Picasso and Minou by P.I. Maltbie
Picasso and Minou
by P.I. Maltbie
Awww. This came up on the picklist at the library and I couldn't resist standing in the library yesterday morning and reading through it quickly. Picasso has been one of my favorite artists since I was young, but this was a different side of him. The story is set when Picasso is a starving artist in his blue period. He has very little, but shares it with his adorable cat, Minou. One day, he just can't afford to keep Minou. Minou is taken in by circusfolk and given food, which the cat then takes and shares with Picasso. This leads Picasso to a different culture and starts him into different subject matter and his rose period. People start buying his art and he suddenly has the freedom to create his new (most-identifiable) art style of cubism. And it's all due to his cat.
It was an adorable story, but I was shocked to find some of it was actually true. Picasso did have a cat during that period of his life. And that cat did return unexpectedly with food when the artist was starving. The fact that the cat led Picasso to the circus performers (who were the subjects in many of Picasso's work) was fiction, but a lovely fiction.
The book itself is about art, so it needs beautiful illstrations--and has them. So many of the pages in the book are bold nods to Picasso paintings. There are even little images hidden in the background or off to the side that are like Picasso's works or works from other famous artists. Those blended perfectly with the original compositions of illustrations during Picasso's story here. Brilliant.
A heart-warming, clever story based in truth that is well-written and well-illustrated. I loved this.