by Sue Roe
‘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’: Ol
ivier, 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 Masterpieces …?’, in Gertrude Stein, What are Masterpieces …? 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 Masterpieces …?, 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 Explanation’, in Stein, What are Masterpieces …?, 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 Masterpieces …?’, in Stein, What are Masterpieces …?, 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 masterpieces …’: Stein, ‘What are Masterpieces …?’ in Stein, What are Masterpieces …?, 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: Modigliani: 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