By general consensus, Pablo Picasso is the most brilliant and influential artist of the 20th century. In this work, Norman Mailer sets out to capture Picasso's early life, and explores in bold fashion the originality of his art and ambition. At the heart of Mailer's interpretation is Picasso's first, great love, Fernande Olivier, with whom the artist lived for seven years - a period that included Picasso's most revolutionary works. Fernande is here given her own voice by way of excerpts from her candid memoirs, hitherto unpublished in English. Since this period also included Picasso's friendships with Appollinaire and Gertrude Stein, this book evokes the charm and excitement of bohemian life in Paris in the early 1900s.