Picasso's private collection of his own work . . .
I came upon a gaunt self-portrait of the artist.
It was just stark charcoal on canvas, almost skeletal,
nearly life-size, dated 22 March, 1938, and totally unknown . . .
Like nearly all of Picasso's hidden canvases, it was
veiled under decades of dust that had to be cleaned away
before I could use my color cameras. I
swept it with a feather duster--and my heart nearly burst!
The charcoal had never been fixed.
His face was now little more than a faint tracing seen
through smeared charcoal and dust . . . this still secret
self-portrait was ruined."
Goodbye Picasso, p. 2.
_david Douglas Duncan
(painting by Picasso of Marie-thérèse walter) 13 april 1936
