the master and his muses; In his latest, biographer John Richardson captures a post-Cubist Picasso making new conquests-in life as in art.('With A Life of Picasso: The Triumphant Years, 1917-1932')(Book review)

Byline: Matthew Price

With A Life of Picasso: The Triumphant Years, 1917-1932 (Knopf), the third volume of his dazzling, epic, decades-in-the-making biography, John Richardson drops us in on the artist's life at a crucial moment as the painter, his Cubist years behind him, seeks out new inspiration-and new circles-in Rome, London, and the South of France.

As Richardson deftly shows, if Picasso (1881-1973) was relentless in his artistic quest, he was equally relentless in his pursuit of women. With his earthy Andalusian vitality, this small, self-assured Spaniard exerted a magnetic hold on his lovers, who in turn stoked his imagination and inspired several of his most arresting paintings. Richardson argues it was a ruthless dynamic: Picasso may have needed women in his life, but he ultimately sacrificed them for his art. Over the years, his sundry mistresses have fueled an entire genre of psychosexual books and movies. Here Richardson, without losing sight of the work, offers rich, sympathetic portraits of Picasso's first wife, Olga Khokhlova, and one of the artist's greatest loves, Marie-Therese Walter.

We pick up in 1917 with the 35-year-old Picasso, his fame growing ever wider, living in Rome. Weary of Paris, which suffered as World War I raged, he had escaped to the Eternal City with Jean Cocteau to design sets for Sergei Diaghilev, the colorful impresario of the Ballets Russes. Holed up in one of the renowned Patrizi studios, Picasso produced the Cubist-inspired costumes and backdrops for the avant-garde spectacle Parade. He was also nursing a broken heart-two of his French mistresses had spurned offers of marriage-and was under pressure from his family to produce an heir.

He quickly fell for Olga, a lissome Russian dancer ten years his junior. Fending off his advances-"No, no, Monsieur Picasso, I won't let you in," she was heard saying one night as he banged on the door of her hotel room-the demure Olga nonetheless accepted his proposal. They were married the following year in Paris amid murmurs of disapproval from Picasso's artist friends, who scorned his new wife's bourgeois pretensions. Having made a good match, Olga expected to live "le highlife," and the besotted Picasso set her up with a cook, hired a chauffeur, and kept her dressed in the latest Chanel.

Olga took to the role of Mme Picasso with aplomb, and initially, Picasso was proud to put her on display in his work, rendering her in brooding, pensive studies that fused Cubist effects with the delicacy of French masters like Ingres. Yet the restless artist could not find happiness with her. Even if he owned expensive cars, Picasso still fancied himself a bohemian at heart, and was soon disparaging his wife behind her back. "You see, Olga likes tea, caviar and pastries, and so on," he told a friend. "Me, I like sausage and beans."

After the ...