape, p. 40
‘Peacock Woman and her brilliant portrayal . . .’: Jean Lorrain, in Philippe Jullian, Montmartre, p. 132
‘I could see the gas lamps rise up in tiers . . .’: Alexandre, The Unknown Modigliani, p. 53
‘some sensational entry’: Paul Poiret, King of Fashion: The Autobiography of Paul Poiret, p. 54
‘decision’: Richardson, A Life of Picasso, Volume II, p. 110
‘We are the two great painters of the age . . .’: Olivier, Picasso and His Friends, p. 92
‘Poor, dear douanier . . .’: ibid., p. 90
‘he had the natural gift of a primitive painter’: ibid., p. 92
‘a unique talent, a sort of genius’: ibid.
at least three: Note: In addition, during the course of 1908, they bought a large number of works by Picasso. See Matisse, Cézanne, Picasso . . ., pp. 314–16
‘a small, strange watercolour of Picasso’s . . .’: Alexandre: The Unknown Modigliani, p. 62
‘only once at sundown . . .’: Richardson, A Life of Picasso, Volume II, p. 102
‘two ascending and converging lines . . .’: ibid., p. 101
‘petites cubes’: ibid.
‘a Mediterranean landscape . . .’: Henri Matisse, in Georges Braque et al., Testimony against Gertrude Stein, p. 6
‘In order to give . . .’: ibid.
‘When we invented cubism . . .’: Richardson, A Life of Picasso, Volume II, p. 105
‘Cubism, or rather my cubism . . .’: ibid.
‘Cubism showed cubes where there weren’t any . . .’: Jean Cocteau, The Journals of Jean Cocteau, p. 93
‘It has its origins in a single viewpoint . . .’: Richardson, A Life of Picasso, Volume II, p. 105
‘a full experience of space . . . as a painting should’: Danchev, Georges Braque, p. 73
‘It is as if someone spent his life . . .’: Richardson, A Life of Picasso, Volume II, p. 105
‘brought him closer to the human being . . .’: Hockney, Picasso, p. 48
‘If there are three noses . . .’: ibid., p. 50
‘strange alchemy’: Maurice Vlaminck, Dangerous Corner, p. 77
‘aesthetic revolution [which] would remain uncontrolled . . .’: ibid.
‘Picasso never lectured . . .’: Cocteau, The Journals of Jean Cocteau, p. 93
‘terribly individualistic . . .’: André Salmon, in Jeanine Warnod, Washboat Days: Montmartre, Picasso and the Artists’ Revolution, p. 102
‘to buck him up and to banish his doubts’: Vlaminck, Dangerous Corner, p. 76
‘fun to work in pure colour and tone . . .’: ibid.
‘It seemed as though everything was seen . . .’: ibid., p. 79
‘How could I dream of running . . .?’: ibid., p. 80
‘It is forbidden to disturb the performance with hats . . .’: Michel Fontana, L’Année 1908 en France (Thesis, Université de Paris III, Sorbonne Nouvelle, Departement d’Études et de Recherches en Cinéma et Audiovisuel, Mémoire pour le Diplôme d’Études Approfondies, Septembre 1997, Documentations du Musée du Cinéma, Bercy, Paris (11. 01 FRA FON), p. 107; cited in Ciné-Journal, 1 September 1908)
‘a painting that enchanted him’: Alexandre, The Unknown Modigliani, p. 62
‘Can you still doubt that my client . . .?’: Ambroise Vollard, Recollections of a Picture Dealer, p. 216
‘Oh! Monsieur Vollard! . . .’: ibid., p. 218
‘So you see, Léonie . . . Léon . . .’: ibid., p. 219
‘good-nature personified’: ibid., p. 215
‘Aie! Aie! Aie! . . .’: Olivier, Picasso and His Friends, p. 70
‘burst in upon us filled with the tragedy . . .’: Toklas, What is Remembered, p. 56
‘le “premier” de l’alimentation à Paris’: Hubert Juin, Le Livre de Paris 1900, p. 102
‘the national song of the Red Indians’: Toklas, What is Remembered, p. 57
‘Salmon came running past us . . .’: ibid.
Part IV: Street Life
‘fast tempo and beautiful movement’: Alfred H. Barr Jr, Matisse: His Art and His Public, p. 135
‘I have decided to defy our bourgeois opinions . . .’: ibid., p. 555 (31 March 1909, Moscow)
‘In those days only millionaires . . .’: Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, p. 102
‘streamed with gold’: Misia Sert, Two or Three Muses: The Memoirs of Misia Sert, p. 111
‘Artists, who all their lives . . .’: V.J. Svetlov, in Serge Lifar, Serge Diaghilev: His Life, His Work, His Legend, pp. 130–31
‘arduous, feverish, hysterical’: Tamara Karsavina, Theatre Street: The Reminiscences of Tamara Karsavina, p. 235
‘Ces Russes, oh la la . . .’: ibid., p. 236
‘For mercy’s sake, I cannot work . . .’: ibid.
‘a retail shop of cheap emotions . . .’: ibid., pp. 235–6
‘itself a work of art’: Richard Buckle, Nijinsky, p. 88
‘He rose up, a few yards . . .’: Karsavina, Theatre Street, pp. 240–41
‘irresistible at twenty’: Misia Sert, in Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale, Misia: The Life of Misia Sert, p. 136
‘splashed Paris with colours’: Jean Cocteau, The Journals of Jean Cocteau, p. 50
‘When you paint a landscape . . . like a plate’: Francis Carco, From Montmartre to the Latin Quarter, p. 32
‘I understood how far I was able to go’: John Richardson, A Life of Picasso, 1907–1917: The Painter of Modern Life, Volume II, p. 124
‘two landscapes and two figures . . .’: ibid., p. 128
‘Because of the heat . . .’: Alice B. Toklas: What is Remembered, p. 48
‘beautifully made to order . . .’: ibid.
‘rosy with pleasure’: ibid., p. 50
‘Those were proud and happy days . . .’: ibid., p. 53
‘an extraordinary one of Harriet’: ibid., p. 49
‘The old people in a new world . . .’: Gertrude Stein, The Making of Americans. Being a History of a Family’s Progress, p. 3
‘We need only realize our parents . . .’: ibid.
‘bottom’ or basic nature: ibid., p. 343
‘dependent independent’ . . .’ ‘resting kind’: ibid., p. 344
‘independent dependent’ . . . ‘attacking kind’: ibid.
‘emotion is not as poignant . . .’: ibid., p. 347
‘their substance is more vibrant . . .’: ibid.
‘attackingly defending’: ibid., p. 348
‘the muggy resisting bottom . . .’: ibid., p. 352
‘I am all unhappy in this writing . . .’: ibid., p. 348
‘very exciting . . .’: Toklas, What is Remembered, pp. 41–2
‘I had commenced the typewriting . . .’: ibid., p. 54
‘a professional accuracy . . .’: ibid.
‘Frequently these were the characters . . .’: ibid.
‘Eh bien’ . . . ‘off the sidewalk’: ibid., p. 55
‘Come on . . . take a fiacre’: ibid., p. 60
‘very delicate tea’: ibid., p. 61
‘on her very best behaviour’: ibid., p. 60
‘these people must have hit the jackpot’: Richardson, A Life of Picasso, Volume II, p. 143
‘Shchukin has bought my picture . . .’: quoted in Fernande Olivier, Souvenirs intimes: écrits pour Picasso, p. 238
‘When I hang these on the wall . . .’: Francis Carco, L’Ami des peintres, p. 19
‘it always amused me . . .’: Gertrude Stein, Picasso: The Complete Writings, p. 35
‘really the beginning of cubism’: Richardson, A Life of Picasso, Volume II, p. 131
‘only Spaniards can be cubists’: ibid.
‘the humblest galleries where the “jeunes” showed their work . . .’: Carco, L’Ami des peintres, p. 236
‘the pin wasn’t fastened . . .’: Fernande Olivier, Picasso and His Friends, p. 118
‘Some . . . spend all their living struggling . . .’: Gertrude Stein, The Making of Americans, p. 463
‘a marvellous gold sheath . . .’: Paul Poiret, King of Fashion: The Autobiography of Paul Poiret, p. 92
‘pointed her nose in every direction . . . midinettes of Paris’: ibid., p. 93
‘like a thunder-clap’: ibid., p. 40
‘FRENCH TRADE REPRESENTED BY THE ENGLISH PREMIER’: ibid., p. 41
‘Wives dragged husbands . . .’: Palmer White, Poiret, p. 41
‘Those gowns are . . . the worst of all the recent insanities’ (Le Figaro); ‘I shall have the charity to refrain from mentioning the name of the couturier who is guilty of this outrage’ (La Vie Parisienne); ‘To think of it! Under those straight gowns we could sense their bodies!’ (L’Illustration): ibid.
‘I rolled myself into a ball . . .’: Henri Matisse, in Hilary Spurling, Matisse: The Life, p. 194
‘I did sculpture when I was tired of painting . . .’: Henri Matisse, Galeries of the Centre Pompidou
‘I said to her . . .’: Toklas, What is Remembered, p. 61
‘yes apaches of course . . .’: Richardson, A Life of Picasso, Volume II, pp. 142–3
‘you think you are witty . . .’: ibid., p. 143
‘like a pauper . . .’: ibid.
‘pimps . . . clowns, acrobats . . .’: ibid., p. 145
‘like characters from a Carco novel’: Olivier, Picasso and His Friends, p. 172
‘Strange, disturbing figures . . .’: ibid., p. 171
‘hymn the man at the wheel’: F.T. Marinetti, ‘The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism, 1909’, in Umbro Apollonio (ed.), Futurist Manifestos, p. 21
‘No work without an aggressive character . . .’: ibid.
‘We will destroy the museums . . .’: ibid., p. 22
‘the renovation of painting’: ibid., p. 27
‘ the dynamic sensation itself’: ibid.
‘persistent symbols of universal vibration’: ibid., p. 28
‘put the spectator in the centre . . .’: ibid.
‘If one plane wasn’t enough . . .’: Alex Danchev, Georges Braque: A Life, p. 69
‘And we judged everything like that . . .’: Hélène Parmelin, Picasso Says . . ., p. 39
‘eternal and futile worship of the past’: Marinetti, ‘The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism, 1909’, in Apollonio (ed.), Futurist Manifestos, p. 23
‘ can be nothing but violence . . .’: ibid.
‘Bakst’s emphasis on bold, bright . . . ’: Shari Greenberg, ‘Léon Bakst and Scheherazade’, in Mariinsky Ballet, 50th Anniversary Season (London: Royal Opera House, 25 July–13 August, 2011), p. 25
‘Painting should inspire like this . . .’: Georges Hilaire, Derain, p. 23
‘a roaring car . . .’: Marinetti, ‘The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism, 1909’, in Apollonio (ed.), Futurist Manifestos, p. 21
‘looked as though they had just escaped . . .’: Gold and Fizdale, Misia, p. 140
‘the southern regions of Europe . . .’: Noel Alexandre, The Unknown Modigliani: Drawings from the Collection of Paul Alexandre, p. 99
‘We can report . . .’: ibid.
‘Carissimo . . .’: ibid.
‘At the summit of the Butte Montmartre . . .’: ibid.
‘Choose what is suitable, Madame . . . a state of mind . . .’: White, Poiret, p. 41
‘modern men trying to find a pictorial language . . .’: Roger Fry, ‘The French Post-Impressionists’ (1912), in Roger Fry, Vision and Design, p. 167
‘The difficulty [in the paintings’ reception] springs . . .’: ibid.
‘The painter aims to construct not an anecdote . . . Braque, in Jeanine Warnod, Washboat Days: Montmartre, Picasso and the Artists’ Revolution, p. 140
‘a purely abstract language . . .’: Roger Fry, Vision and Design, p. 167.
‘by the continuity and flow . . .’: ibid., p. 168
‘here attempting to do something quite different’: ibid.
‘the great originator . . .’: ibid.
‘And that . . . twentieth century’: Gertrude Stein, Paris France, p. 17
‘their tradition kept them from changing . . .’: ibid.
‘finally broke loose . . .’: Lawrence Gowing, Matisse, p. 111
‘they have the advantage of being animated by touch’: Richardson, A Life of Picasso, Volume II, p. 150
‘closer to Havana than to Madrid’: ibid., p. 154
‘We are paying a hundred francs . . .’: ibid., p. 156
‘stranded in little heaps . . .’: ibid., p. 157
‘navicular structure . . .’: ibid.
‘doubled power of our sight’: Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carra, Luigi Russolo, Giacomo Balla, Gino Severini, ‘Futurist Paintings: Technical Manifesto, 1910’, in Apollonio (ed.), Futurist Manifestos, p. 28
‘swallowed safety pins . . .’: Richardson, A Life of Picasso, Volume II, p. 158
‘And difficult!’. . .: ibid., p. 164
‘communion of souls’: ibid.
‘Rich and poor, young and old . . .’: ibid.
‘At the risk of offending the Pichots . . .’: ibid., p. 165
‘lyricism of the banlieusard’: Hilaire, Derain, p. 53 (quoting Jean Cassou: ‘cet élan de lyricisme banlieusard’)
‘What was wrong in our attitude . . .’: André Derain, in Denys Sutton, André Derain, p. 21
‘Where there is temperament . . .’: ibid.
‘esthétisme hasardeux’: Hilaire, Derain, p. 53
‘Un tableau ne commence pas . . .’: ibid., p. 117
‘façon directe de sentir des choses’: ibid., p. 36
‘Mais la Peinture, c’est autre chose’: Maurice Genevoix, Vlaminck, p. 19
‘the classicism of cubism [opposing] the romanticism of the Fauves’: Jean Cocteau, The Journals of Jean Cocteau, p. 48
‘If you can’t paint the entire person . . . to one side’: Francis Carco, Promenades pittoresques à Montmartre, p. 14
‘He was painting from his wife’: Cocteau, The Journals of Jean Cocteau, p. 49
‘From the moment that someone else could do the same thing . . .’: Georges Braque, quoted in Warnod, Washboat Days, p. 140
‘I realized that a painter could not make himself known . . .’: ibid.
‘the youngest of the cubists’: Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, p. 121
‘How he drifted in . . .’: ibid.
‘as one would join a religious faith’: Warnod, Washboat Days, p. 169
‘reducing the architecture’: ibid.
‘visiting Poles . . .’: Richardson, A Life of Picasso, Volume II, pp. 179–80
‘primitive, diabolical, barbaric . . .’: Spurling, Matisse, p. 199
‘We have been to the Salon d’Automne . . .’: Maurice Sembat, quoted in Warnod, Washboat Days, p. 143
‘probably remaining’: Toklas, What is Remembered, p. 61
‘And with that I moved . . .’: ibid., p. 62
‘an intimate friend of two . . .’: ibid., p. 63
‘infant prodigies of the social world’: ibid.
‘considered herself a Greek scholar . . .’: ibid.
‘ghostly pallor and elegant, etiolated figures’: Spurling, Matisse, p. 204
‘a miracle of suppleness and rhythm’: ibid., p. 208
‘monstrous images’: ibid., p. 213
‘frightful Spanish Woman . . .’: ibid.
‘very joyously . . .’: Parmelin, Picasso Says . . ., p. 96
‘Each of us had to see . . .’: Danchev, Georges Braque, p. 111
‘bumped into’: Richardson, A Life of Picasso, Volume II, p. 186
acquisition . . . of eleven works by Matisse: Jean-Paul Crespelle, La Vie quotidienne à Montmartre au temps de Picasso, 1900–1910, pp. 123–4
‘a little French Evelyn Thaw . . .’: Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, p. 122
‘Is Picasso leaving Fernande . . .?’: Toklas, What is Remembered, p. 66
‘ma jolie’ . . . ‘Fernande is certainly not . . .’: Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, p. 122
‘the true source . . . of all creative search’: Spurling, Matisse, p. 234