The theme of children and childhood, a highly popular subject with the great painters and sculptors of the past, has received comparatively little attention in twentieth-century art. Here, as in so many other respects, the work of Pablo Picasso stands out as a major exception. Picasso's many portraits and other depictions of children constitute one of the most immediately accessible and appealing facets of his extraordinarily varied oeuvre.

This fascinating new study by Werner Spies, one of the foremost connoisseurs of Picasso's work, examines the artist's approach to the subject of the child against the background of his turbulent personal life, the development of this restlessly innovative aesthetic thinking, an the general ideas about the significance of childhood and youth that have played such a key role in shaping modern culture.

Sumptuously illustrated, and packed with original and stimulating insights, the book offers an enticing introduction to Picasso's magical world of children, and to his visual universe as a whole.