Françoise Gilot

She's a beauty, ain't she? Beautiful, talented, and ballsy! I'm well into the last pages of  Françoise Gilot's memoir {Life with Picasso} hence the post. She has made considerable accomplishments because of her talent alone, but I guess her name will forever be associated with another creative genius: Pablo Picasso. 

Françoise Gilot has a legion of achievements up her sleeve by being a painter and an author. She's also the mother of Paloma Picasso and was married to Jonas Salk for 25 years. The latter is the one who successfully came up with the first polio vaccine and then refused to have it patented so that more can have access to it. He would've been $7 billion richer according to Forbes at that time. Some people are born with a genuinely kind heart, I guess.

So back to Françoise Gilot - She was Picasso's muse and lover for ten years. She was 21 while Picasso was 62 when they first met. Françoise was more of a Matisse fan than a Picasso, but fate always has its own way. 

Lady's got backbone, I must say. The book shows Picasso in a different, not so pleasant type of light. To be fair, she highlighted Picasso's creative method, too. She had it published while the art legend was still alive. Naturally, it irked him. "No woman leaves a man like me" Picasso allegedly told her. She did.

She has this to say about one's importance to someone else, which I believe is true:  “No one is indispensable to anyone else. You imagine you're necessary to him or that he will be very unhappy if you leave him, but I'm sure that if you do, within three months he will have fitted another face into your role and you'll see that no one is suffering because of your absence."

Photos are from here.




Onward and Upward!