Kept to the last, Picasso’s private portraits of the six loves of his life
Artist’s sentimental side revealed in a collection of works inspired by his wives and mistresses
HE WAS one of the art world’s most famous womanisers, once telling one of his mistresses: “There are only two kinds of women, goddesses and doormats.”
Yet there was a softer side to Pablo Picasso, which is revealed in his personal art collection showing how he kept treasured portraits of the six women who were his greatest muses, until the end of his life.
The keepsakes are to be offered for sale to the public for the first time, after his family arranged an auction of nearly 200 items he kept in his studio.
Experts at Sotheby’s said the effect of the works was like “looking over the shoulder” of Picasso, offering a glimpse of his emotional state and reflecting his evolving style. Comprised of 106 works on paper and 70 ceramic and terracotta sculptures, the collection is expected to sell for up to £10 million on Feb 5 after being curated and stored by the artist’s granddaughter Marina Picasso.
Georgia Gold, co-head of the Impressionist and modern art day sale at Sotheby’s, said the works featuring Picasso’s muses were “extraordinary”.
They begin with Fernande Olivier, a model who was Picasso’s lover from 1904 to 1911. She posed for more than
60 portraits, providing inspiration during his Cubist period. A sketch of Olivier has an £80,000–£120,000 estimate.
Olga Khokhlova, Picasso’s first wife and mother of his eldest child Paul, is the subject of a sketch drawn in 1918. A ballet dancer, she stayed with him from 1917 to 1935 and is said to have bombarded him with hate mail after they parted, never divorcing after Picasso refused to divide his assets. The portrait, at £60,000–£80,000, is described as sensitively drawn with a “tenderness” that characterised his feelings for her in the early years.
His third and arguably most famous muse was Marie-Thérèse Walter, who was with Picasso from 1927 to 1936 and gave him a daughter. They met when she was 17, and he was still with Olga. But he would abandon her, too, when he moved on to his next mistress. She hanged herself four years after his death. She is described as “blonde and bright” in the work inspired by her, Femme en Costume du Bain (Marie-Therese), at £40,000–£60,000. She is also the subject of the painting Tête de
Femme, estimated at £16 million£20 million and offered at a separate Sotheby’s sale on Feb 3.
Dora Maar, the surrealist photographer who fought Walter for the artist’s affection and was with him from 1936 to 1944, appears in the 1939 pencil sketch Etudes Pour Femme Au Chapeau for £50,000-£70,000. For a similar estimate is the sculpture.
Femme Dubout, inspired by Françoise Gilot, a 21-year-old law student who left her studies to have an affair with Picasso, who was 40 years her senior, and was mother of two of his children.
Finally, his second wife Jacqueline Roque – in his life for 11 years, and the inspiration behind more than 400 works – appears in the paper cutout Visage de Femme at £180,000-£250,000. The items stayed in Picasso’s studio until his death, unsigned because they were never intended for sale. Ms Gold added: “His wives and lovers were integral to his career; they were very much the subjects that inspired him.”