SOURCE: "Titled Bohemian: Caroline Blackwood," in The New York Times Magazine, April 2, 1995, pp. 32, 34-5.

In the following essay, Kimmelman surveys Blackwood's life and literary career.

When Lady Caroline Blackwood, the Irish writer and Guinness heiress, was living in Paris in the early 1950's, she and her first husband, the painter Lucian Freud, were invited to visit Picasso.

"Picasso got one of his followers to ask Lucian if he would like to see Picasso's paintings," Blackwood says. "Of course, Lucian said yes. Meanwhile Picasso asked me if I wanted to see his doves: he had this spiral iron staircase leading to the roof, and off we go, winding round and round to the top, until we reached these doves in cages and all around us was the best view of Paris, the best. Whereupon immediately, standing on this tiny, tiny space, way above the city, Picasso does a complete...