Back in Paris, the new Picasso turned up at the theater with his kid gloves, canes, tall hats, capes, and dinner clothes, and the linings gave you a little silk flash every time he wheeled about the lobby to chat with one of his hellish new friends . . . Our old pal Braque shook his head sadly . . . At least Derain had had the decency to confine himself to a blue serge suit when he was being lionized in London, and he had stuck to the company of local bohos in his off hours . . . But PicassoBraque was like that incorruptible member of the Cénacle of the rue des Quatre Vents, Daniel DArthez, watching the decay of Lucien Chardon in Balzacs Lost Illusions. With a sigh Braque waited for his old comrade Pablos imminent collapse as a painter and a human being . . . But the damnedest thing happened instead! Picasso just kept ascending, to El Dorado, to tremendous wealth but to much more than that, to the sainted status of Picasso, to the point where by 1950 he was known at every level of opinion, from Art News to the Daily News, as the painter of the twentieth century. As for Derain and his blue serge suit and Braque and his scruplesthe two old boys, both very nearly the same age as Picasso, i.e., about seventy, were remembered in 1950 chiefly as part of the pit crew during Picassos monumental victory. Tom Wolfe, The Painted Word.
Thanks, I had frgotten about Tom Wolfe’s book.
Picasso did some great paintings in his early years, but later, he turned out endless reams of crap. He was venal.