Françoise Gilot (1921–2023)

This is an epic journey over only a decade, and I think Gilot is absolutely amazing. While the book is supposed to be about Picasso, I’ve decided that he was a giant asshole with a few good insights (but the narcissism along with the mansplaining overrides everything that could potentially be good) and would rather continue to learn more about Gilot. You can tell that she has one of those total recall memories which is amazing as she wrote this about ten years after the ten years she’s show more writing about. But mostly her self awareness shines when needed, and I want to know more about this woman who literally just turned 101 years old; it’s nice to know she’s still surviving almost sixty years after writing this book. Also I loved the little chapters about so many varying characters throughout the French world of art and letters; you could take one and expand it into a whole novel or screenplay. show less

A fun read. Despite his being an arrogant, sexist little ass, she treats him quite fairly and her observations and explanations about his art processes are really quite good. She also has some hilarious stories involving his eccentricities and general home life that are a lot of fun. It was a different time, in so many ways.

I appreciate that some question the co-writer's free use of quotes around lengthy passages by Picasso, as if they were verbatim. Perhaps that was an editor's decision. show more Gilot is known for apparently having a photographic memory, in addition to having kept a journal and being in possession of many letters from Picasso. For me that was a minor nit. I loved it. show less

Gilot once said that lions only mate with lionesses, and she certainly holds no fangs back in her writing. A deeply philosophical and wonderfully contrarian artist.

Not the first woman in Pablo then already a father twice over, and not the last, Françoise Gilot was there from the closing months of the Paris occupation to the post-pottery years of a septuagenarian Picasso. An artist herself and the model for La Femme-Fleur, the love affair between Pablo Picasso, aged 61, and Françoise Gilot opens Act I of a story that covers much about Picasso's approach to and passion for creation, as well as moody narcissism and vindictiveness as well as the panoply show more of luminaries: Matisse, Gertrude Stein, Apollinaire, Cocteau, etc. Apparently gifted with a detailed memory and also holding back very little, this is a fascinating memoir or woman at loose ends finding herself over a decade as Picasso's lover and then wife in the late 40s into the 50s. show less