Pablo Picasso first entered my consciousness when I was a boy of about eight years old.
Picasso was a delightful, kindly, friendly, simple little man. When I met him he was extremely excited and overjoyed that his mother-in-law had just died, and he was looking forward to the funeral.
Picasso is a character that has pursued me for a long time and I always rejected. He deserves a lot of respect because I am from Malaga, and I was born four blocks from where he was born.
'Le Reve' may be one of the three best pictures Pablo Picasso ever painted.
My first influence obviously was Picasso.
Picasso was hugely innovative, and, wow, did he have facility, amazing ability, but I don't think he painted a masterpiece.
I think Picasso was, without doubt, the greatest portraitist of the 20th century, if not any other century.
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, and knowing nothing about Picasso, I had the audacity to knock on his door, became his friend, and took thousands of photographs, of him, his studios, his life and his friends.
I was for years in the yellow period, you know.
