![]() In “La Femme-Fleur,” Gilot’s hair resembles leaves, her stemlike body sprouting abstract limbs and breasts. Teasingly, Matisse suggested to the competitive Picasso that if he were ever to paint Gilot, he would paint her hair green. Gilot was also his subject, famously depicted in his 1946 painting “La Femme-Fleur,” inspired by a visit to Henri Matisse’s home. Gilot was there to witness Picasso’s explorations with ceramics while living in Vallauris in the South of France, as well as his pioneering sculpture, lithography and assemblages. The book focuses more on Picasso than her own progression as a painter and mother. At once, she became his student, partner, assistant, and then the mother of their two children, Claude and Paloma. Picasso eventually persuaded her to abandon her family and move in with him. She, too, was a serious painter, with ambitions to make a name for herself. In it, Gilot describes a decade-long love affair with Picasso. This, of course, is a well-known story, originally recounted in her 1964 memoir written with the American journalist Carlton Lake, “ Life With Picasso,” which is being republished by New York Review of Books Classics this month. ![]() Picasso had already become an internationally famous artist, and Gilot observed that he no longer seemed like the “handsome animal” captured in Man Ray’s famous photographs from the 1920s and 1930s. At the end of the meal, Picasso walked over to Gilot’s table, offering a bowl of cherries and an invitation to visit his studio on Rue des Grands-Augustins. Picasso was there with his then partner Dora Maar and friends Gilot with hers. One evening, in Paris, the two happened to be dining at the same restaurant. The artist Françoise Gilot was only 21 years old when she first met Pablo Picasso in 1943.
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