Pablo Picasso and his seven leading women. The great love of Picasso Pablo Picasso crying woman description

From the book "Picasso" by Henri Gidel:
In Mougins, Pablo paints portraits of Lee Miller, Nuch, Dora, Vollard... Probably, under the influence of Guernica, he paints many tragic faces. These are sobbing women, most of them endowed with Dora traits. On next year the faces of the women in the portraits become increasingly agitated, shocked, and distorted, as, for example, in his famous portrait of the Crying Woman. While working on Guernica, Pablo drew from Dora women's faces, bathed in tears. And he continues to do this, and often distorts the correct facial features of a young woman so much that they cause horror.
Unlike Fernanda, who was indignant when her face was distorted, or Olga, who openly despised Pablo’s attempts to disfigure women’s faces, Dora Maar turned out to be the most patient. She sees in such “modifications” only plastic experiments, to which, in her opinion, the artist has the right. In addition, she is so confident in her own beauty that she considers herself invulnerable. And Picasso repeatedly repeated that he sees her only in tears. This manner of depicting Dora is not at all dictated by his desire to disfigure her, but by artistic necessity, which subjugates him to himself, for, as he said more than once, his painting is stronger than his will.

Pink dress 1864 - Frederic Basil portrayed Teresa on the terrace
at the far end of the garden. She is wearing a simple dress with vertical
pink and silver-gray stripes, and a black apron. Theresa
sits with his back to the viewer and looks towards the village... -

"Whenever I want to say something, I say it in the manner in which I
I feel like this should be said." Pablo Picasso.

When he was born, the midwife thought he was stillborn.
Picasso was saved by his uncle. “Doctors at that time smoked big cigars, and my uncle
was no exception. When he saw me lying motionless,
he blew smoke in my face, to which I, with a grimace, let out a roar of rage."
Above: Pablo Picasso in Spain
Photo: LP / Roger-Viollet / Rex Features

Pablo Picasso was born on October 25, 1881 in the city of Malaga, Anadalusian
provinces of Spain.
At baptism Picasso received full name Pablo Diego Jose Francisco de Paula
Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Crispin Crispignano de la Santisima
Trinidad Ruiz and Picasso - which, according to Spanish custom, was a series of names
revered saints and family relatives.
Picasso is the mother's surname, which Pablo took, since his father's surname
seemed too ordinary to him, besides, Picasso’s father, José Ruiz,
he was an artist himself.
Top: Artist Pablo Picasso in Mougins, France in 1971
two years before his death.
Photo: AFP/Getty Images

Picasso's first word was "Piz" - which is short for "La piz"
which means pencil in Spanish.

Picasso's first painting was called "Picador"
man riding a horse in a bullfight.
Picasso's first exhibition took place when he was 13.
in the back room of the umbrella shop.
At the age of 13, Pablo Picasso brilliantly entered the
Barcelona Academy of Fine Arts.
But in 1897, at the age of 16, he came to Madrid to study at the School of Arts.

"First Communion" 1896 The painting was created by 15-year-old Picasso

"Self-portrait". 1896
Technique: Oil on canvas. Collection: Barcelona, ​​Picasso Museum

"Knowledge and mercy." 1897 The painting was painted by 16-year-old Pablo Picasso.

Already as an adult and once visiting an exhibition of children's drawings, Picasso said:
"At their age I drew like Raphael, but it took me a whole life
to learn to draw like them."

Pablo Picasso painted his masterpiece in 1901,
when the artist was only 20 years old.

Picasso was once questioned by the police for stealing the Mona Lisa.
After the painting disappeared from the Louvre in Paris in 1911, the poet and "friend"
Guillaume Apollinaire pointed his finger at Picasso.
Child and Dove, 1901. Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
currently on display as part of the Courtauld Gallery's Becoming Picasso exhibition.
Picture: Private collection.

Picasso burned several of his paintings when he was an aspiring artist in Paris.
in order to keep warm.
Above: Absinthe drinker 1901. Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

Photo: State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

Pablo Picasso. Ironer. 1904
Allegedly, this work contains a disguised self-portrait of Picasso!

Picasso's sister Conchita died of diphtheria in 1895.

Picasso met French artist Henri Matisse in 1905
at the home of writer Gertrude Stein.
Top: Gnome-Dancer, 1901 Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
currently on display as part of the Courtauld Gallery's Becoming Picasso exhibition.
Photo: Picasso Museum, Barcelona (gasull Fotografia)

Pablo Picasso.Woman with a Crow.1904

Picasso had many mistresses.
Women of Picasso - Fernanda Olivier, Marcel Humbert, Olga Khokhlova,
Marie Therese Walter, Françoise Gilot, Dora Maar, Jacqueline Roque...

Pablo Picasso's first wife was Russian ballerina Olga Khokhlova.
In the spring of 1917, the poet Jean Cocteau, who collaborated with Sergei Diaghilev,
invited Picasso to make sketches of costumes and scenery for the future ballet.
The artist went to work in Rome, where he fell in love with one of the dancers of the Diaghilev troupe -
Olga Khokhlova. Diaghilev, noticing Picasso’s interest in the ballerina, considered it his duty
warn the hot Spanish rake that Russian girls are not easy -
you should marry them...
They got married in 1918. The wedding took place in Paris Orthodox Cathedral
Alexander Nevsky, among the guests and witnesses were Diaghilev, Apollinaire, Cocteau,
Gertrude Stein, Matisse.
Picasso was convinced that he would marry for life, and therefore his marriage contract
included an article stating that their property is common.
In case of divorce, this meant dividing it equally, including all the paintings.
And in 1921 their son Paul was born.
However life married couple didn't work out...
but this was Pablo's only official wife,
they were not divorced.

Pablo Picasso and Olga Khokhlova.

Pablo Picasso.Olga.

Picasso painted her a lot in a purely realistic manner, which she herself insisted on
a ballerina who did not like experiments in painting that she did not understand.
“I want,” she said, “to recognize my face.”

Pablo Picasso. Portrait of Olga Khokhlova.

Francoise Gilot.
This amazing woman managed to fill Picasso with strength without wasting hers.
She gave him two children and managed to prove that family idyll- this is not a utopia,
but a reality that exists for free and loving people.
The children of Françoise and Pablo received the surname Picasso and after the artist’s death they became
owners of part of his fortune.
Françoise herself put an end to her relationship with the artist after learning about his infidelity.
Unlike many of the master’s lovers, Françoise Gilot did not go crazy and did not commit suicide.

Feeling that love story came to an end, she herself left Picasso,
without giving him the opportunity to join the list of abandoned and devastated women.
Having published the book “My Life with Picasso”, Françoise Gilot largely went against the will of the artist,
but gained worldwide fame.

Francoise Gilot and Picasso.

With Françoise and children.

Picasso had four children from three women.
Above: Pablo Picasso with two children of his mistress Françoise Gilot,
Claude Picasso (left) and Paloma Picasso.
Photo: REX

Children Picasso. Claude and Paloma. Paris.

Marie-Therese Walter gave birth to his daughter Maya.

He married his second wife, Jacqueline Rock, when he was 79 (she was 27).

Jacqueline remains Picasso's last and faithful woman and takes care of him,
already sick, blind and hard of hearing, until his death.

Picasso. Jacqueline with crossed arms, 1954

One of Picasso's many muses was the dachshund Lump.
(exactly so, in the German manner. Lump in German is “canal”).
The dog belonged to photographer David Douglas Duncan.
She died a week before Picasso.

There are several periods in Pablo Picasso's work: blue, pink, African...

The "blue" period (1901-1904) includes works created between 1901 and 1904.
Gray-blue and blue-green deep cold colors, colors of sadness and despondency, constantly
are present in them. Picasso called blue “the color of all colors.”
Frequent subjects of these paintings are emaciated mothers with children, tramps, beggars, and the blind.

“Beggar Old Man with a Boy” (1903) Museum of Fine Arts. Moscow.

"Mother and Child" (1904, Fogg Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA)

The Blind Man's Breakfast." 1903 Collection: New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

The “Rose Period” (1904 - 1906) is characterized by more cheerful tones - ocher
and pink as well sustainable themes images - harlequins, traveling actors,
acrobats
Fascinated by the comedians who became the models for his paintings, he often visited the Medrano Circus;
at this time the harlequin was Picasso's favorite character.

Pablo Picasso, two Acrobats with a dog, 1905

Pablo Picasso, Boy with a Pipe, 1905

"African" period (1907 - 1909)
In 1907, the famous "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" appeared. The artist worked on them more than a year -
long and carefully, as he had not worked on his other paintings before.
The public's first reaction is shock. Matisse was furious. Even most of my friends did not accept this job.
“It feels like you wanted to feed us oakum or give us gasoline to drink,” -
said the artist Georges Braque, new friend Picasso. Scandalous picture, whose name was given by
poet A. Salmon, was the first step of painting on the path to cubism, and many art historians believe
its starting point for contemporary art.

Queen Isabella. 1908. cubism Museum of Fine Arts. Moscow.

Picasso was also a writer. He wrote about 300 poems and two plays.
Above: Harlequin and Companion, 1901. Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
currently on display as part of the Courtauld Gallery's Becoming Picasso exhibition.
Photo: State Museum A. S. Pushkin, Moscow

Acrobats.Mother and son.1905

Pablo Picasso.Lovers.1923

Picasso's painting "Nude, Green Leaves and Bust", which depicts him
mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter, was sold at auction for $106.5 million.
This broke the record for paintings sold at auction,
which was set by Munch's painting "The Scream".

Picasso's paintings were stolen more often than any other artist.
550 of his works are missing.
Above: The Weeping Woman 1937 by Pablo Picasso
Photo: Guy Bell/Alamy

Together with Georges Braque, Picasso founded Cubism.
He also worked in the following styles:
Neoclassicism (1918 - 1925)
Surrealism (1925 - 1936), etc.

Pablo Picasso.Two reading girls.

Picasso donated his sculptures to the society in Chicago, USA in 1967.
He gave unsigned paintings to his friends.
He said: otherwise you will sell them when I die.

Olga Khokhlova in last years lived in Cannes completely alone.
She was painfully ill for a long time and died of cancer on February 11, 1955.
at the city hospital. Only her son and a few friends attended the funeral.
At that time, Picasso was in Paris finishing the painting “Women of Algeria” and did not come.

Picasso's two mistresses, Marie-Thérèse Walter and Jacqueline Roque (who became his wife)
committed suicide. Marie-Theresa hanged herself four years after his death.
Rock shot herself in 1986, 13 years after Picasso's death.

Pablo Picasso's mother said: “With my son, who was created only for himself
and for no one else, no woman can be happy."

Top: Seated Harlequin, 1901. Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
currently on display as part of the Courtauld Gallery's Becoming Picasso exhibition.
Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art Metropolitan Museum of Art / Art Resource / Scala, Florence

According to the proverb, Spain is a country where men despise sex,
but they live for him. “In the morning - church, in the afternoon - bullfighting, in the evening - brothel” -
Picasso religiously adhered to this credo of the Spanish machos.
The artist himself said that art and sexuality are one and the same thing.

Pablo Picasso and Jean Cacteau at a bullfight in Vallauris. 1955

Above: Pablo Picasso's Guernica, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid.

Picasso's painting "Guernica" (1937). Guernica is a small Basque town in northern Spain, almost wiped off the face of the earth by German aircraft on May 1, 1937.

One day the Gestapo raided Picasso's house. A Nazi officer, seeing a photograph of Guernica on the table, asked: “Did you do this?” “No,” the artist replied, “you did it.”

During the Second World War, Picasso lives in France, where he becomes close to the communists -
members of the Resistance (in 1944 Picasso even joined the French Communist Party).

In 1949, Picasso paints his famous "Dove of Peace" on a poster
World Peace Congress in Paris.

In the photo: Picasso paints a dove on the wall of his house in Mougins. August 1955.

Picasso's last words were "Drink for me, drink for my health,
you know I can't drink anymore."
He died while he and his wife, Jacqueline Rock, were entertaining friends over dinner.

Picasso was buried in the grounds of the castle he bought in 1958
in Vauvenargues, in the south of France.
He was 91 years old. Shortly before his death, he was distinguished by his prophetic gift
the artist said:
“My death will be a shipwreck.
When a large ship dies, everything around it is sucked into the crater.”

And so it happened. His grandson Pablito asked to be allowed to attend the funeral,
But last wife artist Jacqueline Rock refused.
On the day of the funeral, Pablito drank a bottle of decoloran, a bleaching chemical.
liquid. Pablito could not be saved.
He was buried in the same grave in the cemetery in Cannes where Olga's ashes rest.

On June 6, 1975, 54-year-old Paul Picasso died of cirrhosis of the liver.
His two children are Marina and Bernard, Pablo Picasso's last wife Jacqueline
and three more illegitimate children - Maya (daughter of Marie-Therese Walter),
Claude and Paloma (children of Françoise Gilot) were recognized as the artist’s heirs.
Long battles for inheritance began

Marina Picasso, who inherited her grandfather’s famous mansion “The Residence of the King” in Cannes,
lives there with an adult daughter and son and three adopted Vietnamese children.
She makes no distinction between them and has already made a will according to which
after her death, her entire huge fortune will be divided into five equal parts.
Marina created a foundation bearing her name, which was built in the suburbs of Ho Chi Minh City
a village of 24 houses for 360 Vietnamese orphans.

“I inherited my love for children,” Marina emphasizes, “from my grandmother.
Olga was the only person from the entire Picasso clan, who treated us, grandchildren,
with tenderness and attention. And my book “Children Living at the End of the World” is largely
wrote in order to restore her good name.

At the stage "synthetic cubism" (1912-1917) Picasso's works take on a decorative and contrasting character. The paintings mostly depict still lifes with various items: musical instruments, sheet music, bottles of wine, smoking pipes, cutlery, posters and so on. Picasso and Braque also used real objects in their works: wallpaper, sand, ropes, etc.
Their first works were collages "Still Life with Wicker Chair" (1912)

AND "Guitar (Metal)" (1914).

Inspired by the work of Picasso, it was created Millennium Bridge (Millennium Bridge) in London.

But the first World War interrupts the cubic experiments of Picasso and Georges Braque, marking new stage in the life of an artist - "classicism period" (1917-1925). It was at this time that he falls in love with a Russian dancer Olga Khokhlova from ballet troupe Sergei Diaghilev, for whose performances Picasso made scenery and costumes. Soon they get married and their son Paulo is born.

Picasso and Olga Khokhlova against the backdrop of a poster for the ballet Parade, 1917

Pablo Picasso and Olga Khokhlova in Biarizza, 1918

Olga Khokhlova in a chair, 1917

Picasso from the avant-garde bohemian milieu of Paris enters the atmosphere classical ballet And ancient Rome. Completely new people, new creative experience in the field theatrical scenography. The whole environment calls for realism, figurativeness of the drawing, and Picasso responds to these changes in his life. From that time on, antique classics, but in their own manner, determined the style of his works. In addition, the artist leads a new way of life for himself - he moves in a respectable secular environment, to which his Russian wife gravitates. They support close relations in the ballet world, they start a rich house, attend social events, dance at costume balls. Olga and son become the main characters, living inside his paintings.

Portrait of Olga in an armchair, 1917

Source, 1921

Olga in thought, 1923

Motherhood, 1921

Olga, 1923

The Artist's Son Dressed as a Harlequin (Portrait of Paulo), 1924

And then there was this picture "Dance, Three Dancers, Three Dancers" (1925).

Broken lines, distorted figures squeezed in a vice in a tight space, wild, bright colors, deformation of proportions, grotesque - this is how we can characterize what we see in this picture. But Olga was no longer a beloved wife, she irritated, strained with her social decorum and love of dinner parties, just look at the female figure in the center - it’s as if she was crucified on the cross with particular cruelty, and the face, there are two of them, if you look straight, and the second with an evil grin can be seen if you lower your head to your right shoulder.
His next passion was Maria-Therese Walter, who was only 17 years old at the time of their chance meeting on the street, and Picasso was 45.

Marie-Therese Walter, 1927

Marie-Therese Walter with her mother's dog, 1930

Their love coincided with surreal experiments Pablo (1925-1937). She inspired him to search for a new plasticity; in the paintings of this period there is a completely special, smooth and elastic line - Marie-Therese’s captivating young body dictated a special aesthetics. She is recognizable in all the paintings - blonde with light eyes, a Roman profile and smooth body contours.

Portrait of Maria Teresa, 1937

Bright colors, delicate colors, softness, sexuality - Picasso was able to capture the essence of this girl, conveying her gentle disposition and lightness through the paintings.
And it is also repeated on all canvases, wherever it is depicted, just the essence.

Woman in an orange beret and fur collar (Marie Teresa), 1937

Woman at the Window (Maria Teresa), 1936

Dream, 1932

And even this picture.

Crying Woman, 1937

Picasso captured his new love Doru Maar, which was with him throughout 1935-1945.

An artist and professional photographer, she moved in the circle of surrealists, where she met him. Her nervousness and vulnerability are captured in a series of portraits called "Crying Woman".

Crying Woman, 1937

Crying woman with a scarf, 1937

The most significant painting of the 20th century was "Guernica (1937), written literally a month after the terrible news about the bombing spanish city Guernica, which was bombed for several hours in a row, dropping several thousand shells, completely erased from the face of the earth.

Picasso was one of the first to respond with pain to these terrible events, painting a picture in the Cubist style in black and white.

We see suffering people, animals, and buildings transformed by violence and chaos. Scenes of death, violence, brutality, suffering and helplessness are depicted almost realistically, without indicating their immediate causes, and the choice of a black and white palette reflects the lifeless nature of war. Look at the woman on the left with her eyes rolled out of horror, clutching a dead child in her hands, and from her mouth with her tongue hanging out comes an inhuman cry of pain and deep suffering, somewhere above a bomb explodes, and on the right - a figure with his hands raised in horror, caught in a fire trap above and below, in the center - a horse falling in agony, pierced by a spear, below it is a dead, dismembered soldier, whose severed hand is still clutching a fragment of a sword from which a flower grows, at the bottom right, an awestruck woman leans towards in the center, her indifferent gaze is directed at the sparkling light bulb; to the right above the horse we see an antique mask, which, as if a witness to the scenes taking place in front of it, seems to float into the room through the window with a lit lamp in its hands. All this creates a depressing, tense, emotionally strong impact and for good reason! This grandiose painting was shown at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1937. However, not all critics accepted “Guernica”: some denied the painting its artistry, calling the canvas a “propaganda document,” others tried to limit the content of the painting only to the framework of a specific event and saw in it only an image of the tragedy of the Basque people. And the Madrid magazine “Sabado Graphico” even wrote: “Guernica - a canvas of enormous size - is terrible. Perhaps this is the worst thing Pablo Picasso created in his life.".
The image of a dove as a symbol of peace was created by Picasso in 1949. However, it is interesting that it was not he who chose this bird, but his friend Louis Aragon, who was looking for a symbol for the poster of the Peace Congress. His choice fell on one of Picasso's engravings depicting a dove. It was not an abstract dove, but a “portrait” of a very specific bird that Matisse gave to Picasso.

This pigeon became the first famous "Dove of Peace". Picasso did not consider this drawing to be the pinnacle of his creativity, but did not object to Aragon’s choice. I only sarcastically remarked to him:

“Poor fellow! He doesn't know pigeons at all! Tenderness of the dove, what nonsense! They are very cruel. I had pigeons that pecked to death one unfortunate pigeon that they didn’t like... They pecked out her eyes and tore her into pieces, it’s a terrible sight! A good symbol of peace!”
(Quote from the book “Picasso” by Henri Gidel)

Later he reworked this image into a graphic version.

The pigeon theme was close to him like no one else. Pigeons were always present in his life because his father was a lover of these birds and kept a dovecote.

Picasso and the Dove, Paris, 1945

Picasso and pigeons, Cannes, 1955

This theme is often found in his work.

Pigeons, 1957

Pigeons, 1957

Child with a Dove, 1901

At 60, Picasso begins to become interested ceramics, he creates huge collection skillfully fashioned dishes, clay jugs similar to Greek vases.

Ceramics is overflowing with fun and extremely talented. It seems that the artist was able to convey his style of creating on canvas when working with clay.
Each product contains broad, mischievous strokes, funny details, and cheerful strokes of the chisel. One gets the impression that the clay was not sculpted by hand, but painted with a brush. At the same time, the forms themselves incredibly accurately convey the playful mood of the creator and his ambiguous talent. Some works are close to ancient genres, while others are made in the Spanish palette of the 16th-17th centuries.
All of Picasso’s ceramic works can be divided into two types - flat ceramics and volumetric.
Flat items include numerous plates, bowls, and flat tablets. You can mainly find his favorite subjects: bullfighting, mythology, artist and model, female images, animals, abstract themes. Favorite owls with human face(the owlet and the goat were the master’s pets at that time) dominate the number of characters.

Some works are more like a sketch.

And three-dimensional ceramics are represented by vases and bowls, which captivate with their irregularity and are close to sculpture.

Picasso was interested in the fun of “crossing” such an ordinary object as a vase with the most different objects. A kind of werewolves appear: bird vase, face vase, woman vase, bull vase.

Tree-Owl-Woman, 1951

Woman, 1955

All his life, Picasso was inspired by women, they live in his paintings and inspire other artists.

Francoise Gilot

Portrait of a Woman in a Green Hat, 1947

Woman with hairnet, 1949

Jacqueline Rock

His second legitimate and beloved wife, who simply adored him, idolized him, putting him on a pedestal, meekly enduring bad character Picasso. Jacqueline Rock was very beautiful woman, petite, slender and black-haired, with an amazing profile in which Picasso always saw a resemblance to the characters eastern harems, depicted more than once by Delacroix and Matisse, and then he himself captured Jacqueline in the image oriental beauty. For almost 20 years, she was almost his only model; he painted about 400 portraits of her.

Seated Woman in Turkish Costume (Jacqueline), 1955

Woman in Turkish costume in a chair, 1955

Woman in the studio, 1956

Portrait of a Woman in a Green Dress, 1956

Head of a Woman, 1960

Head of a Woman, 1963

Jacqueline sitting in a chair, 1964

During the period of life and work in Valoris, Picasso met a young girl, his fan, with whom he became briefly interested. She inspired him to vigorous artistic activity - within three months he painted about 40 portraits of her. They are easily identified by their characteristic detail - a playful ponytail.

Portrait of Sylvette David, 1954

By the way, Brigitte Bardot adopted her style from Sylvette.

Public favorite, brilliant and worldwide famous artist, was incredibly artistic, which was reflected in his free style.

The famous vest is present in every second photograph of Picasso, and embodies style and character. Vest- as a sign of fortitude, adventurism and eternal love to sea. The artist added a little artistry to it.

I imitated him Andy Warhole

And Jean-Paul Gaultier.

Picasso contributed huge contribution V modern Art, standing at its origins, inspiring other artists, for example Jackson Pollock (American artist, ideologist and leader of abstract expressionism, who had a significant influence on the art of the second half of the 20th century).

His influence can be seen in everything, in addition - it is undeniable brand, which immediately attracts attention.

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Picasso left behind 43 thousand works, having a huge impact on art and becoming one of the most recognizable masters of the 20th century.

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“For me, there are only two types of women - goddesses and doormats.” Pablo Picasso

“Mystery”, “Madness”, “Magic” - these are the first words that came to the minds of patrons when they tried to describe the creation of Pablo Picasso. The artist's special aura was colored by his explosive, Spanish temperament and genius. This is a combination that women could not resist.

website publishes for you the love story of a great painter.

Picasso in his youth and older age

Picasso was an amazing man with that same attractive charm that is now called charisma. However, many women could not come to terms with the artist’s character and committed suicide or went crazy. At the age of 8, Pablo had already written his first serious work, “Picador.” At the age of 16, Picasso, as if jokingly, entered the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando. He dropped out of school just as easily. Instead of poring over books, Pablo and his friends began to play around in Madrid brothels.

At the age of 19, the artist set off to conquer Paris. Before leaving, Picasso painted a self-portrait. At the top of the picture he signed in black paint: “I am the king!” However, the “king” had a hard time in the capital of France. There was no money. One winter, to keep warm, he lit a stone fireplace with his own handiwork.

On the personal front, things were going much better.

Women have always adored Picasso.

First lover Fernande Olivier

His first lover was Fernanda Olivier (she was 18, he was 23 years old). In Paris, Pablo Picasso lives in a poor quarter in Montmartre, in a hostel where aspiring artists lived, and where Fernanda Olivier sometimes poses for them. There she meets Picasso, becomes his model and his girlfriend. The lovers lived in poverty. In the mornings they stole croissants and milk. Gradually people began to buy Picasso's paintings.

Pablo Picasso, Fernanda Olivier and Jaquin Reventos. Barcelona, ​​1906

They lived together for almost a decade, and from this period there remains a large number of portraits of Fernanda herself, and in general female images written from it.

"Fernanda in a Black Mantilla", 1905

According to researchers, she was also the model for the creation of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, one of Picasso's main paintings, a turning point for the art of the 20th century.

But there was a time when they lived apart (summer and autumn of 1907). This summer left behind bad memories. Both he and she had affairs with others. But the worst thing was that he lived with a woman who did not understand Cubism at all, she did not like him. Perhaps Picasso was experiencing organic depression; Later, when he returned to Paris, he was struck by a stomach ailment. His pre-ulcerative condition. From now on, the relationship between the brush and the canvas will not be in vain for the artist - cubism, as a complex, was as simple as playing chess in three dimensions. And they parted - Picasso and Fernanda.

Russian ballerina Olga Khokhlova

True love came to the artist in 1917, when he met one of Sergei Diaghilev’s ballerinas, Olga Khokhlova. The history of their relationship began on May 18, 1917, when Olga danced at the premiere of the ballet “Parade” at the Chatelet Theater. The ballet was created by Sergei Diaghilev, Erik Satie and Jean Cocteau, with Pablo Picasso responsible for the costumes and set design.

Photo portrait of Olga Khokhlova.

Olga Khokhlova, Picasso, Maria Shabelskaya and Jean Cocteau in Paris, 1917.

After they met, the troupe went on tour to South America, and Olga went with Picasso to Barcelona. The artist introduced her to his family. Mother didn't like her. Olga is a foreigner, Russian, no match for her brilliant son! Life will show that the mother was right. Olga and Picasso were married on June 18, 1918 in the Alexander Nevsky Orthodox Cathedral. Jean Cocteau and Max Jacob were witnesses at the wedding.

“Portrait of Olga in an Armchair”, 1917

After they met, the troupe went on tour to South America, and Olga went with Picasso to Barcelona. The artist introduced her to his family. Mother didn't like her. Olga is a foreigner, Russian, no match for her brilliant son! Life will show that the mother was right.

Olga and Picasso were married on June 18, 1918 in the Alexander Nevsky Orthodox Cathedral. Jean Cocteau and Max Jacob were witnesses at the wedding.

In July 1919 they went to London for new premiere“Russian Ballet” - the ballet “The Tricorne” (Spanish: “El Sombrero de tres Picos”, French: “Le Tricorne”), for which Picasso again created costumes and scenery.

The ballet was also performed at the Alhambra in Spain and had big success at the Paris Opera in 1919. This was a time when they were happily married and often participated in public events.

On February 4, 1921, Olga gave birth to a son, Paulo (Paul). From that moment on, the couple's relationship began to rapidly deteriorate.

Olga wasted her husband’s money, and he was desperately angry. And another important reason for the disagreement was the role imposed by Olga on Picasso. She wanted to see him as a salon portrait painter, a commercial artist, moving in high society and receiving orders there.

"Nude in a Red Chair", 1929

This kind of life bored the genius to death. This was immediately reflected in his paintings: Picasso depicted his wife exclusively in the form of an evil old woman, whose distinctive feature there were menacing long sharp teeth. Picasso saw his wife this way for the rest of his life.

Marie-Therese Walter

Photo portrait of Marie-Therese Walter.

"The Woman in the Red Chair", 1939

In 1927, when Picasso was 46 years old, he ran away from Olga to 17-year-old Marie-Therese Walter. It was a fire, a mystery, madness.

The time of love for Marie-Therese Walter was special, both in life and in work. The works of this period differed sharply from previously created paintings both in style and color. The masterpieces of Marie Walter's period, especially before the birth of his daughter, are the pinnacle of his creativity.

In 1935, Olga learned from a friend about her husband’s affair, and also that Maria Teresa was pregnant. Taking Paulo with her, she immediately left for the south of France and filed for divorce. Picasso refused to divide the property equally, as required by French law, and therefore Olga remained his legal wife until her death. She died of cancer in 1955 in Cannes. Picasso did not go to the funeral. He simply breathed a sigh of relief.

Dora Maar

Photo portrait of Dora Maar.

After the birth of the child, he loses interest in Marie and takes on another mistress - 29-year-old artist Dora Maar. One day, Dora and Marie-Thérèse met by chance in Picasso’s studio when he was working on the famous “Guernica.” The angry women demanded that he choose one of them. Pablo replied that they should fight for him. And the ladies attacked each other with fists.
Then the artist said that the fight between his two mistresses was the most a bright event in his life. Marie-Therese soon hanged herself. And Dora Maar, who will forever remain in the painting “The Weeping Woman.”

"Crying Woman", 1937

For the passionate Dora, the break with Picasso was a disaster. Dora ended up in the Paris psychiatric hospital of St. Anne, where she was treated with electric shocks. She was rescued from there and brought out of the crisis by her old friend, the famous psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. After this, Dora completely withdrawn into herself, becoming for many a symbol of a woman whose life was shattered by her love for the cruel genius of Picasso. Secluded in her apartment near the Rue Grand-Augustin, she plunged into mysticism and astrology, and converted to Catholicism. Her life stopped perhaps in 1944, when there was a break with Picasso.

Later, when Dora returned to painting, her style changed radically: now from under her brush came lyrical views of the banks of the Seine and landscapes of the Luberon. Friends organized an exhibition of her work in London, but it went unnoticed. However, Dora herself did not come to the vernissage, explaining later that she was busy, as she was drawing a rose in the hotel room... Having survived for a quarter of a century the one who, according to Andre Breton, was the “mad love” of her life, Dora Maar died in July 1997 at the age of 90, alone and in poverty. And about a year later, her portrait “Sobbing Woman” was sold at auction for 37 million francs.

The love between Picasso and Dora Maar, which blossomed during the war, did not stand the test of the world. Their romance lasted seven years, and it was a story of broken, hysterical love. Could she have been different? Dora Maar was wild in her feelings and in her creativity. She had an unbridled temperament and a fragile psyche: bursts of energy alternated with periods deep depression. Picasso is usually called a “sacred monster,” but it seems that in human relations he was simply a monster.

Francoise Gilot

The artist quickly forgot the lovers he had abandoned. Soon he began dating 21-year-old Françoise Gilot, who was old enough to be the master’s granddaughter. I met her in a restaurant and immediately invited her... to take a bath. In occupied Paris hot water was a luxury, and Picasso was one of the few who could afford it.

In 1937, Picasso painted "The Weeping Woman". It depicts a woman's face distorted by agony. The viewer can only guess that this is a face, since the portrait emerges from a chaos of rigid geometric lines. Real proportions are violated and are subordinated to one idea: to convey the suffering that turns the face into something terrible, out of shape, monstrous. The artist was completely successful in this task, and Picasso’s fantastic mirage brings to mind some later textbook photographs. For example, documentary photographs of sobbing Czechs herded into the streets to welcome the entry of German troops into Prague in 1939. Convulsions of crying disfigure their faces, but their hands are raised in a fascist salute. So, less than two years later, reality surpassed the “shocking” Picasso.
"The Weeping Woman" dates from October 1937. And a little earlier, in May, he created his famous "Guernica", written under the impression of events civil war in Spain. On April 26, 1937, German aircraft, on the orders of General Franco, bombed the city of Guernica, almost wiping it off the face of the earth. Photos of the destroyed Guernica immediately appeared in French newspapers. The destruction of the city turned out to be neither the largest nor the bloodiest war crime of the twentieth century, but the international community, not yet accustomed to such actions, was terribly depressed. Picasso wrote open letter, directed against the Franco regime, and created a picture best described in his own poetic lines: “...the crying of children, the crying of women, the crying of birds, the crying of flowers, the crying of stones and beams...”
“The Weeping Woman” was a kind of postscript to “Guernica.” Many researchers associate this painting with one of the figures on the large canvas and, although there is no direct similarity between them, it is obvious that both works are closely related. Usually “The Weeping Woman” is considered in the context of the great artist’s social gestures, which are generally not very characteristic of him. And the fact that the exhibition of female portraits, seemingly openly lyrical, was called “Picasso’s Crying Woman” at first glance causes some bewilderment.
In 1937, when Picasso created many paintings, prints and drawings dedicated to Spanish events, his life was outwardly serene and happy. Together with his friend Dora Maar, the artist rents an atelier in the center of Paris and travels to the south of France and Switzerland. She introduced Picasso to Georges Bataille, a philosopher and writer, author of political economic, ethnological and cultural works, as well as stories and novels. Bataille became a fairly close friend of Picasso, and the artist’s atelier often hosted meetings of the society of aesthetes founded by this admirer of the Marquis de Sade. Picasso's works of this particular time are characterized by intense eroticism, noticeable in the images of the young Marie-Thérèse Walter. The blond beauty became Picasso's favorite muse and posed for him almost more often than Dora Maar. But the resulting compositions can be called portraits very conditionally - they main theme there was a magical perfection of rounded shapes and lines.
In parallel with this kind of works glorifying joie de vivre, Picasso painted female figures, transformed by his imagination into terrible surreal monsters, as in the painting “Girls with a Toy Ship”, also from 1937. All this culminates in "Woman Combing Her Hair" from 1940. Nude female figure here it looks like a formidable chimera. Needless to say, this thing became an allegory of the horror into which France plunged. But paradoxically, both in “The Crying Woman” and in “The Woman Combing Her Hair” and in the distorted women's faces"Guernica" also reveals the features of Dora Maar and Marie-Therese Walter. And the name given to the exhibition of Picasso’s female portraits is by no means accidental.
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