Play Audiobook Sample
In Montmartre: Picasso, Matisse and the Birth of Modernist Art Audiobook
Play Audiobook Sample
(0.00) - 0 listener ratings
Quick Stats About this Audiobook
Total Audiobook Chapters:
Longest Chapter Length:
Shortest Chapter Length:
Average Chapter Length:
Audiobooks by this Author:
Publisher Description
A lively and deeply researched group biography of the figures who transformed the world of art in bohemian Paris in the first decade of the twentieth century In Montmartre is a colorful history of the birth of Modernist art as it arose from one of the most astonishing collections of artistic talent ever assembled. It begins in October 1900, as a teenage Pablo Picasso, eager for fame and fortune, first makes his way up the hillside of Paris’s famous windmill-topped district. Over the next decade, among the studios, salons, cafés, dance halls, and galleries of Montmartre, the young Spaniard joins the likes of Henri Matisse, André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck, Georges Braque, Amedeo Modigliani, Constantin Brancusi, Gertrude Stein, and many more, in revolutionizing artistic expression.
Sue Roe has blended exceptional scholarship with graceful prose to write this remarkable group portrait of the men and women who profoundly changed the arts of painting, sculpture, dance, music, literature, and fashion. She describes the origins of movements like Fauvism, Cubism, and Futurism, and reconstructs the stories behind immortal paintings by Picasso and Matisse. Relating the colorful lives and complicated relationships of this dramatic bohemian scene, Roe illuminates the excitement of the moment when these bold experiments in artistic representation and performance began to take shape.
A thrilling account, In Montmartre captures an extraordinary group on the cusp of fame and immortality. Through their stories, Roe brings to life one of the key moments in the history of art.
Praise for In Montmartre "Lively and engaging….[Readers] will find a fresh sense of how all these people—the geniuses and the hangers-on, the wealthy collectors and the unworldly painters—related to each other…..In [Roe’s] entertaining, ingeniously structured account Roe brings Montmatre’s hedyday back to life." —Sunday Times (London) "With evocative imagery Roe sketches out the intensely visual spectacle on which Montmatre’s artistic community was able to draw…. Roe is particularly good at communicating the extraordinary devotion of Matisse and Picasso to their work." —Financial TimesDownload and start listening now!
“Although the book primarily revolves around Picasso’s life and work, it involves much more than painting, including the pioneering creations of fashion designer Paul Poiret and the frenzied arrival of modern dance with the Ballets Russes…Roe’s accessible prose creates intimate portraits of an array of characters, but this is above all a vibrant illustration of a specific place in time.”
— Publishers Weekly
Quotes
-
“Lively and engaging…Entertaining, ingeniously structured… Brings Montmartre’s heyday back to life.”
— Sunday Times (London) -
“With evocative imagery Roe sketches out the intensely visual spectacle on which Montmartre’s artistic community was able to draw…Roe is particularly good at communicating the extraordinary devotion of Matisse and Picasso to their work.”
— Financial Times (London) -
“Sue Roe offers a lively and concise account of their lives during a ten-year period when they struggled to find new ways to express themselves and, in the process, rocked the foundations of Western art…[Roe is] very good at synthesizing and distilling complicated art movements and ideas without getting bogged down in technical details or jargon.”
— Associated Press -
“Sue Roe has written a portrait in words of an era.”
— Spectator (UK) -
“Skillfully evokes the birth of a new artistic era in the midst of an idyllic French village preserve…An absorbing group biography that lends a vivid sense of the modernist revolution. Editor’s recommendation.”
— Barnes&Noble.com, editorial review -
“The author is strongest in conveying social history: the gritty reality of the Bateau-Lavoir, with its ‘creaking floorboards beaten by winter storms and splintered by summer heat,’ where many artists made their homes; the intricate ballet of their friendships and romantic liaisons; their frustrations in exhibiting and selling their work.”
— Kirkus Reviews
Awards
-
A Barnes & Noble Editor’s Recommendation
In Montmartre Listener Reviews
Be the first to write a review about this audiobook!
About Sue Roe
Sue Roe is the author of several books, including a New York Times bestselling collective biography of the Impressionists and a widely praised work on the artist Gwen John. She lives in Brighton, England.
About Emma Bering
Emma Bering is an Earphones Award–winning audiobook narrator whose readings include The Second Empress by Michelle Moran, Bride of New France by Suzanne Desrochers, and A Brief History of Montmaray by Michelle Cooper, among many others.