David Douglas Duncan Collection

History of the creator

David Douglas Duncan (Kansas City, Missouri, 23 January 1916) was an internationally renowned photojournalist whose work has been published in numerous specialist journals and monographs. He was a member of the United States Marine Corps until February 1946, at which time he was hired as a reporter by Life magazine.
 
He left Life in 1956 and began working for Collier's magazine, but the company went bankrupt at the end of that year. From then on, he worked as a freelance photographer. David Douglas Duncan covered numerous international wars throughout his career, including the Second World War, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. In 1991, he received the Joseph Sprague Memorial Award from the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) in recognition of his career in photojournalism.

In February 1956, he met Pablo Picasso and the two became good friends. His photographic work on Picasso presents an exhaustive account of the intimacy of the artist's studio, and of the home he shared with his wife, Jacqueline Roque. The family, friends and celebrities who visited them at their Cannes villa, La Californie, at Château de Vauvenargues in Provence and at their farmhouse, Mas de Notre-Dame-de-vie, in Mougins, are also the subjects of these photographs published in eight books and translated into several languages: The Private World of Pablo Picasso (1958), Picasso's Picassos (1961), Goodbye Picasso (1974), The Silent Studio (1976), Viva Picasso (1980), Picasso and Jacqueline (1988), Picasso Paints a Portrait (1996) and Picasso & Lump (2006).

Scope and content

Duncan met Pablo Picasso on 8 February, 1956. That day the photographer, who was living in the south of France at the time, had returned from Asia and was about to leave for Africa. Robert Capa had promised to introduce him to the artist, but he sadly died two years earlier in the Indochina War before being able to do so. So, Duncan called Picasso's home in Cannes, La Californie, saying that he was a friend of Capa's and that he would like to introduce himself. Jacqueline answered the phone and invited him to visit. Thus began a warm friendship with the couple that would span the following seventeen years, until Picasso’s death in 1973.

Duncan encapsulated this relationship on film. This photographic record, captured through the eyes of a dear friend, provide a closer look at Picasso's life and artistic practices. Several photographers took portraits of Picasso, all of them of extraordinary merit, but Duncan's friendship and his rapport with the artist allowed him to capture intimate details of Picasso and Jacqueline's life and observe their artistic practices, essential for understanding the artist. The value of these photographs lies primarily in their composition as an ensemble; they are portraits, but they are also stories, scenes from Picasso's life that depict a successive narrative of a part of his existence, as seen through the eyes of a friend.

This collection of photographs is particularly significant given that it offers a very personal account of the artist; the photographic memoirs of David Douglas Duncan, Picasso's friend and photographer of outstanding international acclaim.

Acquisition date

The David Douglas Duncan Collection was acquired by the Picasso Museum in Barcelona on 23 September 2013, as a donation from the photographer himself.