Picasso: A Biography. Patrick O’Brian

Picasso under contract.

      These contracts are perhaps somewhat less known in England and the United States, but they were and are common practice in France: they stipulate that the artist shall make over the entirety of his production to the merchant in exchange for a stated sum, usually to be paid by the month. In principle the whole of the artist’s work becomes the merchant’s exclusive property, although a clause often gives the artist the right to retain say a dozen pictures for himself. In this case there was no such clause; and the stated sum was a hundred and fifty francs a month, then about five pounds sixty or twenty-two dollars.

      When one reflects that a good Picasso of this period, his “Moulin de la Galette” for example, would fetch at least fifty thousand times this amount, the contract seems a little hard, if not unconscionable, particularly as Picasso would produce two hundred pictures a year and sometimes many more, to say nothing of his drawings. But on the other hand Manyac could not tell how soon the public would share his taste nor whether they would ever do so at all: and he did not know, nor could he guess, Picasso’s enormous dynamism and the consequent volume of work that the contract would cover. He was taking a risk; he was not at all rich, having no gallery of his own and living in a two-roomed flat; and although perhaps he was a keen dealer with an appetite for profit, he cannot be called a shark. Picasso’s portrait of him, in Washington, shows a big man with uneven eyes, deeply puzzled.

      It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to say what a hundred and fifty francs represents in our money: needs have changed so widely, and the pattern of life is no longer the same. As far as exchange-rates go, the franc was worth 9.4 old pence or a little over 19 cents in 1900: but here are some figures that may give a better notion of what money meant to the Parisians at the beginning of the century. (To be exact, they were compiled in 1903; but the cost of living was fairly stable in those years.) Of the 883,871 households in the city, 71.1%, classed as poor, had an average annual income of 1,070 fr (£43), and they paid 275 fr of this in rent; the 16.2% who were called comfortably off had 5,340 fr a year; the 5.4% of rich had 28,925 fr (£1,157); and the 1.3% of very rich 282,500 fr. In those days a workingman’s average daily wage was four francs fifteen, a good cook earned sixty-five francs a month, and a judge of the court of appeal a thousand. A copious dinner with wine in a moderately good restaurant cost two francs fifty; a common eating-house would feed one for a franc, with bread and wine thrown in; and one could go from one end of Paris to the other on a bus for fifteen centimes. A hundred and fifty francs was not wealth nor anything like it, but a man could live with less: it meant a well-filled belly, wine, tobacco, and shelter.

      Few unknown painters, just nineteen years old, who had never seen a hundred and fifty francs all in one golden mass, nor yet the promise of a year’s independent carefree living, ever had such an offer; fewer still would not have been overjoyed, filled with an elastic excitement and delight renewed every waking day for weeks; and none would have refused to sign it. Picasso signed: but his joy was diminished if not done away with by the state of Casagemas. He perceived that the unhappy man was drinking himself sodden, and that he was getting worse day by day.

      It is said that Picasso had promised to spend Christmas with his family in Barcelona. He may well have done so: in his unwillingness to give immediate pain he would very often make large promises for tomorrow, next week, next month, or another time, but he rarely felt bound where the future was concerned. Whether or no, as December wore on it became clear that Casagemas would have to be taken away: he was in great danger in Paris.

      Between the train that had brought Picasso north and the train that was now taking him south again, only some sixty days had elapsed. They were sixty days into which he had crammed an enormous amount of experience: he had seen a very great number of pictures; he had seen the exhibition, the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais (with friezes colored at so much the yard by a host of needy painters, including Matisse and Marquet), the great telescope, the moving pavement, and the official pavilions of the various nations including that of Spain, in which there were pictures by Moreno Carbonero and other worthies known to Picasso, but only Zuloaga excited much favorable comment: the papers called him the new-born Goya. As for the attractions, he probably left them to one side; they were expensive and rather dreary for the most part: “One hoped to discover Sodom and Gomorrah,” said one visitor. “All one found was the Dead Sea.” He had seen a brilliant night-life very unlike the dives of Barcelona; and although his had been no more than a foreigner’s Paris he had seized some essential aspects, both within himself and in the form of several paintings and many, many drawings. And as well as his sick, distracted friend, he took with him a contract that meant his freedom, his living, and perhaps recognition.

      Yet Casagemas was his main concern. After a few days at home in Barcelona, which did Casagemas no good, Picasso took him down to Málaga: the sun, the total change of air and scene, the New Year festivities with aunts, uncles and cousins would set him up.

      But the sun of Málaga was cold, Picasso’s family distant. The Ruiz affair and his conduct in Madrid were still rankling. They did not ask him or his unkempt and now unpresentable friend to stay and they had to take a room at a fonda: even there the woman of the house would not let them in until Picasso told her who his relations were. Málaga was no longer his home.

      He felt it very deeply indeed. Presently the Ruiz and even the R vanished from his signature for ever. And after some days of going from café to wine-shop to brothel with Casagemas he saw that his effort had brought him not only a mortal affront—it had not only destroyed his Málaga forever—but it had also been useless. He could do nothing for Casagemas. The unhappy man kept himself steadily drunk and he sat there hour after hour in those dreary brothels; but all the brothels in the world would do no good to him.

      Nevertheless Picasso went on trying. Málaga had failed to provide the affection, the family atmosphere, and the New Year cheerfulness that an affectionate heart would have expected, but at least it had Gypsies, the cante hondo and the guitar, and Picasso knew where to find them. He took Casegemas there, and he drew the singers and their audience. But it was no use. Casegemas vanished, taking the train northwards.

      There was no point at all in remaining in Málaga: Picasso fled from the unhappy place—he never saw it again—and went to Madrid. Why Madrid I cannot tell, unless he had already conceived the plan of collaborating with Soler, who appears in the next chapter: though a desire to avoid Casagemas may have had something to do with his decision.

      Casagemas traveled on, reaching Paris early in 1901. He was in better physical shape now and on February 17 he wrote a large number of letters: Manolo came to see him in the boulevard de Clichy and Casagemas welcomed him kindly, promised him help, and asked him to dinner that same evening. On the way they posted the letters.

      In the restaurant just at hand they were joined by Pallarès, the Catalan art-collector Alexandre Riera, Odette, and Germaine. It was a good dinner and they drank several bottles of wine. Casagemas seemed nervous and on edge, and towards the end of the meal he stood up to make a speech in French, which Manolo did not then understand. While he was still speaking he darted his hand to his pocket: Germaine saw the pistol coming and ducked; the bullet only grazed the back of her neck. Manolo grappled with him, but Casagemas wrenched the gun up to his temple, fired, and died within the hour.

       5

      IT was in Madrid that Picasso heard of Casagemas’ death. Apart from the immediate shock it did not seem to affect him a great deal at first: his painting showed no evident signs for several months.

      He was extremely busy in the capital, for he and a friend of his who lived there had decided to found a literary and artistic review: it was to be called Arte Joven—joven being young—and it was to bring Catalan Modernismo to the Castilians, playing the part of Pèl i Ploma and Joventut in Barcelona, but in a more decided and more generally left-wing manner—not that it was to be in any way a political review, however.

      This friend, Francesc d’Assís Soler, a Barcelona Catalan, had already published some pieces in the intellectual magazines, and he was to be the literary editor. He was also to provide the money: not that he had much, but he was the son and the Madrid representative