Praeterita

Me outside the Bateau Lavoir, and (top) the building in about 1905. You know those people that are completely obsessed fans of Star Wars, Game of Thrones, or any other kind of chronicle/team/celebrity/et cetera? The ones who secretly hoard collections of memorabilia, who consume everything created by the object of their obsession or written about it? The ones who, when asked a question about their pet subject, find it hard not to start gabbling wildly, trying to tell everything they know as fast as they can, in a way that makes the person who asked the question freeze with a ghastly smile on their face and wide, unblinking eyes that cannot hide their deep regret at starting a conversation with this complete and utter nutter? That's me, when it comes to Pablo Picasso and his early years in Paris. Picasso on the Place Ravignan, in front of Le Bateau Lavoir, in 1904. Thankfully, it started with his paintings, and later the other kinds of art he made, so at least my ...

Le bateau lavoir, c. 1905 Are there events in the lives of artists that you read about and wish you’d been around to see? I’ve read a lot of biographies, and the one that stands out for me is John Richardson’s Life of Picasso, Volume I . It covers Picasso’s life from his birth in 1882 to the middle of 1907, just before he started work on ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.’ Richardson discovered a wealth of new material about Picasso’s early years in Paris, and his descriptions of the bohemian life of Montmartre just teem with vivid detail. I wish I’d had a studio in the Bateau Lavoir round about 1905. This was an old laundry building on a small square in Montmartre, the Place Emile Goudeau. The entry was on the square, and once you were inside, the building descended sharply through several levels because it was built on the side of a hill. The building is no longer there, but if you go to the square you can still see quite clearly what this would have looked like. My studio would have had...