Pablo Picasso – The Burial of the Count of Orgaz

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) is arguably the most famous and influential artist of the twentieth century. What few in the English speaking world know is that in 1935, at age 54, an emotional crisis caused Picasso to halt all painting and devote himself entirely to poetry. Even after resuming his visual work, Picasso continued to write, in a characteristic torrent, until 1959, leaving a body of prose poems that André Breton praised as, “an intimate journal, both of the feelings and the senses, such as has never been kept before.” Similarly struck by the poems’ originality, Michel Leiris wrote, “If we must compare him, despite his fierce singularity, in order to try and situate him on the literary map, I see only James Joyce.” Near the end of his life, Picasso himself was quoted as having told a friend that, “long after his death his writing would gain recognition and encyclopedias would say: ‘Picasso, Pablo Ruiz — Spanish poet who dabbled in painting, drawing and sculpture.’”

“These poems are haunted by the ghosts of representations — of landscapes, of meals, of battles, of lovemaking. This is something they have in common with the paintings of Picasso’s most inventive period — his Cubist works between 1907 and 1914… It’s possible that these journal-like poems served… to bring him back to his artistic roots among the poets, alongside his gone friends [Max] Jacob and Apollinaire. It was not for nothing that Picasso had scrawled in the old days on his studio door, Au rendez-vous des poètes.”
— David Antin, BookForum

“A very important book, and a necessary addition to the libraries of those who share, understand, or at least appreciate the questing spirit of Picasso’s genius. Hats off, once again, to Joris and Rothenberg, whose own questing spirits have carried them through this marvelous project.”
— Rain Taxi