More than 50 photographs chronicling Picasso's personal life and work are on view at New York's Mitchell-Innes & Nash Gallery     GALLERY Click to view the photos    VIDEO CNN's Brian Palmer talks with David Douglas Duncan about spending time with the artist Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)

Photos offer glimpse of Picasso's private side

From Brian Palmer
CNN Correspondent

NEW YORK (CNN) -- When David Douglas Duncan met Pablo Picasso in 1956 at the artist's home, he had already established himself as a well-traveled combat photographer.

"I walked in and I didn't give a damn about him being a painter, Duncan said. "That was his problem."

The 75-year-old artist took instantly to the 40-year-old former Marine from Kansas City, Missouri, inviting him into his home in France and granting him access to his very private life, his family, friends and work.

That access is revealed in more than 50 of Duncan's photographs of Picasso taken from 1956 to 1973, the year the artist died. They're on display through January 6 at New York's Mitchell-Innes & Nash Gallery.

The photographer and painter quickly established a routine, Duncan recalled.

Photographer David Douglas Duncan documented Picasso's life off and on for 17 years. "He was a great Spanish gentleman," Duncan says. "A guy I respected, I loved."

"I'd just be shooting," he said. "He'd paint, or half the time he'd think. Days would go by and we probably didn't exchange 15 words."

Picasso didn't allow other photographers access to his life, gallery owner Robert Nash noted.

"I think it's wonderful to see this long period of his life when he was at, really, his most creative period," he said.

The photos are a singular record of perhaps the greatest 20th-century artist at work. But for Duncan, now 84, they also capture the bonds he shared with Picasso.

"He was a great Spanish gentleman," he said. "A guy I respected, I loved."

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Mitchell-Innes & Nash
Picasso Museum

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