Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), one of the most radical and forward-looking artists of the twentieth century, was fascinated by the work of his artistic forebears. From his days as a student at the Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid to his prolific late maturity in the years after World War II, the artist continued to turn for inspiration to the work of his greatest antecedents, including Eugene Delacroix, Edouard Manet, and Paul Gauguin.

This illuminating book documents Picasso's variations on the work of earlier masters over the course of his career, revealing the significant role that these works played in his creative thinking. Through this intensive examination, the reader is given a unique opportunity to observe the master's creative process at close range, and to see some of the most important works of European art history through his eyes.

The author, a Picasso scholar and Associate Curator of The Frick Collection in New York, discusses the most important of these remarkable paintings, drawings, and prints, from the witty parodies of the artist's youth to his complex encounters in the years after World War II with the masterpieces of Poussin and Velazquez.