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Review
[Gilot's] recall of his [Picasso's] discussions about art, details of private visits to friends such as Matisse, Braque and Giacometti, and her intimate understanding of his temperament, make this work unique (DAILY TELEGRAPH )
This memoir is both a vivd portrait of a monstrously difficult man and a brilliant depiction of a great artist at work (NEW YORK TIMES )
... no-one in the Picasso entourage was so close to him... fascinating. (Tim Hilton )
This memoir is both a vivd portrait of a monstrously difficult man and a brilliant depiction of a great artist at work (NEW YORK TIMES )
... no-one in the Picasso entourage was so close to him... fascinating. (Tim Hilton )
Product Description
Francoise Gilot was a young painter in Pasis 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 genius that was Picasso. She is a superb witness to Picasso as an artist and to his views on art...
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book follows the decade or so that Francoise Gilot and Picasso were lovers, and covers their day-to-day lives, their discussions on art, their friends (Matisse, Gertrude Stein, Braque etc) and their children (Paloma and Claude). It's a wonderful biography, beautifully written and very evocative. You admire Francoise for sticking with Picasso for so long and are amazed at the genius that he was.
A great read whether or not you are interested in Picasso and his art.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The book tell the story from the moment Francoise Gilot meets Picasso in 1942 until some years after they broke up.
I very much enjoyed the book. I mostly enjoy the discussions on art the two have in the book which are most interesting because of the explanatory way the conversations are held. Which makes it a good book to muse on what art is and what kind of role Picasso played. Gilot has a kind of cut to the chase writing style which makes you keep on reading.
When the book was published there was much controversy and Picasso and many of his friends distanced themselves from it. Seen as he is portrayed as not a nice man. I would recommend therefore to also read other books on Picasso to give you a more complete view of who this man was. For example the book Conversations with Picasso written during his lifetime by his friend Brassaï on the same years as Gilot relationship with Picasso.
People who like this book, I would also recommend to read her other book on the friendship between Picasso and Matisse.
I very much enjoyed the book. I mostly enjoy the discussions on art the two have in the book which are most interesting because of the explanatory way the conversations are held. Which makes it a good book to muse on what art is and what kind of role Picasso played. Gilot has a kind of cut to the chase writing style which makes you keep on reading.
When the book was published there was much controversy and Picasso and many of his friends distanced themselves from it. Seen as he is portrayed as not a nice man. I would recommend therefore to also read other books on Picasso to give you a more complete view of who this man was. For example the book Conversations with Picasso written during his lifetime by his friend Brassaï on the same years as Gilot relationship with Picasso.
People who like this book, I would also recommend to read her other book on the friendship between Picasso and Matisse.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Anyone with even a remote interest in art, or the art world of post-war Paris, should read this honest, dignified memoir.
Francoise Gilot was Picasso`s companion, lover, muse, helpmeet, sounding-board, and much else, for the best part of ten years from 1943, when she was a mere 21 and Picasso a still vigorous 61. Their time together, which produced two children, Claude & Paloma (both now in their sixties) is documented with quiet, judicious directness by this articulate woman, a fine artist in her own right - check out her website, she`s still with us in her ninetieth year.
Some deluded souls will read Life With Picasso as a one-time lover`s revenge on an impossible tyrant, whose possessiveness drove every woman to distraction and Gilot to eventually leave him, much to the great man`s infuriation. But this is nothing of the kind, however justified that description of PP might be. The bulk of this book recounts a partnership of mutual love & companionship, much humour (not that Picasso was exactly a laugh a minute, at least not intentionally) and sharing of ideas, not to mention ideals. Besides, however petulantly Picasso behaves, however unjustifiable his demands on those around him, he had willed himself to become the semi-mythical beast `Pablo Picasso` long before Gilot came on the scene. One took him or...or left him.
What also gives the book its status as one of the best memoirs of its era is the parade of legendary painters, sculptors, writers, philosophers, et al, who crop up regularly in its pages, usually preventing Picasso from doing what he loved best to do: work. Matisse, Braque, Sartre, Cocteau, Paul Eluard, Malraux and many others have walk-on parts in the drama played out chez Picasso, whether in Paris or further south. There is also a telling interlude when a nervous Francoise is introduced to the formidable Scylla & Charybdis of Parisian cultural life, Gertrude Stein and her baleful `straight man` Alice B Toklas. Stein evidently thought the world of herself, even if she did also manage to think the world of Picasso, Hemingway and other deserving courtiers at the same time. Toklas creeps about like a morose leech, giving both Francoise and the reader the willies, to put it bluntly. In one of the voluble Picasso`s rare moments of tactful, if artful, silence, he bemusedly looks on as Stein `interviews` the shy young Gilot, playing with her as a cat might with a mouse.
Gilot proves time and again in this book that she was never anybody`s mouse, however accommodating she may have appeared to others.
The recalled discussions between the author and PP on art and artists are priceless. It`s interesting that when she finally leaves Picasso, what he most misses is her intelligent comradeship, her unselfish forthrightness. (This is not to suggest that Picasso did not see every woman as selfish, especially if they should be mad and misguided enough, in his eyes, to want a life of their own.)
This essential memoir is both a credible portrait of a unique creative artist, and a discreet, though never mealy-mouthed, series of autobiographical vignettes from a fascinating life in its own right. One finishes Life With Picasso with a better understanding of its eponymous subject, as well as respect, admiration, and gratitude to its author.
Francoise Gilot was Picasso`s companion, lover, muse, helpmeet, sounding-board, and much else, for the best part of ten years from 1943, when she was a mere 21 and Picasso a still vigorous 61. Their time together, which produced two children, Claude & Paloma (both now in their sixties) is documented with quiet, judicious directness by this articulate woman, a fine artist in her own right - check out her website, she`s still with us in her ninetieth year.
Some deluded souls will read Life With Picasso as a one-time lover`s revenge on an impossible tyrant, whose possessiveness drove every woman to distraction and Gilot to eventually leave him, much to the great man`s infuriation. But this is nothing of the kind, however justified that description of PP might be. The bulk of this book recounts a partnership of mutual love & companionship, much humour (not that Picasso was exactly a laugh a minute, at least not intentionally) and sharing of ideas, not to mention ideals. Besides, however petulantly Picasso behaves, however unjustifiable his demands on those around him, he had willed himself to become the semi-mythical beast `Pablo Picasso` long before Gilot came on the scene. One took him or...or left him.
What also gives the book its status as one of the best memoirs of its era is the parade of legendary painters, sculptors, writers, philosophers, et al, who crop up regularly in its pages, usually preventing Picasso from doing what he loved best to do: work. Matisse, Braque, Sartre, Cocteau, Paul Eluard, Malraux and many others have walk-on parts in the drama played out chez Picasso, whether in Paris or further south. There is also a telling interlude when a nervous Francoise is introduced to the formidable Scylla & Charybdis of Parisian cultural life, Gertrude Stein and her baleful `straight man` Alice B Toklas. Stein evidently thought the world of herself, even if she did also manage to think the world of Picasso, Hemingway and other deserving courtiers at the same time. Toklas creeps about like a morose leech, giving both Francoise and the reader the willies, to put it bluntly. In one of the voluble Picasso`s rare moments of tactful, if artful, silence, he bemusedly looks on as Stein `interviews` the shy young Gilot, playing with her as a cat might with a mouse.
Gilot proves time and again in this book that she was never anybody`s mouse, however accommodating she may have appeared to others.
The recalled discussions between the author and PP on art and artists are priceless. It`s interesting that when she finally leaves Picasso, what he most misses is her intelligent comradeship, her unselfish forthrightness. (This is not to suggest that Picasso did not see every woman as selfish, especially if they should be mad and misguided enough, in his eyes, to want a life of their own.)
This essential memoir is both a credible portrait of a unique creative artist, and a discreet, though never mealy-mouthed, series of autobiographical vignettes from a fascinating life in its own right. One finishes Life With Picasso with a better understanding of its eponymous subject, as well as respect, admiration, and gratitude to its author.
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