Pablo Picasso’s mother, on meeting Olga who was to become the artist’s first wife, warned her ‘you poor girl, you don’t know what you are letting yourself in for..I don’t believe any woman would be happy with my son..he is available for himself but for no one else’. These words would haunt Olga and the many other women in the artist’s life as while Picasso could be charming and loving he could equally be abusive and cruel. These emotions were best expressed by the artist in his paintings and the current exhibition at the Musée Picasso, Paris, which is organised in partnership with Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte, and simply entitled ‘Olga Picasso’, presents us with works reflecting Picasso’s feelings for Olga as the relationship rose and declined.
His figures of this period are monumental being influenced by the statues he had seen during his time in Rome. However, a certain gloom hung over Olga as her family back in Russia were experiencing many difficulties following the Russian Revolution and this is well highlighted by correspondence between Olga and her family shown at the exhibition. This gloom has been suggested as the source of Olga’s melancholic expression in Picasso’s portraits of her at this time.
However, the marriage began to decline and in 1927 Picasso began an affair with the 17 year old Marie-Thérèse Walter with whom he would have a relationship for many years to come. Picasso and Olga finally separated in 1935 but they never divorced. Picasso’s changed feelings for Olga are expressed brutally in his paintings during this time , such as ´Bust of a Woman with Self Portrait’, 1929, Private Collection (above left) and ´Large Nude in a Red Chair’, 1929, Musée Picasso, Paris (above right). In the latter, Olga is depicted with a contorted body, gaping mouth and teeth bared, the image not a very pleasant one.
A very interesting feature to the exhibition is the section devoted to the large trunk that Olga’s son Paul retrieved after her death. It contained letters, photographs and various objects some of which, together with the trunk, are displayed at the exhibition. Many of the contents relate to her life as a ballerina, a part of her life that was cut short but for which she never appears to have lost interest in. These objects give you a real sense of the private life of Olga.
Loved this blog – learned a lot. Thanks!
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Thanks for that….really enjoyed that exhibition!
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