Art-o-Gram: Picasso – The Artist, Life and Love – Scene 5

Picasso's life and his loves – especially regarding Picasso's relationship with women – is an endless topic on which serious art historians and agitated feminists, outraged petit bourgeois and imaginative cookbook authors, confused social scientists and envious tabloid journalists have expressed themselves exhaustively from virtually every conceivable point of view.

The artist's lifestyle and relationships with women have already been thoroughly dissected, and it's probably not that important who shared which bed with whom, why, and when. Nevertheless, a comprehensive view of Picasso cannot entirely avoid taking a look at his lifestyle and his love life—both are pieces of the puzzle of "Picasso the person ," and both influenced his art.

Therefore, what follows is a sketch in 7 scenes about the private side of the artist – an intensely lived life.

Scene 5: Suddenly no longer born for marriage, or learned from experience?

Picasso had now ended a marriage and had some experiences with his wife Olga that he didn't particularly enjoy. His wife Olga wanted a life within bourgeois society, embellished with many small triumphs thanks to her husband's prominence; she truly saw the "safe harbor of marriage" as a safe haven, with procreation and raising children as her new responsibilities.

Tasks that Olga, at the time—as instructions for post-pregnancy gymnastics to restore the body to its former shape, were neither conceived nor common—also rendered her unable to continue working in her profession after the birth of her son Paulo. If it would even have been conceivable at that time for mothers to continue working as ballet dancers.

The transition from artistic activity to teaching, wellness ballet lessons by a specialist for citizens who simply enjoy physical exercise, was also not an option at that time – citizens did not train their bodies, and for artists it was difficult enough to even gain access to bourgeois society.

At first glance, Olga had no other option but to devote herself solely to her children and her husband; she did both, especially with regard to her husband, by providing him with opportunities to showcase his work and her to boast about him.

Picasso wrestled a lot with his work and spoke to educated people from all sorts of professions about his work; he was less interested in boasting about his work to rather uninterested laypeople.

He was interested in a child with whom one could not yet speak as an object of study of extraordinary childlike creativity and also gladly for tender cuddling, but not as an educational task.

And social appearances held absolutely no interest for him, even though he had actually married Olga so that she would grant him access to that society. Picasso quickly realized that social events bored him and even repulsed him, partly because they distracted him from his work.

Certainly, in this rather unfortunate situation, there was some opportunity, especially for Olga, to deepen her relationship with Picasso. This could have been achieved by showing interest in his work, by accepting that he wasn't exactly a party animal, and by participating in his creative interest in their son.

But it is equally certain how uncertain it is that Olga, even with great effort, would have become a companion sufficient for Picasso in the long run. Picasso was a true high-flyer; beside such an artist, only a woman with a strong passion of her own could truly stand up. Or a woman who could make her partner's life's work her own, with his complete acceptance and respect.

The fact that Olga lost her passion after the birth of her son was just mentioned. If she had had or developed other interests, it wouldn't have been possible for her to pursue them anyway, since she had a son to raise.

In intellectual circles, in times of increasing equality for women, education alone – as an exciting, creative and demanding task – was no longer considered sufficient.

Leaving childcare solely to the mother remained common practice, even when the father didn't have a job that would keep him busy day and night. This is a trap from which mothers still haven't escaped. For far too long, politicians and society have watched as women work themselves to exhaustion in this predicament, merely lamenting the gradual decline of the German population.

In Picasso's case, the situation was further complicated by the fact that he had wanted something from Olga (an introduction to bourgeois society) that he quickly realized he didn't actually want. Picasso wouldn't allow Olga to discover his work as the focus of her life, in addition to her role as a mother.

Picasso had neither the time nor, it seems, the inclination to teach and mentor her; and, contrary to all his good intentions at their wedding, he had no desire to confine himself to Olga as the only woman in his life. While Olga is often accused of lacking sufficient intellect for further development, Picasso could surely have recognized this deficiency before she was trapped – that would have been fairer.

But life is not fair, and Olga allowed her trap set by Picasso/exhibitions/picasso-today-all-important-exhibitions-for-the-50th-anniversary-of-the-Spanish-artist-legend/ to be made quite comfortable for her, until her death in 1955, because she and Picasso were never divorced.

Much has been written about this fact; Picasso is said to have found a divorce from the exploitative Olga impossible because he would have had to share his fortune with her – certainly not fair, since Picasso had already brought considerable wealth into the marriage (however, when it comes to the cold monetary value of Picasso's art , one would have to ask to what extent the sales value of his paintings increased because Olga had introduced him to the “affluent society” to which he was rather distant before the marriage).

That was certainly the case back then; marital property rights, which divided assets in the event of a divorce, were the norm in France at the time. Whoever had brought in more had to protect themselves through separate contractual agreements, something Picasso neglected to do.

1927 – 1937: Marie-Thérèse Walter or the escape into the “dream”

Picasso was almost certainly overwhelmed by wife and fatherhood and probably highly ready for a change of pace when he saw the then 17-year-old Marie-Thérèse Walter in the Parisian department store “Galeries Lafayette” in January 1927. He made her his model, then she became his secret lover.

Although eventually no longer secret, Marie Therese remained his mistress from 1927 to 1937 – Olga Khokhlova wanted a divorce when she found out about the mistress, Picasso didn't want that because of the community of property and the threat of financial loss; whether you classify this as a pragmatic correction of an oversight or as a betrayal of the mistress, we leave up to you.

Marie-Thérèse appears countless times in Picasso's paintings. At the end of his life, in 1973, Picasso himself still owned 500 paintings, of which Marie-Thérèse Walter appears in over 50. Among these are at least two paintings that are now among the most expensive works of art in the world:

The “Nude with Green Leaves and Bust” from 1932, which fetched over 108 million US dollars at auction in May 2010, and “Le Rêve” (“The Dream”) from 1932. “Le Rêve” has subsequently had a truly remarkable “life story”, which you can read about in the article 'Art-o-Gramm: Picasso’s “Dream” or the incredible story of “Le Rêve”' .

Picasso's escape from domestic reality, offered by Marie-Thérèse Walter, remained relatively trouble-free for quite some time, until she became pregnant. On October 5, 1935 (New Year's Eve was beautiful?), Marie-Thérèse Mará de la Concepción (Maya) gave birth to Picasso, whereupon Picasso separated from his wife and openly lived with Marie-Thérèse Walter.

But his attitude towards motherhood and small children has not changed since his experiences with Paolo and Olga; children only bother him a little more (how Picasso saw motherhood in 1905 can be seen in the painting “Maternity” from the Rosa Perionde; how he saw it in 1971 is demonstrated by “Maternity with an Apple”).

1936 – 1943: Dora Maar – a proud panther becomes a weeping cat

In 1936, Picasso met Dora Maar in a café in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. She was 29 at the time, both beautiful and self-assured; Picasso was immediately captivated by her dark beauty and theatrical presence, which was often tinged with a touch of violence.

She was probably the most stark contrast imaginable to the blonde, friendly Marie-Thérèse Walter, and perhaps that is why she so quickly became Picasso's lover. Dora Maar had studied painting and photography and was already a well-known photographic artist at that time.

She was currently making headlines with her manipulated photograph of an armadillo embryo called “Portrait d’Ubu” (“Portrait of Ubu”, inspired by Alfred Jarry’s play King Ubu), which had become a symbol of the Surrealists and was exhibited in Paris and London.

It wasn't just for this reason that the beauty with black hair and green eyes became Picasso's most famous lover; she was not a silent muse, but a companion who could hold her own against him. She was an interested communist and provided Picasso with contacts to politically engaged intellectuals in her circle, such as André Breton and Louis Aragon.

And she worked with Picasso, photographically documenting his work from 1937 onwards, for example his famous painting Guernica "Cahiers d'Art" in 1937 , and the first exhibition of her photographic work in a Parisian gallery took place in the same year.

As an artist, Picasso was said to have been particularly fascinated by Dora Maar's enigmatic aura and her unapproachability; he made a whole series of portraits of her as the model.

Picasso's paintings on the “Dora Maar theme” encompass incredibly diverse expressions; she appears as a dreamy and beautiful bird woman ( “Dora Maar en forme d`oiseau” , 1936) and as a strong woman with raised arms ( “Femme aux bras leves [Tête de Dora Maar]” , 1936), as a naturalistic girl with a halo ( “Portrait de Dora Maar” , 1937), as a deformed figure with bewildered features ( “Portrait de Dora Maar 4” , 1937) and later also as a woman who speaks in one direction and looks in the other ( “Buste de femme [Dora Maar]” , 1942) – she seems to have been not only unapproachable for Picasso, but also often completely unfathomable.

Dora Maar is also Picasso's "La femme qui pleure" , the "Weeping Woman", expressing his grief for his homeland, which has been in civil war since 1936; in the following links to the images you will find two of the many weeping women.

A Picasso record is also included: The portrait “Dora Maar au Chat” from 1941 (Dora Maar with cat) was auctioned at Sotheby's New York in May 2006 for 95.2 million US dollars, the second highest price ever paid at auction, which “Dora Maar au Chat” the fourth most expensive painting in the world for some time.

The cat in the famous picture is very small, and the woman does not look happy – Dora Maar is said to have constantly competed with Marie-Thérèse Walter for Picasso's affection during her relationship with him, because Picasso did not want to make a decision and advised the women to settle their rivalry among themselves.

A small warning for all those born later: Taking such advice doesn't seem to be such a good idea – Marie-Thérèse Walter hanged herself in 1977, and Dora Maar fell into depression after Picasso left her for a 21-year-old.

Getting involved with Picasso was probably not such a good idea for a woman at all, at least not for women with a fairly normal level of self-confidence and a healthy self-assessment and a certain minimum expectation of recognition from their partner.

For Picasso, this quickly became overwhelming; receiving attention was obviously easier for him than being attentive (outside of art), as he once said: “Braque is the wife who loved me the most.” (found in “Der Spiegel”, issue 44/1963, www.spiegel.de/ ).

No wonder, his long-time friend Georges Braque was known to be extremely reserved, spoke very little at all and only very rarely about his art, and at joint appearances, although reluctantly, he endured with great patience the fact that the sociable and talkative Picasso regularly claimed the sole attention of all those present.

That it's possible to survive Picasso without depression and suicide, that one can even survive him quite well, even as a woman, is something you'll learn in the next section of this article. You can find out more about Picasso's life—which, contrary to what this article might suggest, didn't revolve exclusively around women—and his work in the articles "Art-o-Gram: Picasso – A Long Life for Art," "Art-o-Gram: Picasso – Born an Artist , "Art-o-Gram: Picasso – An Artist and Three Wars ," "Art-o-Gram: Picasso – Famous Art and Its Secret," "Art-o-Gram: Picasso – A Guarantee for Top Rankings," and "Art-o-Gram: Picasso Today."

Lina cream

Passionate author with lively art interest

www. kunstplaza .de