30 color plates / Over 420 monochrome ilustrations

In the spring of 1973 one of the greatest artists of all time died. He had worked unremittingly for over eighty years to create an unprecedented wealth of paintings, drawings, sculptures, prints, posters and ceramics—the most exciting art of this century.
Tribute after tribute has been published and yet so far no book and no single author has adequately summed up his lifetime's achievement or accurately reflected the many facets of his art, including those revealed in his last years. This book, which consists of a series of carefully integrated essays, attempts this much needed final assessment. Some of them are contributed by his lifelong friends; others belong to the younger generation of art historians who have made an international reputation for discriminating scholarship.
Each one presents, in the form of a critical study, an examination of a crucial feature of Picasso's art, from the Blue and Rose periods, through Cubism and Surrealism, to his sculpture and graphic work which belong to no period exclusively but which are characterized by fertile experimentation. Always acutely aware of modern art's potential and ready to push its frontiers further forward, at the same time Picasso often felt the need to return to the themes and methods of the past. Hence one contribution overlaps with another to give a complete account of his achievement. In addition, the illustrations are cross-referenced so that illuminating comparisons can be made between the work of other artists who have influenced Picasso and his own creations.