Picasso (Masterpieces: Artists and Their Works Series)

Picasso - Let's Go Beyond the Book and Talk About the Women

I used to see Francoise Gilot, mother of Paloma Picasso, and the only woman who ever left him. I met her as Mrs. Jonas Salk and spent several summers enjoying her company in La Jolla, and that of her husband, the Nobel laureate inventor of the polio vaccine.

Many believed Picasso loved women, but obsessively so, a condition which does not imply longevity. Obsessions cool, and once Picasso developed a new one, his existing partner stood in his way, and he quite simply wanted to remove the obstacle. He could not control his passionate nature any more than he could control his talent. "Falling in love inspires my art," he once said. Gerry was fond of quoting the artist, his favorite being, "When I was a child my mother said to me, 'If you become a soldier, you'll be a general; if you become a monk, you'll end up as the pope. Instead I became a painter and wound up as Picasso."

"You can't imagine a talent like Picasso being modest," one critic said, and added, "he took what he wanted because he could. However, he gave his art one hundred percent. He once said, 'give me a museum, and I'll fill it.' He always tried to push forward. 'Success in dangerous,' he once said. One begins to copy oneself, and to copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy others. It leads to sterility' "

This dread of repetition and lassitude, loss of creative power haunted him and made it impossible for him to stay with one woman indefinitely, as his erotic inspiration and his artistic output were so interconnected. Picasso is not the only man who got rid of one woman because he fell for another. Guess what? Sometimes girls do it too. Let's face it: the reactions are always the same with serial lovers: initial euphoria and idolization followed by an insidious disillusionment, a feeling of claustrophobia, a perception of loving gestures from the partner as assaults.

Francoise Gilot wrote a fascinating book, "My Life with Picasso," which is still in print and a marvelous read, although it was originally published in 1964. A brilliant woman and excellent artist herself, she had to free herself from his influence to find her own creative center.

Picasso found her book insulting, in fact was deeply pained by it, as he felt she portrayed him as a man who seduced a young girl and then manipulated and betrayed her.

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