Sacred Monsters, Sacred Masters

by John Richardson

From the scandalous murder trial of a French art dealer's widow to photographer-designer Cecil Beaton's peculiar "romance" with Greta Garbo, this sinfully entertaining book lets readers brush up on 20th-century cultural history and the vagaries of human nature at the same time. While we wait for volume III of John Richardson's acclaimed Life of Picasso , the 28 sketches assembled here make an agreeable diversion, revealing Richardson's lighter side and formidable knowledge of art history. Admiring portraits of Chilean collector Eugenia Errazuriz ("Picasso's Other Mother") and British painter Lucian Freud are among the very few laudatory pieces in a collection notable for its enjoyable emphasis on the less edifying traits of the rich and/or famous. The Sitwells were spiteful mythomaniacs. Armand Hammer was "a veteran con man." As for the sexual proclivities of Salvador Dalí and his wife Gala... well, Richardson gives you all the gory details, some of which would have impressed the Marquis de Sade. Richardson appears as a character in several he worked for Hammer, spent a summer with Truman Capote in Venice, and sat for a portrait by Andy Warhol. But these appearances seldom seem self-aggrandizing; they're integrated into the essays with the same smoothness that distinguishes his prose. --Wendy Smith

Genres: Art, Biography, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published November 6, 2001

About the author

Sir John Patrick Richardson, KBE, was a British art historian and Picasso biographer. The elder son of Sir Wodehouse Richardson, he was sent to board at two successive schools after his father's death in 1929. When he was thirteen he became a boarder at Stowe school, where he admired the architecture and landscape and was taught something about the work of Picasso and other innovative painters. After bring invalided out of the army in the Second World War, he worked in London as an industrial designer and became friends with the painters Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud.

In 1949 Richardson met the art historian and collector Douglas Cooper and the two began a relationship that would last ten years. In 1952, he moved with Cooper to Provence, where he met a number of artists, including Pablo Picasso. In 1960, Richardson left Cooper and moved to New York, where he worked in the art world until retiring in 1980 to concentrate full time on writing. The first volume of his biography of Picasso was published in 1991, with subsequent volumes published in 1996 and 2007. In 2012, Richardson was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) for his services to art.

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[AC · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful collection (some quite brilliant) of first- and second-hand anecdotal portraits of some of the great minor eccentrics of the 20th cen. art world

[Moritz Mueller-Freitag · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sacred Monsters, Sacred Masters is a collection of essays that Richardson published as a follow-on to his memoir, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (1999). The volume is packed with twenty-eight gleefully malicious mini-biographies about an odd mix of artists and con artists (many of whom the author knew first-hand). Granted, it’s an uneven collection: some of the profiles are enormously insightful and perceptive, while others amount to not much more than bitchy, irreverent gossip. But all are a joy to read and quite revealing.

The most chilling tale of the opus is that of Domenica Walter, the beautiful and utterly ruthless widow of art dealer Paul Guillaume. In the 1950s, Domenica became embroiled in an epic scandal that rocked the art world. The opening paragraph of Killer Collector sets the scene masterfully:

“The spectacular show of masterpieces from the Musée de l’Orangerie commemorates the phenomenally successful art dealer Paul Guillaume (1891–1934), who put most of this magnificent collection together. It also commemorates one of France’s most sensational art scandals. Twenty-five years after Guillaume’s death, his lethal widow, Domenica, her no less lethal lover, Dr. Maurice Lacour, and her conniving brother, Jean Lacaze, would be accused by her adopted son, Jean-Pierre, of plotting to murder him. Besides attempted murder, the case involved charges of blackmail, entrapment, forgery, will tampering, and what the French call proxénétisme—pimping. There were also overtones of political skulduggery.”

Alas, Domenica had the almost uncanny ability to always land on her feet. While her “lethal lover” was sent to jail, she escaped justice by agreeing to a political horse-trade with de Gaulle’s minister of culture: in exchange for selling her late husband’s art collection to the Louvre for a pittance, the Ministry of Justice dropped all charges against her. Richardson finds just the right words: “Ironically, the only real winner in this very, very French story was France”.

[Debra Komar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved this book. Richardson has a unique voice - cutting, opinionated, playful - and writes his own brutal truth. The subject matter is fantastic: stories about artists and writers and their lesser-known but no less interesting companions. Much of the writing is reportage; Richardson tells of his sitting as a model for Lucien Freud or his summer spent with Truman Capote. Yet he manages to avoid the usual name-dropping, focusing instead on capturing the private side of his subjects. He isn't always kind but the language is as sharp as the content and somehow it all works.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my second reading of this book. This time I have skipped a couple of chapters only, which is an improvement. I may come back sometime in the future. Richardson has a knowledge of some very little known facts. After all, he had a first-hand access to the majority of people he writes about. If you're into modern art it might be an essential reference book. It's very entertaining too.

[L.E. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just the hilarious section on Judy Chicago is worth the $24.95.

[Pamela Brown Shore · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite art historians. This book and Sorcerers Apprentice is fantastic especially if you like early 20th C art and history.

[GK Stritch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Art & lit world tittle-tattle; snippy and snappy, but insightful, Richardson cuts (almost) all down, many brilliant stories that make up for the less dazzling, but the dazzling ones make the book worthy of five stars.

[Rena Sherwood · Rating 2 out of 5]

Makes you hate the worlds of fine art, literature and design. Some funny bits about people you never heard of. But you need to have a fluent knowledge of French in order to get half of this book. Reading this was hard work and not play.