Françoise Gilot was in her early twenties when she met the sixty-one-year-old Pablo Picasso in 1943. Brought up in a well-to-do upper-middle-class family, who had sent her to Cambridge and the Sorbonne and hoped that she would go into law, the young woman defied their wishes and set her sights on being an artist. Her introduction to Picasso led to a friendship, a love affair, and a relationship of ten years, during which Gilot gave birth to Picasso's two children, Paloma and Claude. Gilot was one of Picasso's muses; she was also very much her own woman, determined to make herself into the remarkable painter she did indeed become.
Life with Picasso, written with Carlton Lake and published in 1961, is about Picasso the artist and Picasso the man. We hear him talking about painting and sculpture, his life, his career, as well as other artists, both contemporaries and old masters. We glimpse Picasso in his many and volatile moods, dismissing his work, exultant over his work, entertaining his various superstitions, being an anxious father. But Life with Picasso is not only a portrait of a great artist at the height of his fame; it is also a picture of a talented young woman of exacting intelligence at the outset of her own notable career.
Download and start listening now!
"Learning so much about Picasso’s personal life was amazing compared to what we are taught in a normal art history program. Also, being told by the wife was a special privilege. I don’t know why they don’t include some of an artists, personal life along with the painting life in a normal program at art college. Even though Picasso does not come out as a very likeable person in this novel, I really enjoyed the way it was told. Also, there was a lot of information about other artist and dealers of this time. Which usually doesn’t appear either in a regular art history course. "
—
Ani (5 out of 5 stars)