Norman Mailer: Works and Days

John Richardson

British art historian and authorized biographer of Pablo Picasso; in 1993 he and Mailer clashed over Mailer's wish to quote his Picasso biography, and he dismissed Mailer's own Picasso book as a 'scissors-and-paste job.'

John Richardson, the British art historian, was Pablo Picasso’s authorized biographer (A Life of Picasso). In 1993 he and Mailer — both editing Picasso books for Jason Epstein at Random House — fell into a public dispute when Richardson refused to let Mailer quote the first volume of his biography for Mailer’s own Portrait of Picasso as a Young Man (95.38); Richardson dismissed Mailer’s book as a “scissors-and-paste job,” and Mailer solved the impasse by moving the book to another publisher (93.2a, 93.5; ultimately Atlantic Monthly Press).

Stub created during the 1993 ingest.

Cite as: /people/john-richardson
Last updated: 2026-06-06