Forty-eight full-color plates, carefully selected, reflect this fascinating artistic progression of the considered most important artist of the 20th century. They also outline the events of Picasso's personal life and the world around him, the many women who inspired Picasso to love, desire, and paint.

Danièle Boone offers an informative and very readable introduction to the life of Picasso, his early background in Spain, and his mature development in Paris. She traces the influence of his family life, his father who was an art teacher, his strong mother, and his early travels through Spain; she studies the friendships that Picasso formed with a group of young artists in Paris - Max Jacob, Braque, Cocteau, Éluard - which were so important, not only for Picasso's own development as an artist but for the development of all art forms in the 20th century.

Boone achieves a successful balance between biographical and artistic information that fully complements the selection of plates that traverses the brilliant and long career of this outstanding 20th-century artist.