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The first is that from his early days Picasso has hated to let any of his pictures go. "No painting is ever finished" is one of his gloomy sayings, and it is true that his studio and his chateau are jammed full of canvases which he will not sell. Even so, Dealers Rosenberg, et al., have occasionally been so hard put to it to keep from being flooded with Picassos that a wit once suggested, as a solution, a tie-up with the Citroen (Ford of France) Motor Company: "A Picasso with every Citroen."
The other explanation is that sales of Picassos have long been skilfully manipulated and that Picasso, who knows how good he is, has grown rich by not objecting. The merest page from a sketch book of the Toulouse-Lautrec period fetches $200, and there have been at least two sales of paintings in the U. S. for a reputed price of about $25,000 each.
Picasso's enemies attribute to him a peasant tightness with his money. There are few stories of his personal generosity, though it is a fact that any poor but promising poet can get a Picasso etching for his book by asking for it. He has certainly contributed a great deal to the Loyalist side in the Spanish civil war: the Guernica mural free, all proceeds from exhibiting it (to date about $5,000), at least two fully equipped fighting planes, and during the last few weeks a cash gift of 300,000 francs ($7,959).
The Man. Picasso's eyes, enormous in relation to his head, dominate his face, which despite a largely indoor life has taken on a finely crinkled, leathery quality often found in Spaniards. Never a dandy, he now dresses adequately but with indifference, is only a bit touchy about being short (5 ft. 3 in.). A plausible theory for the usual dirt and disorder of his rooms is that it is largely reaction from the neatness enforced by his bourgeois wife.
After lunching on noodles or spaghetti at a little Italian restaurant in the Rue Bonaparte near St. Sulpice, Picasso starts the real day's work at about 2 p. m. in an enormous, factory-like studio at 7 Rue des Grands-Augustins. He no longer selects or sizes (prepares with glue to make nonabsorbent) his own canvas but is fussy about its fineness and weave. His concentration, intensity, efficiency and command of his medium at work are legendary. But, while one painting may be finished in a day, another just like it will take 90 hours of work, spread over as much as three years. He is never satisfied; all his life the question "Ça marche?" has invariably met with the same reply: "Peuh!"
In the evening, Picasso dines at the same little restaurant on the same pasty food, will then take a cafe-creme at the Cafe de Flore, almost always with the same group. His wit, which has made him feared by sycophants, is famous and often malicious. Examples: (of a young girl artist) "Her mother drinks, her father drinks, and it is she who has the red nose"; (of James Joyce) "an obscur whom everyone can understand." Picasso's critics do not like the way he pretends that nothing he says can have any really damaging effect. They point to this as one more symptom of spoiled-childishness which accepts the pleasant aura of fame without acknowledging the responsibility it entails.