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David Douglas Duncan, 94, became a photojournalist at the age of 20, served in the Pacific theatre with the US marines and worked as a war correspondent in Korea in 1950.
In February 1956 he travelled to Cannes, in the hope of photographing
the world's most famous painter, much as he had already done with other
celebrities for Life magazine. Fellow photographer Robert Capa had suggested the idea a few years earlier, when the two of them were covering the war in Indochina.
"I just went by at La Californie, Picasso's home in the south of France, and rang the bell. It was Jacqueline
Roque-Picasso who opened the gate and I explained what I was after.
Moments later I was taking my first portrait of Picasso, soaping
himself in the bath." From then on, until the early 1960s, Duncan was the
artist's main photographer, certainly the most constant and the one who
enjoyed the greatest access. He could come and go as he pleased at
Picasso's various homes. "You cannot imagine how simple it all was," he
says. "I was there, like someone belonging to the family, and I just took
pictures."
Duncan's published books, some photographs of Picasso and his works are spread over two rooms. Sitting in Duncan's study you are surrounded by personal items with a rich history and memories. In just one of the photographs, Picasso looks tense. Duncan explains: "You know I was a war
correspondent in Korea. I did a book on it, This is War. One
day I brought a copy for Picasso. There was another guest there,
who started looking at it. Picasso was three yards away, but he saw the
shots of the war. That's when I took this picture: Picasso's face as he
discovered my photographs of Korea, shocked and utterly horrified."
But
this portrait is an exception. Most show the artist either
concentrating on a painting or drawing, larking around, as a cowboy
with a hat Gary Cooper gave him, or wearing a grotesque mask of his own
invention.
"Picasso never asked me to take a photograph. 'You take pictures, I paint.' That was the division of labour. He didn't pose for me, but he never refused a picture either; never said no. The shot where he's wearing a cut-out paper mask, I took by chance. I was standing in front of a mirror and he passed behind me with the mask on his face. All I did was photograph the reflection. But the mask was for him. He worked a lot on his face... He wasn't a clown, really not... He was definitely having fun, but it was for his own amusement. The one where he's dancing in the studio, doing a sort of square dance, it's the same. Jacqueline had started dancing in front of the paintings and he said: 'I can dance too.' That's all there was to it."
"Picasso never asked me to take a photograph. 'You take pictures, I paint.' That was the division of labour. He didn't pose for me, but he never refused a picture either; never said no. The shot where he's wearing a cut-out paper mask, I took by chance. I was standing in front of a mirror and he passed behind me with the mask on his face. All I did was photograph the reflection. But the mask was for him. He worked a lot on his face... He wasn't a clown, really not... He was definitely having fun, but it was for his own amusement. The one where he's dancing in the studio, doing a sort of square dance, it's the same. Jacqueline had started dancing in front of the paintings and he said: 'I can dance too.' That's all there was to it."
Duncan showed me a mockup, a personal book, he had recently worked on during his hip recovery. "Some stories were never told before, couldn't be told before." And he handed me a picture of a young Asian boy in the Korean war, telling me what happend to him right after this picture was taken. "Where do you come from?" He asked me. When I told him that I was born in Surabaya he smiled. He had once been there.
He was talking about a traditional Indonesian funeral he clearly remembered and how it had impressed upon him the way the Indonesian culture deals with the dead, when he took a small digital camera out of his pocket and quickly took a portrait of me. "The light is good", he said.
Another Picasso story followed. "One day when I was there, someone asked him
which period of his work he liked the best: the blue period, the rose
period, cubism
and so on. Picasso stretched out his hand, his fingers spread, and
answered: 'Well, which of these five fingers do you prefer? Personally, I
need all of them." Victor Alling - 2010
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From left to right: son Paolo, Jacqueline, daughter-in-law Christine, art expert John Richardson, poet-playwright Jean Cocteau (with cape) and art historian Douglas Cooper walking through the streets of Arles. - David Douglas Duncan.
Viva Picasso -1980. A Studio Book by The Viking Press, New York
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Picasso at the age of 75 in his bathtub. - La Californie, February 8th, 1956. D.D.D. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Viva Picasso -1980. A Studio Book by The Viking Press, New York
Other image;
3. David Douglas Duncan sitting behind his desk, France 2010.
4. David taking a photo of Victor Alling, France 2010.
Photos by Mart Engelen.
