Life With Picasso

[Room Noise] [Announcer] There were only two kinds of women for artist Pablo Picasso goddesses and doormats, but Françoise Gilot refused to be either. The woman lived ten stormy years with the spanish genius, bore two of his children, and has now recognized painter in her own right found Picasso given to sudden rages and childish superstitions. In her recollections, "Life with Picasso" just published for the first time in a paperback edition by new american library Madam Gilot described life as Picasso's mistress since its publication the 83 year old Picasso has tried but failed to get an injunction against the book sale and is now contesting the french court decision. In this program, recorded in her Paris studio, Madam Gilot was interviewed by Ruth Bowmel. [Bowmel] Madam Gilot, tell us what's it like to share the house with a genius? [Gilot scoffs] [Giolt with thick french accent] Well I think uh maybe only young girl could do that because

um maybe it needs a lot of innocence to be able to do such a thing and I was very young at the time. I think that um an- well I think, in a way, it's it's I was not prepared to adapt to anything surprising. That when you are all ready, you know, um well somebody with your own ideas and um you cannot ?evolve? as much as when you're so young so in a way I could then nearly accept anything new with pleasure at that time. [Pause] [Bowmel] Picasso's paintings always look um uh perhaps surprisingly simple. I don't believe anyone feels they really are simple, but I wondered, does painting come easily to Picasso or is it a struggle, in other words uh does he take a long time to complete a painting or does he do it quickly? [Gilot] Well I think that um in a way its a major-

major problem to Picasso that paintings come to him very easily. Um, as you know, maybe, when he was 12 years old only. His father who was a painter gave him all his um canvases and and precious and everything because he thought h-his son was already a better painter than he was and I- [Bowmel] Ex-excuse me but it's a rare father who would admit that. [Gilot] Yes but I think he rarely saw the truth because at that time Picasso already had made wonderful portraits of an old man who had been a President of the ?first? um the Spanish republic and things like that, that I've seen and which are a really wonderful so um it means that painting came really easily to him and the ?matches struggle? he had later on was to try and uh to get to have worried the fact that eh well in a day could complete the painting if he wanted to and something very um

you know, something very good and with a lot of charm and it was afterwards when he was uhh older he always struggled. Not uh uh not to succeed in his- to complete the painting rather than to succeed it, you know, for instance Matisse of black uh did not paint easily and I think. It didn't come to them so so quickly, so they did have to struggle to complete the painting in in in the first thought but to Picasso the the struggle was different he had to think of something else and try to, in a way, fight against the painter-ese just to to um to to try to find something- [Bowmel] Something new all the time. [Gilot] -New all the time. And um because he has no struggle with the material itself or with the technique or with anything like that. His struggle was purely um a a ph-physical one, you know. [Bowmel] I know that you are a gifted painter yourself Madam

Gilot and I know that you s- not only painted with Picasso but you served as his model as well. [Gilot] Yes I- well I posed for him sometimes but uh rather at the beginning, you know, at the time when he entered the girl flower then um well he tried to make some sketches of me which at this time because he didn't like them. And from then on when I was in Somalia because I was living there but um it it happened seldom that I actually posed for him once, it's the s- thing and I'm uh I'm speaking about in the book. Um I think it was in November of a '49 and he made a very beau- beautiful lithograph of my face and um well I was very upset at that time and I was sad. Well I said I I think I can not pose for you because my face is sad. He said, "well uh," he said, "Well I like it." [Both chuckle] [Bowmel] Picasso's Spanish and the spanish temperment

seems to me to be a little sadistic. Um the bullfight to me was barbaric in Barcelona and I think I also felt that in Madrid. Do you think environment or uh perversely that made Picasso's difficult a man as he is. [Gilot] Well um I think that um it's about the same problem as what we said uh, you know, about his painting that um it it was too easy and he wanted to make it difficult. I think it's because um in life, Picasso always thinks that um well he doesn't want beauty he wants truth. I think it's not that- I don't think it's a sadistic instinct. It's an instinct to try to see what is inside things like way a child will try to play with a watch, you know, and then of course destroy it because he wants to see how it works. So I think that um that is something that a young inside P- Pablo that he he wants to see how a human being work. You know, I mean, inside

and by doing that, very often it'll ?destroy them? but I don't I don't really think um it's because he wants to kill or harm and I think um that, you know, everything in Picasso's life are work even if it is something that might appear very cruel for the people the the person to which it happens. Uh it will always be a gift to many others through creation. So you see there is a kind of um- [Bowmel] But where does gift come into the others? Um- [Gilot] Well through his art because he needs all these. [Bowmel] Oh by uh by out by- [Gilot] By the means of 'is art. I mean, you know- [Bowmel] By discharging his emotions perhaps uh- [Gilot] Yet I think he needs. What I what I what I mean to say is that uh uh the same way as other artist will have a model to know something about nature, he we have to know the truth about human beings, but uh

not not the truth of their shapes but the truth of their soul. Just because he will fi- uh fill his while painting with that. Through the metamorphosis of those human beings into his own paint- painting. Then there will be a gift to to all the are other human beings, but I mean they sacrificed somewhere you see. [Bowmel] Yes the person whose enacted upon. [Gilot] So I think the kind of uh um something religious in that if you want. It's it's not uh it's not- a a for instance is it's not cruelty for nothing even when it's cruel it will be to discover something that will come out in his art later on. And it's only way to give something to the others- not the same people I mean. [Both chuckle] [Bowmel] But uh but a bit hard on the victim I would think. [Gilot] Yes it's it's better not to be the victim. [Both laughs] [Bowmel] Picasso was rather an aggressive person with most of uh most of the world I think and uh I believe that he is fencing quite a bit with his art dealers and with people like Brock and

perhaps Matisse. Could you tell us something about that Madame Gilot? [Gilot] Yes, I think he enjoyed very much um when he had clever people and strong people are ?aspire? him to see to what extents he could you know, either push them or pull them or see what comes out of um a kind of well a fight, you know, a fight with ideas. Anything just because um knowing that somebody like ?Annabellia? for instance needed to buy his painting, or wanted to buy them. Um he has tried to to have a game or a little fight about that that before it happened because knowing the end was always ?assumed? he had to come to it in a other uh amusing way. So for instance, when Canvella came to his studio 'e would have um, told somebody like ?Recarje? to come over the same morning and would um be very very pleasant and nice with ?Recarje? and take ?Recarje?

first inside his studio and let ?inaudible? wait there in the, in the waiting room room before 'e would speak to him so um for about half an hour or an hour um Canvella would think well maybe 'e will sell painting to the other one and not to me today or things like that. And of course it was a a game. [Chuckles]. But 'e 'e Picasso thought that um during that time um uh Canvella would mellow a little and uh that it would enable him for instance to ask him more money for the next painting and things like that. And that's what I told in the book. [Both chuckle] [Bowmel] I think that's a rather charming story gives us a very good insight into Picasso. Um, I think there is another very good story in the book that also is in the same vein and could you tell us the story of the birth of your daughter Paloma. When uh uh you said, "it was time to go to the hospital," and Picasso as I recall felt he had to go to a peace conference. [Gilot] Yes um

well I came back from the doctor and the doctor said that they're that well, you know, the birth would be um happening about nearly a month before the uh time. [Inaudible due to laugh] And uh that I 'ad to go right away to the clinic so well I came back home with a chauffeur and uh we said, "well you know off we go," and Pablo said, "no, now don't do that now, because I've got to the peace conference and I need Marcel," Marcel was our chauffeur and you know e em well he was kind of a confident for Pablo and and uh and Pablo could go nowhere without him. So even if i had to go to the clinic for for the birth of a child Pablo still needed the chauffeur for something else. So 'h said, "Well uh uh no no no I must go first to the peace conference with Marcel." So Marcel thought uh maybe it was still more important for me to go to the clinic first. [Both laugh] So Marcel said, "We'll drop her at the clinic and then I'll take to the car-

congress." [Both laugh] [Bowmel] Good for Marcel. [Gilot] So that's what happened that day. [Bowmel] Well and uh Paloma has since become immortalized in one of Picasso's most famous paintings. Uh Madame Gilot I understand that uh you've been showing your own paintings at the Findlay Art Gallery in New York um has your work changed as a result of living with Pablo Picasso um has he influenced your style? [Gilot] Well I think that um uh Picasso's art did influence 20th century as a whole, not only my art. But um, during the 10 years when I lived with 'im, of course I learned a lot from him. But um since then, of course, I began to ?elevate? in my own direction and as I'm french and maybe more interested by color um by beauty then, [chuckles] even maybe by- than I am

interested by truth. I mean, my work is going in another direction now though I can say that I owe a lot to 'im. Mostly for drawing and the building up of canvases, but for color and everything else so I think I have other ideas. [Bowmel] I have one last question to ask you Madame Gilot and uh perhaps it's one that's on everyone's mind, if Picasso was as difficult as a man as he appears from the book, um how is it that you stay with him for 10 years? Which is quite a long time. [Gilot] Well it's very simple. I think that uh f- well I don't hate what is difficult that's the first thing. And uh their you must remember that maybe it was very difficult but it but it was so m- so very- so so interesting. So that each day uh t would maybe be a kind of trial, but- als- and um an ordeal in a

way but on the other hand it would be something so wonderful that you want to go through though the whole thing the bad and the good of it. [Chuckles]. [Bowmel] Madame Gilot I've enjoyed talking with you today very much, thank you for coming. [Gilot] Thank you. [Announcer] You have heard from Françoise Gilot with an interview with Ruth Bowmel. Madame Gilot is the co author with critic Carlton Lake of "Life with Picasso" just published for the first time in a paperback edition by new american library. The interview is recorded in Madame Gilot's studio in Paris. [Silence]