<DIV><DIV>Pablo Picasso was one of the most prodigious and revolutionary artists in the history of Western painting.&nbsp; Gertrude Stein was an avant-garde American writer, art collector, eccentric and self-styled genius.&nbsp; Her Paris home was the leading salon for artists and writers between the Wars.&nbsp; Picasso painted Stein's portrait and they became firm friends.<DIV>&nbsp;<DIV>Their correspondence extends across a time of extraordinary social and political change, between 1906 and 1944, effectively from the Belle Epoque to the German Occupation of the Second World War.&nbsp; Both wrote in French -- a language neither ever entirely mastered.<DIV>&nbsp;<DIV>Written as letters, cards and scribbled notes, their intimate correspondence touches lightly on both the weighty and the everyday -- holidays, money, dinner invitations, art, family, lovers, travel arrangements, how work goes, or the war.<DIV>&nbsp;<DIV>The correspondence has been carefully edited and is presented by period, each introduced with an outline of significant personal and historical events of the time.&nbsp; Explanatory notes to the letters are rich in background detail.&nbsp; The volume also features photographs, facsimiles of postcards and letters as well as sketches, drawings and paintings by Picasso.</DIV>