"Picasso's Lovers" by Jeanne Mackin

Fifty years after his death, Pablo Picasso remains a central figure in the art world. Along with his famous periods--blue, rose and African, for example--there were the many women that shared his life.Picasso's love life was almost as colorful as his art, critics have noted.That triggered Jeanne Mackin into writing "Picasso's Lovers," a work of historical fiction. "I wanted to tell the story from a woman's point of view," she said.Sometimes criticized for his treatment of both wives and lovers (such as the Paris Review article entitled "How Picasso Bled the Women in His Life for Art"), Picasso isn't viewed as a villain by Mackin."No one forced these women into Picasso's life," she told Steve Tarter.Mackin spins her story from 1920s Europe to 1950s New York. The period when Picasso visited the French Riviera in 1923 is also part of the story, she said, crediting Gerald and Sara Murphy as the wealthy American ex-patriots who helped make it fashionable for celebrities like Picasso, Matisse and Hemingway to enjoy the south of France.