John Richardson has a long piece in Vanity Fair coming in the May issue. The magazine’s site has a brief interview with the Picasso biographer and curator of another show at Gagosian about Marie-Thérèse where the source of the mysterious black bands in the Brody Picasso will be revealed:
Marie-Therese was submissive, and throughout her relationship with Picasso she did what she was told. And because she was insanely in love with him, she was happy to do so. Her rival, Dora, was more sophisticated. She had lived previously with Georges Bataille, a great thinker and a disciple of the Marquis de Sade. Like most of the Surrealist women, she knew what she was in for. Remember too, that Man Ray, the greatest of Surrealist photographers, was a close friend of Picasso’s. I didn’t realize how close until a friend discovered that the painting that fetched $106 million last year [Nude, Green Leaves and Bust] was in fact based on a bondage photograph taken by Man Ray. In the catalogue of our Marie-Therese show, we’re placing the photograph and the painting side by side.
Q&A: John Richardson on Picasso’s “Uncontrollable” Sex Drive (Vanity Fair)
