Picasso Loved Red Hair

The famous painter Pablo Picasso (1881 – 1973) must have been a great admirer of red hair, since he had at least three relationships with red-haired women!

 

Picasso in 1962

The first one was Fernande Olivier (1881 – 1966). She was born in Paris, where became a fixture in the circle of friends of writer Guillaume Apollinaire, where she also became friends with Paul Léautaud, Kees van Dongen and Edmond-Marie Poullain. Van Dongen in particular painted her several times.

She met Picasso at the Bateau-Lavoir, in 1904, and by the next year they were living together. Their relationship lasted seven years and was characterized by its tempestuousness. Both Olivier and Picasso were jealous lovers, and their passions sometimes exploded into violence.

Olivier was Picasso's first muse. Later, among his most notable works of his Cubist period from 1907 to 1909, several were inspired by Olivier. These include Head of a Woman (Fernande). He later admitted that one of the Demoiselles d'Avignon was modeled after her.

Twenty years after her relationship with Picasso, she wrote memoirs of their life together. By that time, Picasso was the most famous artist of the age and the publication of Olivier's memoirs carried commercial potential. The memoir, entitled Picasso et ses amis (Picasso and his Friends), was published in 1930 in serialized form in the Belgian daily Le Soir, despite Picasso's strong opposition. He hired lawyers to prevent the publication of the series (only six articles were published). In 1956, when Olivier had become deaf and was suffering from arthritis, she persuaded Picasso to pay her a small pension in exchange for her promise not to publish anything further about their relationship as long as either of them was alive. The remainder of her story eventually appeared in 1988 in Loving Picasso.

 

 

 

The second one was Olga Stepanovna Khokhlova (1891 – 1955). Se was born in Nizhyn (present-day Ukraine) and studied in Saint Petersburg at a private ballet school. Later, she successfully auditioned to join the Ballets Russes of impresario Sergei Diaghilev, based in Paris. In 1917, Pablo Picasso became involved in Parade, a ballet produced by Sergei Diaghilev. After seeing Khokhlova dance in rehearsals he fell in love with her.

They married on 12 July 1918, at the Russian Orthodox Cathedral at the Rue Daru in Paris.

On 4 February 1921, Khokhlova gave birth to a boy, Paul Joseph Picasso, usually known as 'Paulo'. From then on, Khokhlova and Picasso's relationship deteriorated. By the end of the summer of 1923, Picasso's passion for Khokhlova had cooled, as he took possession of the floor above his apartment and began to frequent the brothels in Paris.

In 1927, he began an affair with a 17-year-old French girl, Marie-Thérèse Walter. In 1935, Khokhlova learned of the affair from a friend, who also informed her that Walter was pregnant. She was devastated, filed for divorce, and immediately moved to the Hôtel California with Paulo. Picasso refused to divide his property evenly with her, as required by French law, so Khokhlova stayed legally married to him until her death.

 

 

 

The last one was Françoise Gilot (1921 – 2023). She was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, and met Picasso in a restaurant in the spring of 1943, during the German occupation of France. Dora Maar, the photographer who was his muse and lover at the time, was devastated to learn that Picasso was replacing her with the much younger artist.

Picasso and Gilot never married, but they did have two children together because he promised to love and care for them. Their son, Claude, was born in 1947, and their daughter, Paloma, was born in 1949. During their 10 years together, Gilot was often harassed on the streets of Paris by Picasso's legal wife Olga Khokhlova.

In 1964, 11 years after their separation, Gilot wrote Life with Picasso, a book that sold over one million copies in dozens of languages, despite an unsuccessful legal challenge from Picasso attempting to stop its publication. From then on, Picasso refused to see Claude or Paloma ever again. All the profits from the book were used to help Claude and Paloma mount a case to become Picasso's legal heirs.