The French painter, art critic and writer Françoise Gilot died this Tuesday in a hospital in Manhattan (New York) at the age of 101. The artist was a couple for a decade with the painter Pablo Picasso, with whom she had two daughters and whose death marks the fiftieth anniversary this year (it took place on April 8, 1973), which has been used to celebrate different events commemorative and tribute to the famous Spanish artist.
As published by the American newspaper The New York Times, it was his own daughter Aurélia Engel who confirmed the death and noted that Gilot “suffered from lung and heart problems.” She is the half-sister of Claude and Paloma Picasso, the fruit of the golden years that both painters shared on the French Côte d’Azur in the middle of the last century.
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Françoise Gilot was also known for having written an autobiographical book entitled ‘Life with Picasso’. It was published in 1964 and generated a lot of controversy in those closest to her partner, to the point that Picasso himself ended up withdrawing the greeting from her and her two daughters, says Europa Press.
bitter reproach
In an excerpt from that book, the French painter and writer recalls the artist’s reaction from Malaga when she told him of her intention to leave the relationship. «Do you think that someone is going to be interested in you? They will never do it just for you: even the people you think appreciate you will only be a kind of curiosity for a person whose life touched mine so intimately,” Picasso bitterly reproached him, according to Gilot.
The French artist, who met Picasso in 1943, when she was 21 years old and the Spanish painter 61, abandoned the man from Malaga of her own free will in 1953, rebuilding her sentimental and artistic life from then on. This last facet led him to have a notable career in the United States as a painter and writer after his separation from her.
In this way, Gilot’s career as a painter was successful and several of her paintings are part of the collections of the MET Museum, MoMA or the Pompidou Center in Paris. In addition, a work of his entitled ‘Dove with a guitar’ sold for $1.3 million at auction at Sotheby*s in 2021.
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