Picasso's War

Meer over het boek

A riveting tale of ambition and prodigy, this narrative explores how America became the cultural center of the world and Picasso emerged as its most famous artist during the shadow of World War II. In January 1939, Picasso was celebrated in Europe yet overlooked in the U.S. By the following year, American interest in his work surged. This transformation traces back to John Quinn, an Irish American lawyer who aimed to create the greatest Picasso collection. His dream of a museum ended with his death but was later revived by Alfred H. Barr, Jr., a visionary who became the director of New York’s Museum of Modern Art at just twenty-seven. Their shared ambition faced numerous challenges, including public disdain, the Great Depression, and Picasso's own complexities. The turning point came with Hitler's campaign against Jews and modern art, leading Barr to forge a crucial alliance with Paul Rosenberg, Picasso’s persecuted dealer, to rescue key artworks from Europe. The groundbreaking exhibition, Forty Years of His Art, mounted amid war, not only launched Picasso's fame in America but also redefined the art world, shifting its focus from Paris to New York. This account reveals how a single exhibition, a decade in the making, transformed American taste and preserved significant twentieth-century artworks from the Nazis. Through new scholarship and engaging storytelling, the narrative illustrates how two men's obsession with Picasso fo