‘Life with Picasso was a catastrophe worth living’
At 21, Françoise Gilot embarked on a turbulent 10-year relationship with the great man – and, says was the only woman who got away
As a teenager, I collected photo portraits of Picasso. Whether he was dancing across his studio naked from the waist up, playing the part of a matador with a hand towel, or simply pulling silly faces while he posed, Picasso seemed to bask in an aura of magical creativity in even the most ridiculous situations. The most famous artist of his time, he was an exceptionally talented self-promoter. There wasn’t much room in Picasso’s life for anything but himself and his art. The tyranny of genius reduced everyone else around him to playing bit parts in the great drama of his life.
One photograph, however, stood out. It delighted me so much at the time that I had it printed on a T-shirt. I could not get enough of the smiling young woman who walked along the beach as Picasso held a parasol over her to shield her from the sun. It was taken on a hot summer’s day in 1948, in the small resort town of Golfe-Juan on the Côte d’Azur in France.
She is beaming – laughing the artist off. There are few women who came as close to the sun as Françoise Gilot. Most burned themselves upon the genius, crashing like Icarus in the ancient story. Picasso called her “The Woman Who Says No”, as she was the only woman who dared to defy him.
Born in November 1921 to wealthy parents in Neuilly, Françoise, herself an artist, first met Picasso during the occupation of Paris in May in 1943. Dining with friends in a small restaurant on the Left Bank, Picasso was holding court at the next table. Whenever he made a joke or witty remark, the company at his table laughed. Picasso, then 61, however, seemed to have eyes only for Françoise – who was just 21 at the time. When this young lady didn’t let herself be dazzled, Picasso strolled over to her table, holding a bowl of cherries, and asked to be introduced.
It was the start of a relationship that was to span 10 years. While they never married they did have two children together, Claude, in 1947, and Paloma, two years later.
A few years ago, I saw an exhibition of Picasso’s portraits of women. They were all there: Jacqueline Roque, Picasso’s last wife, who put an end to her life with a revolver. MarieThérèse Walter, who hanged herself. Olga Khokhlova and Dora Maar, who went mad with grief. There was only one woman in that vast collection who appeared to have survived unscathed: Françoise Gilot. I wondered: could she really still be alive? She had broken up with Picasso over a half century ago – fleeing their home in the South of France with her two children. I made enquiries with a couple of galleries in the US and, amazingly, got a phone number and address for her in Paris.
Montmartre, the famous artists’ quarter, where Renoir and van Gogh once lived, has long since turned into a tourist trap. But only a few streets away from the tacky pavement artists, I found one of the most famous survivors of art history still working away in her atelier. After I rang the doorbell of the old building, she stood before me: a small red dress, a pageboy haircut, the legendary circumflex eyebrows dancing over her lively eyes. Gilot was then 90 years old, yet seemed no more than half that age, and laughed when I asked her if she still painted. Yes, she said, every day.
Leaning up against the walls were dozens of pictures and drawings – all with their backs to the visitor. She explained how she begins her work at dawn, still in her pyjamas and slippers (for comfort when you are standing for hours at a time).
Besides problems with her heart, she is almost blind in her left eye. A catastrophe for an artist, surely? “Nonsense. That doesn’t bother me at all.” Gilot, it seems doesn’t let much affect her.
“Basically, I’m done with life,” she said, throwing her hands up in the air in exasperation. “When I was 86, I thought, this is the end, because this is the age my mother died. Eighty-nine seemed impossible, and 90 was really the last straw. I thought ‘you are going to have to take good, taking her children with her back to live in Paris.
A decade after their separation, Gilot published a book about her time with Picasso. It was an international bestseller and enraged Picasso so much that he refused to see the children again and threatened to withdraw his business from any gallery that would take on Françoise’s paintings. He also sued to prevent the book’s publication. When he lost the trial, he called Gilot one last time and told her: “I congratulate you, you are the winner, and you know I always like a winner.” Françoise smiled as she remembered Picasso’s last words to her: “I replied: yes, I know, that’s why I’m a winner, I should be one.”
Looking back, I asked her had she ever regretted getting involved with Picasso? “I knew it was going to be a catastrophe,” she told me, “but a catastrophe that would be worth living.”
For a woman in her nineties Françoise Gilot is certainly still busy living. Ten months of the year she lives and works in her studio on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She spends May and June in Paris, in her second studio, and the pictures travel back and forth with her.
When I remarked that despite a surfeit of life she has more energy than a handful of teenagers, she gave me a sharp look. “I said I was tired of life, not tired of painting!”
Happiness, however, 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.”