Tag Archives: Banksy painted over Robbo’s wall. Picasso painted past Matisse for fifty years. Only one pair lived long enough to find out what the argument was about.

In December 2009 Banksy painted over a piece King Robbo had left on a Camden canal wall in 1985. Days later Robbo waded out and painted it back. That went on for two years — and it kept reminding me of an older quarrel, conducted more slowly and with better manners, between Matisse and Picasso.Continue reading “Two Ways of Growing Old — Matisse, Picasso and What a Rival Is For”