Signed book: The Private World of Pablo Picasso. First edition, first printing. NY: Ridge Press, 1958. Hardcover with dustjacket, 8.5 x 11.25, unpaginated. The title page bears a vibrant multicolored crayon drawing of a smiling bearded man beneath a frieze of greenery, boldly signed and inscribed “Pour Sapone, son ami Picasso.” The inscribee, Nice tailor Michele Sapone, was profiled by Time magazine in 1969: “Casual visitors are much more likely to mistake [his shop] for an art gallery: about 450 paintings and drawings—many by Europe's best-known contemporary artists—crowd the walls of the waiting room, the workshop, the corridors and even the fitting room. As tailor to more than 100 leading French and Italian artists, Sapone, 56, accepts payment for his clothes in works of art. Says Sapone: ‘It has been a fruitful exchange between the needle and the brush’.... Poet-Painter André Verdet ordered a sport coat of grey velvet curtain material. Picasso took one look at Verdet's coat and was off to see the tailor. The two men hit it off instantly, and after Sapone had cooked Picasso some Neapolitan spaghetti, the artist gave him three lithographs and an order to ‘sew something for me’.... ‘He never tells me what he wants,’ says Sapone. ‘He leaves that entirely up to me’.... Once Sapone delighted Picasso with a pair of cuffless, horizontally striped trousers. ‘I've always wanted them,’ said the master. ‘Courbet had a pair just like them.’ Other Sapone contributions to Picasso's wardrobe include a white silk suit, which the artist wears to bull fights, and a brown velvet smock with a collar so high and broad that the tailor told Picasso: ‘Your head emerges from the collar like a flower from a pot.’ In return, Picasso has given him about 50 paintings and sketches—including a powerful War and Peace pastel contrasting dancing nymphs with a hideous fire-belching monster....” Light wear and soiling to jacket, soiling and staining to covers, and a hint of mild scattered spotting and toning to interior, the page with the drawing remaining clean, bright, and fault free, otherwise fine condition. A charming, colorful original Picasso with impeccable provenance! RRAuction COA.
