Miles Unger

Picasso and the Painting that Shocked the World

Simon & Schuster

In 1900, an eighteen-year-old Spaniard named Pablo Picasso made his first trip to Paris. It was in this glittering capital of the art world that, after suffering years of poverty and neglect, he emerged as the leader of a bohemian band of artists ready to shake up the world. Here Unger, a staff writer for The Economist, examines Picasso’s early days leading up to the creation of his masterpiece Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. This is the story of an artistic genius with a singular creative gift. It is filled with heartbreak and triumph, despair and delirium, all of it played out in the world’s most captivating city.