QUARANTINE BLOG # 690

March 25, 2022

Picasso was one of art’s most famous womanizers, once telling one of his mistresses: “There are only two kinds of women, goddesses and doormats.”

While ordinary people might treasure photographs of former girlfriends and wives for the memories, Picasso kept his own drawings of the six women known to have been his greatest muses.

“Picasso in Private” was a collection of 200 of those pictures offered for sale in 2016 by his  granddaughter Marina Picasso.

The works reveal how each woman, from young lovers to wives, influenced his art, tracking his developing style through his entire career. The collection takes in every decade of his career. Experts at Sotheby’s said the full works are as effective as “looking over the shoulder” of Picasso as he painted, getting glimpses into his personal life and emotion.

Picasso’s muses: Fernande Olivier (clockwise from top left), Olga Khoklova, Marie-Thérèse Walter, Dora Maar, Françoise Gilot and Jacqueline Roque.

Fernanda Olivier 

They begin with Fernanda Olivier, who became Picasso’s lover and muse from 1904 to 1911 after fleeing a violent teenage marriage. Working as a model, she met Picasso in Paris, going on to pose for more than 60 portraits and inspiring some of his Cubist period.

Olga Khokhlova

Drawn in 1918, the next keepsake is of Olga Khokhlova, Picasso’s first wife and mother of his eldest child Paulo. A ballet dancer, she stayed with him from 1917 to 1935 and is said to have bombarded him with hate mail after they parted, never divorcing him after Picasso refused to divide his assets with her.

The portrait has a “tenderness” that characterized his feelings for her in the early years. After their breakup, he did a painting of her called “Bust of a Woman” that was not nearly so complimentary.

Marie-Thérèse Walter

The third of his women is Marie-Thérèse Walter, who stayed with Picasso from 1927 to 1936. Meeting when she was just 17, and the artist was still with Olga, she was eventually abandoned when Picasso moved on to his next mistress, hanging herself decades later four years after his death. 

Dora Maar

Dora Maar, the surrealist photographer who literally fought Marie-Therese for the artist’s affection and stayed with him from 1936 to 1944, appeared in the collection in the 1939 pencil sketch Etudes “Pour Femme Au Chapeau.”

Dora Maar was a rising star in Surrealist circles when she took up with Pablo Picasso. Her photograph Père Ubu (1936 – of a baby armadillo) had become an emblem for the movement after it was exhibited in London at the International Surrealist Exhibition.

Maar served as Picasso’s official photographer during the 36-day period in which he painted “Guernica.” She was able to make the first photographic record of the creation of a modern artwork from start to finish.

But, under Picasso’s influence, she eventually gave up photography for painting. Picasso had always considered the medium inferior, insisting that “inside every photographer is a painter trying to get out.” Inevitably, paired with such a giant, Maar was overshadowed. But she was one of his most influential models, sitting for a number of now-famous portraits that most frequently show her in distress.

A 1990 show at Paris’s “Galerie” reintroduced her photography to a world that had largely forgotten about Picasso’s most private mistress.

Picasso once remarked “I could never see her, never imagine her, except crying.” But in recent years, it's become clear that Maar was always more than her tears.

Françoise Gilot

Françoise Gilot, was a 21-year-old law student who left her studies for an affair with Picasso, who was 40 years her senior. 

Jacqueline Roque

Finally, his second wife Jacqueline Roque – in his life for 11 years, and inspiration behind more than 400 works.

His wives and lovers were integral to his career; they were very much the subjects that inspired him. 

The collection was sold at Sotheby’s on February 5, 2016, in an event entitled “Picasso In Private.” The final total for the collection was over $16 million.

In his final years, Picasso would still turn out three, four, or even five paintings a day. Even at 91 he was experimenting. On April 8, 1973, Pablo Picasso died. He left behind a huge body of work, as many as 50,000 pieces.

One last Picasso story:

Bill and Sue Gross had been married 31 years when she sued for divorce on the grounds of irreconcilable differences. Bill founded Pacific Investment Management Company  (commonly called PIMCO), in 1971. Today it has over 2,000 employees working in 12 offices across 11 countries, and $1.77 trillion in assets under management.

Sue didn’t wait until she and Bill had finalized their split, swapping out a 1932 Pablo Picasso painting entitled “Le Repos” hanging in their bedroom with her own copy of the painting.

Several years before the divorce Gross had praised his ex-wife’s painting ability. “Sue likes to paint replicas of some of the famous pieces, using an overhead projector to copy the outlines and then just sort of fill in the spaces,” he said.

“‘Why spend $20 million?’ she’d say – ‘I can paint that one for $75,’ and I must admit that one fabulous Picasso with signature ‘Sue,’ heads the fireplace mantle in our bedroom,” Bill continued.

The original “Le Repos” – which Mrs. Gross took with her – sold for $36.9 million at Sotheby’s May 14, 2018.

A coin flip in August 2017 – amid the couple’s divorce proceedings – awarded Sue full custody of Picasso’s depiction of his sleeping mistress.

In testimony, the ex-wife readily admitted to taking the Picasso, citing an e-mail Bill sent to her where he instructed her to “take all the furniture and art that you’d like.”

“And so I did,” she said.

A clip from Toy Story to conclude our look at Pablo Picasso. 

🛐   Our close today is from Praying with the Psalms, by Eugene H. Peterson.

“I sought the Lord, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears.  Look to him, and be radiant; so your faces shall never be ashamed” (Psalm 34:4-5).

We hide our faces from God when we suppose that he will disapprove of us.  The psalmist has a different experience – he knows that God is on our side, that our needs are his concern and that he hears our cry.  Therefore, he says, “Look to him and be radiant!”

Prayer: Blessed be your name, O God.  You never disappoint me; you hear every cry; you satisfy every need; you banish my fears.  In Jesus Christ you are in all and have become all to me.  Hallelujah!  Amen.

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