@article{345500,
      recid = {345500},
      author = {Utley, Gertje.},
      title = {Picasso : the Communist years /},
      publisher = {Yale University Press,},
      address = {New Haven :},
      pages = {x, 268 p. :},
      year = {2000},
      abstract = {The fact that Picasso joined the French Communist Party in  1944 and remained a loyal member to the end of his long  life presents puzzling contradictions. How can the image of  him as a protean genius be reconciled with his membership  in a repressive political organization that maintained an  authoritarian hold on its artistic community and all but  obliterated the freedom of the creative mind? How could the  creator of Guernica, lauded at that time as the champion of  civilian victims of totalitarian aggression, support the  policies of the Soviet Union? This stimulating book is the  first comprehensive examination of Picasso's political  commitment, his motivations to join the French Communist  Party, and his contributions as an active member. Gertje R.  Utley assesses the impact communism had on the artist's  life and explores how Picasso's political beliefs and the  doctrines of the Communist Party affected his artistic  production. Utley provides the first account in English of  the intricate relations between the French Communist Party  and its artists in the years immediately following the  Liberation. She then examines in detail the role Picasso  played within the Communist agenda, his financial and moral  support, his active participation at Party events, and his  artistic endorsement of the Party's most important  ideological positions during the Cold War years. Addressing  Picasso's unfailing loyalty in the face of both the Party's  untenable political positions and the opposition within the  Party to his art, this book offers new insight into aspects  of the artist's thought and art that have been little  considered before.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/345500},
}