Picasso and Jacqueline
Photographer-writer Duncan describes Picasso's romance with Jacqueline Roque as an "epic love story," but on the evidence of this cloying photo album their live-in affair and marriage looks more like a mindlessly cheerful 1950s sitcom. We see Picasso cavorting with his children by Francoise Gilot, encouraging his dachshund to eat off the table, cleaning the bathtub (no male chauvinist pig, this guy!). We see him posing as clown and bullfighter ad nauseam. We see him transforming Jacqueline's sad, uptight face into an "empress-profiled" mythic figure on canvas. But we learn absolutely nothing about the inner workings of their relationship. Duncan, author of Goodbye Picasso and Picasso's Picassos , splices photographs with embarrassingly purple captions and self-aggrandizing text. Jacqueline, who committed suicide after Picasso's death, is insulted by Duncan, who labels her "one of his Blue Period lost souls."Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.