Picasso: Magic, Sex, Death

Picasso: Magic, Sex, & Death (2001) is a three-episode Channel 4 film documentary series on Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) presented by the artist's friend and biographer John Richardson, and directed by Christopher Bruce or British art critic Waldemar Januszczak, who was also the series director. On-screen contributors include Picasso descendants such as Paloma Picasso, Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, Diana Widmaier-Picasso, Maya Picasso, and Claude Picasso; along with authorities such as Mary Ann Caws, Billy Klüver, Gérard Régnier, James Lord, Bernard Minoret, Robert Rosenblum, Linda Gasman, Marilyn McCully, David Gilmore and Gertje Utley; one former mistress (Francoise Gilot); and one flirtation (Sylvette David).

This 53-minute episode covers the period from Picasso's birth to 1916.

Biographer Richardson tours the locations of Picasso's early life, but starts with the Château de Castille near Avignon where he and Douglas Cooper had once hosted the painter and his coterie in the 1950s. Contemporaneous paintings are presented and discussed while sites with family associations, such as the Cathedral of Málaga (where he was born) and the Moorish Castle ("his playground"), are visited. Chilly La Coruña, where the Picasso family relocated, is briefly glimpsed before moving on to Barcelona where he lived beginning in 1895. Richardson chats with descendants of Picasso's associates there at Els Quatre Gats (4 Cats), the legendary tavern and brothel that was the focal point of his life then.