Thursday 16th June 2016

‘LIFE WITH PICASSO WAS A CATASTROPHE WORTH LIVING’   Francoise Gilot

 

Francoise Gilot with Pablo Picasso

‘The only woman who got away’, at 21 Françoise Gilot embarked on a 10 year relationship with Pablo Picasso.  The daughter of wealthy parents living in Neuilly, Françoise was herself an artist. She first met Picasso during the occupation of Paris in May 1943.  Dining with friends,  Picasso then 61,  was seated at the next table. Pablo only had eyes for Françoise. Holding a  bowl of cherries, he nonchalantly walked up to her table and asked to be introduced.  While they never married, they did have two children together, Claude, in 1947 and Paloma, two years later.

According to Françoise there was not much room in Picasso’s life for anything but himself and ‘the tyranny of genius reduced everyone else around him to playing bit parts in the great drama of his life’.  The most famous artist of his day, whether dressed as a matador with a towel in his hand and naked from the waste down,  or simply pulling faces while he posed, Picasso seemed to bask in the aura of his own magical creativity.

Marie-Thérèse by Pablo Picasso

From Pablo’s long list of lovers; Jacqueline Roque, Picasso’s last wife, who shot herself with a revolver, Marie-Thérèse Walter, who hanged herself and Olga Khokhlova and Dora Maar, who went mad with grief, Françoise Gilot truly was the one that got away.  

 

There were few women who came as close to the ‘Sun’ that was Picasso as  Françoise Gilot. Most burned themselves on the Genius, crashing like Icarus in the ancient story. Indeed, Picasso called her “The Woman Who Says No” as she was the first woman to defy him.

Today, living in Monmartre, the famous artist’s quarter where Renoir and Van Gogh once lived,  Françoise, perhaps the most famous of survivors of art history, at the age of 90  is still working away in her studio. Besides a problem with her heart, she is almost blind in one eye, a catastrophe for an artist you might think.  “Nonsense.  That doesn’t bother me at all” retorts  Françoise. Ten months of the year she lives and works in her studio  on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and spends May and June in Paris.

Françoise Gilot Today

A decade after their separation, Gilot published a book about her life with Picasso; ‘Françoise Gilot on her life with and without Picasso’.   It became a bestseller.  This enraged Picasso and as a consequence he refused to see the children again and in addition threatened any gallery that would take on  Françoise’s paintings.  When he sued to prevent the book’s publication, he lost the trial.

For Françoise Gilot, Happiness has its own price: “If you want to really live, you must risk living on the edge; otherwise, life isn’t worth it.  When you open yourself to risk, you will also experience bad things, but mostly you will understand more.  Most importantly, you will not become dull.  The very worst thing is to be dull.”

A COMPELLING STORY FROM A TRULY REMARKABLE WOMAN AND ARTIST IN HER OWN RIGHT!

 

Claire Moore BA(Hons)

GALLERY MANAGER

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