Matisse and Picasso

In Gilot's wonderfully intimate, captivating memoir, Matisse, whom she greatly admired as kindred soul and fellow painter, seems to be the force holding together her roller-coaster relationship with Picasso. Her stormy eight-year alliance with ``bombastic introvert'' Picasso, which yielded two children--a tale fully told in her Life with Picasso --is recapitulated here without a trace of bitterness. Gilot throws a floodlight on the dynamics of the Matisse-Picasso symbiosis, wherein each artist continually challenged the other to transcend aesthetic taboos. Partly a valentine to a bygone Paris, her narrative also fills in the early years of Matisse and Picasso, with telling glimpses of Colette, Giacometti, Cocteau, Braque, Gertrude Stein, Juan Gris and many others. The book is charmingly illustrated with paintings, graphics and photographs. First serial to Lear's and Art & Antiques. (Nov.)