Virago Press Ltd, 1990, softcover, illustrated, index, 349 pages, minor wear to cover otherwise condition: basically as new.
Francoise Gilot was a young painter in Paris when she first met Picasso - he was sixty-two and she was twenty-one. During the following ten years they were lovers, worked closely together and she became mother to two of his children, Claude and Paloma. Life with Picasso, her account of those extraordinary years, is filled with intimate and astonishing revelations about the man, his work, his thoughts and his friends - Matisse, Braque, Gertrude Stein and Giacometti, among others. Francois Gilot paints a compelling portrait of her turbulent life with the temperamental (and even abusive) genius that was Picasso. As one of the few intimate witnesses to Picasso as a human being and as an artist, her account of him is invaluable for assessing him on both counts.
I have never had it take me so long to finish a book that I really loved, but life has been crazy. I finally finished yesterday and found this book to be an intriguing, fascinating, and revealing book about one of the greatest artists of all time. Being a painter myself, I have always admired Picasso and he had always been the one person who is dead that I longed to meet. To have spent time with him painting would have been wonderful. Or so I thought. I had heard that he was an asshat, but this book reveals that he was a TOTAL ASSHAT. Now, there is no question that he was a fabulous painter. I still admire his work more than any other, except perhaps Braque rates right up there with him. But as a person, he was not fabulous at all.
This book was written by Francoise Gilot, his mistress of ten years. She was the only woman to leave Picasso. Usually he did the leaving. She also bore him two children: Claude and Paloma. That she stayed 10 years makes me think less of her. She was an enabler and, in many ways, a oormat. Picasso was emotionally cruel and abusive to all the women in his life. He criticized, belittled, and blamed them for everything that went wrong during a day, even if they weren't in the room. He was also manipulative to his friends. He treated them poorly quite often and always was figuring out ways to one-up them. It seems he was a very insecure man, and I would have to say he seemed mentally ill in many ways. There was nothing more he liked to do than spread mean gossip or make people feel guilty that they didn't treat him well enough. It even took an hour to get him out of bed every day. He would lie there and complain about how bad life was, how badly he was treated, how his painting sucked...and she would have to counter it, cajoling him into getting up. I would have just told him to stay in bed and walked out to paint myself. He loved to use people that way. I would say that he acted like a two-year-old but that would denigrate most two-year olds. Many artists have been know as being hard to live with, but he truly took it to a level that was downright cruelty. I know this much: Had I spent time with him as a woman, within one or two days I would have slapped him so hard he would have permanently been seeing the whole world as cubism. This makes it sound like I hated the book. I didn't. I loved it's honesty and it was fascinating. It also wasn't written spitefully. She mentions many times how much she loved him. It was just an honest recalling of his statements, his treatment of others, and their life in general. The way he looked at women was appalling.I appreciated seeing him as he really was. I also enjoyed reading about his various creative pursuits, from painting to ceramics and other things. She quoted him a lot and from that I also learned how he approached painting and cubism. It wasn't a step by step guide or instructions, but the insight helped me tremendously. It is hard to find someone who can teach cubism and there aren't many books about how to do it. I was at an impasse for years, frustrated that I hadn't broken through. Shortly after reading part of this book I did my best painting to date. The book dragged a little during the lithography parts, as I have little interest in that, but that is a personal taste. All in all, it was an outstanding portrait of one of the greatest artists and one of the poorest examples of a human being. I will refer to it many times because of his wonderful insights and quotes about painting and art. It is invaluable to me because of that. I guess one of his own quotes sums him up best: "Everybody has the same energy potential. The average person wastes his in a dozen little ways. I bring mine to bear on one thing only; my paintings, and everything is sacrificed to it - you and everyone else, myself included."
