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By Frederick Baldwin

As I drove up the high winding road to the Villa la Californie, I thought back over the last few days. It was my last summer of freedom. Next year, I would be a college graduate looking for a job and trying to settle down. I would have to be satisfied with reading about the people and parts of the world that interested me. In the summer of 1955 I had won a reprieve, a stay of adult responsibility until 1956.

I wanted to see Pablo Picasso. I don’t suppose that anybody felt less qualified or had less of an excuse than I did. But to me he was a compelling, attractive imaginary companion who had coached many of my dreams about creativity, not excluding a Riviera blue sea, hot sun; and sexual robustness. I had always admired Picasso. He was a rebel, unpredictable, an artist constantly evolving. He and Diego Rivera were probably the first artists I had known about, but Rivera didn’t have the attractive physical presence of Picasso. But mainly Picasso represented freedom that had nothing to do with the practical office-bound issues that I would soon have to face. This was my temporary, self-issued license to bust unannounced into Picasso’s life.