In the heady days after the Second World War, Douglas Cooper emerged as
the
world's preeminent collector of Cubist art. This arch queen was more
than
a mere financier of great artists. He was a patron in the full sense of
the
word, writing about, befriending, and conspiring with Picasso, Braque,
Gris,
Leger, and many other modernist luminaries.
John Richardson was a young,
ambitious writer when he first met Cooper at a book party for Paul
Bowles'
The Sheltering Sky. Sparks flew, but not as one might imagine.
Richardson
describes his mentor-to-be as a mean, selfish, petulant, and overweight
man, blinded in one eye by a near-fatal automobile accident. " Alcohol
overcame my initial revulsion," he writes. "A kiss from me, I
fantasized,
would transform this toad into a prince, or at least a Rubens Bacchus.
But Douglas turned out to be as rubbery as a Dalí biomorph. No
wonder
he was mad at the world."
The 12-year relationship that developed between the two men
was
complex and far surpassed any bourgeois attempts to recreate the
institution of marriage. Cooper and Richardson were paramours, father
and
son, master and disciple, comrades in art, and finally rivals. Their
relationship was fascinating not least because of the great names and
great
antics that shaped their lives. To name only a few of the celebrated
artists, writers, and politicians who filter through Richardson's
memoir:
Francis Bacon (who early on tells Richardson that Cooper is a
"treacherous
woman"), Lucian Freud, Jacques Lacan, Jean Cocteau, Truman Capote,
Peggy
Guggenheim, Ernest Hemingway (caught in an embarrassing pose at a
bullfight), Alberto Giacometti, even the Queen of England herself. Many
of
them were members of what Richardson calls "la haute
pédérastie." Some
of
these people Richardson meets on his own; Cooper provides an
introduction
to others, like Picasso. The artist and some of his mistresses --
Jacqueline
Roque, Rosita Hugué, Paule de Lazerne, Dora Maar -- move through
Cooper
and
Richardson's life and the home they build in an old chateau in Provence,
which they name Castille.
Richardson, the author of A Life of Picasso
(two volumes so far), is a
good witness to both these men's lives. They are a complementary
couple -- between Douglas' cold bitchiness and Picasso's own macho
insecurities they
are
not the easiest men to love. Although Cooper's brilliance and
generosity is
sometimes overshadowed by his cunning and competitiveness, there is a
fondness to the way Richardson recalls their time at Castille.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice is an engrossing read and has the qualities of
a
great page turner. Richardson's memoir has been compared to the writing
of
Evelyn Waugh, and rightly so. There is a confidence and ease to its
conversational tone that is hard to turn away from. Reading parts of it
are
like watching a train wreck unfold.
-- Lawrence Chua
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