Pablo: Art Masters Series

by Julie Birmant, Clement Oubrerie (Illustrator)

Overview

This award-winning graphic biography of Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) captures the prolific and eventful life of one of the world’s best-loved artists. Pablo explores Picasso’s early life among the bohemians of Montmartre, his turbulent relationship with artist/model Fernande Olivier, and how his art developed through friendships
with poets Max Jacob and Guillaume Apollinaire, the painter Georges Braque, and his great rival Henri Matisse. Julie Birmant and Clément Oubrerie depict a career that began in poverty and reached its climax with the advent of cubism and modern art.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781906838942
Publisher:	SelfMadeHero
Publication date:	05/05/2015
Series:	Art Masters
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	7.40(w) x 10.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Julie Birmant, a former director of the Brussels film school INSAS, has made documentaries on popular science and co-edited issues of the Journal of Alternative Theatre. She lives in France. Clément Oubrerie is a French artist who has illustrated more than 40 books. His first graphic novel, Aya of Yop City, won the First Book Award at the Angoulême International Comics Festival; was nominated for the YALSA Great Graphic Novels list and an Eisner Award; and made best-of lists in the
Washington Post, Booklist, Publishers Weekly, and School Library Journal.

Editorial Reviews

04/27/2015
French documentary filmmaker Birmant and artist Oubrerie (Aya of Yop City) tell the story of Picasso through the magic of memory and symbolism. The narrator/storyteller is Fernande Olivier, Picasso’s muse and the subject of more than 60 of his paintings. Though Pablo is the book’s title, the story is very much told from Fernande’s perspective. Cursive lettering in the narrative captions symbolize Fernande’s perspective and her magical-realist/symbolic view. When she remembers her “elegant, distant, fragrant” mother, we see a talking bottle of perfume; her “man of the world” and moneyed father is a disembodied top hat. Fernande’s frustrations with her lot in life—being a stoic woman trapped in an abusive marriage—lead her to change her name and run off to Paris, where she encounters Picasso, his art rival Henri Matisse, and the birth of the 20th-century art world. Her story is a romance and a biography, as well as a portrait of an era reminiscent of From Hell, but told from a female perspective. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Birmant’s Picasso is a furiously determined protagonist full of palpable jealousy and ego, his actions punctuated by Mr. Oubrerie’s loose and frenetic drawing style.

New York Observer

The fluidly illustrated comic, with fleshy tones and energetic lines, delves into the artist’s psychological and emotional depths.

Flavorpill

The graphic novelists unfold their canvas slowly, letting us bask in the gradually told adventure, and take in all these beautiful earth tones. The result is a masterwork in more ways than one.

The Washington Post

Pablo Picasso’s turbulent early years in Paris are vividly portrayed in this engaging graphic biography.

Booklist

Birmant’s Picasso is a furiously determined protagonist full of palpable jealousy and ego, his actions punctuated by Mr. Oubrerie’s loose and frenetic drawing style.”—New York Observer

“The fluidly illustrated comic, with fleshy tones and energetic lines, delves into the artist’s psychological and emotional depths.”—Flavorpill

“Pablo Picasso’s turbulent early years in Paris are vividly portrayed in this engaging graphic biography.”—Booklist

“Sardonic, informative, and sexy.”—Library Journal online

“The graphic novelists unfold their canvas slowly, letting us bask in the gradually told adventure, and take in all these beautiful earth tones. The result is a masterwork in more ways than one.”—The Washington Post

From the Publisher

Pablo Picasso’s turbulent early years in Paris are vividly portrayed in this engaging graphic biography.

Booklist