1943 | PICASSO’S SLIPPERS

Picasso’s Slippers
Photograph: Brassaï
Source: Brassaï - Conversations With Picasso (The University Of Chicago Press, 1999)

Monday 6 December 1943 
Near the easel, an old armchair is staggering under a pile of papers with a portrait on top, one of the many preparatory portraits for “Man With Sheep”. Picasso's slippers are set at the foot of the armchair. The head, armchair, and slippers form a kind of personage, holding in his arms the piles of books and magazines. I move the barely visible slippers slightly, and prepare to take the photo of my funny little man, when Picasso comes in. He glances at what I am doing. 
PICASSO:
It'll be an amusing photo, but it won't be a "document." Do you know why? Because you moved my slippers. I never place them that way. It's your arrangement, not mine. The way an artist arranges the objects around him is as revealing as his artworks. I like your photos precisely because they are truthful.

Brassaï
From: Conversations With Picasso (The University Of Chicago Press, 1999)


Picasso’s Slippers
Photograph: Brassaï
Source: Brassaï - Conversations With Picasso (The University Of Chicago Press, 1999)

Brassaï (born Gyula Halasz) was a photographer, journalist, and author of photographic monographs and literary criticism, including Letters to My Parents, published by the University of Chicago Press.


SHOES & ART
1832 - 2013


 

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