Sue Roe

"First published in Great Britain by Fig Tree, an imprint of Penguin Books Ltd."--Title page verso.

Picasso, Matisse and Modernism in Paris, 1900-1910

In Montmartre

I love an art history book but this was a slog. It's a well done book but the way the author conveyed the information was not terribly narrativly interesting, and there seemed to be a surprising restraint on deconstructing the bias of society and the role that institutionalized oppression played in the choices and environment of the artists covered. It functions very well as a biography and historical text of the lives of these artists, but doesn't investigate "why" enough-- a lot is made about Picasso's attention to forms seen in African art, but nothing about how it interacts with the idea of the "other" in the beginnings of post colonial Europe. A nice read if you're familiar with Montmartre or France at all, but more investigation into the built environment itself would have been interesting as well, considering Paris is one of the world's oldest cities and is steeped in history. 

In Montmartre Picasso, Matisse and Modernism in Paris, 1900-1910

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