Pablo Picasso on His Cultural Role

“[I am] only a public entertainer, who has understood his time.”

Attributed to Wash. Post 30 Nov. 1952. The Post article is quoting an article in Quick Magazine from the summer of 1951. According to a letter by William S. Rubin in New York Times 5 Jan. 1969, this is ‘a trumpery originated in Il Libro Nero published by Giovanni Papini in 1951.’”

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.