Picasso -- by the Man Who Knew Him Best ; Newly Ennobled Sir John Richardson, Who Has Spent More Than Two Decades on His Biography ofPicasso, Tells Richard Godwin How the Giant of 20th Century Art Once Offered to Tattoo Him

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AS HIS biographer, Sir John Richardson's life has been marked by Pablo Picasso. When I meet the newly knighted 88-year-old at the Ritz shortly before the opening of Tate Britain's new Picasso exhibition, his principal regret is that he didn't allow his actual body to be marked by "the greatest artist of the 20th century".

"Picasso was very cross when I came back from America and I had a new tattoo here," Richardson gestures to his right arm where a faded mark is visible. "He said: 'I would have tattooed you!'" Richardson is dressed soberly but the fluorescent Paul Smith socks suggest a flamboyant spirit. He speaks with animation and precision remarkable for a man of his …