Dear Monsieur Picasso: A Free eBook

In the sum­mer of 1955, Fred­er­ick Bald­win, a col­lege stu­dent at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty, set out on a pil­grim­age of sorts, hop­ing to meet Pablo Picas­so. Bald­win trav­eled first to Le Havre (pre­sum­ably by boat), then head­ed south, down to Val­lau­ris and Cannes, until he even­tu­al­ly reached Picas­so’s home on the Riv­iera, known as Vil­la la Cal­i­fornie. It took a lit­tle crafti­ness and mox­ie, but the young Amer­i­can gained entrance into Picas­so’s stu­dio. And there he was, the great painter him­self, wear­ing shorts, san­dals and not much else.

More than five decades lat­er, Bald­win has pro­duced an ele­gant e‑book (avail­able for free right here) that uses pho­tographs and text to pre­serve the mem­o­ry of this defin­ing moment. After meet­ing Picas­so, Bald­win became a pro­fes­sion­al pho­tog­ra­ph­er, work­ing for Audubon, LIFE, Nation­al Geo­graph­ic, Smith­son­ian Mag­a­zine, and The New York Times, among oth­er mag­a­zines. And, lat­er, he looked to “repli­cate the Picas­so expe­ri­ence pro­fes­sion­al­ly,” always con­trol­ling his own agen­da, nev­er tak­ing a job where he was­n’t mak­ing his own deci­sions. You can down­load the 22 page e‑book, Dear Mon­sieur Picas­so, right here. Find more great texts in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

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