Women in Picasso’s life: Six muses who loved and survived one of world’s greatest painters

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) loved to say painting was “just another way of keeping a diary”. Read that diary closely and you meet six very different women whose names he wrote over and over — sometimes in pink curves, sometimes in broken Cubist angles. Each walked into his life, changed his colours, and paid a high price for life with the maestro, whose name looms large over 20th-century art. One of the greatest painters of all time, Picasso was born in Spain, but spent much of his life in France, where he produced more than 20,000 works — paintings, drawings, sculptures, ceramics, prints — across a career that spanned over seven decades.

Best known for co-founding Cubism — the art movement that deconstructed objects into basic geometric shapes, often using a monochromatic palette of browns, grays, and blues, and reassembled them from multiple viewpoints to challenge traditional perspective — Picasso radically reshaped how we see and make art. It’s no wonder than that his life and art have been endlessly chronicled through countless biographies, memoirs, academic studies, and exhibitions; each of them has tried to make sense of the man who has been mythologised in the history of modern art.

From early biographical works like British artist Roland Penrose’s admiring portrait (Picasso: His Life and Work, 1958) to Greek-American writer Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington’s more scandal-tinged account (Picasso: Creator and Destroyer, 1988) and John Richardson’s more recent, magisterial four-volume biography — arguably the most authoritative — writers and scholars have mined archives, letters, interviews, and artworks to map the contours of his genius. His life has also been narrated by those closest to him: former lovers, children, and friends who alternately adored and resented him. In these narrations, we can’t help but see Picasso as a figure both larger-than-life and volatile, whose personal relationships often mirrored the same eccentricity that marked his art.

To this day, we don’t know much about the women in his life, who have all been hitherto cast in narrow roles: muse, model and mistress. But who they were before Picasso, what happened when the Spaniard burst in, and what they managed to do for themselves once the studio door slammed shut behind them? British biographer-poet Sue Roe’s Hidden Portraits: The Untold Stories of Six Women Who Loved Picasso (Penguin Random House), which was published earlier this year, takes a step in a different direction to answer these questions, looking squarely at the six women — Fernande Olivier, Olga Khokhlova, Marie-Thérèse Walter, Dora Maar, Françoise Gilot, and Jacqueline Roque — as people with their own stories. Some of them were already established artists; others tried to hold on to themselves while orbiting a man who sucked attention and light like a black hole.

Fernande, Olga, Marie-Thérèse, Dora, Françoise and Jacqueline were “all vivacious, stylish and surprising,” writes Roe. “They were all strong women who made their mark on Picasso’s life. Yet, with the exception of Dora, they have usually been viewed in biographies of Picasso as adjuncts to the artist’s story, and, when referred to at all, dismissed as his supporters, companions and muses. The facts of their lives have gradually emerged, piecemeal, particularly during the past two decades,” adds Roe. Fernande Olivier and Françoise Gilot published their own memoirs. Fernande’s Loving Picasso was first published in serialised form in 1930 in the Belgian newspaper Le Soir, despite Picasso’s attempts to prevent it, and appeared as a book in 1964, the same year, Françoise’s Life with Picasso was published.

Fernande Olivier’s Loving Picasso was first published in serialised form in 1930 in the Belgian newspaper Le Soir, despite Picasso’s attempts to prevent it, and appeared as a book in 1964, the same year, Françoise’s Life with Picasso was published.

Both these books were invaluable source material for Roe, but alas they too have “the piecemeal parts of the story.” Roe writes: “There is no bigger picture. The stories of the women who played such vital parts in Picasso’s life and work — their personalities, their backgrounds — have largely been passed over. Their formative years have barely received a mention, let alone sustained attention. For years, they came down to us almost as caricatures. Fernande was flighty; Marie-Thérèse was so young when Picasso met her that she seems forever young, and voluptuous, passive, virtually without personality. Olga, because she (understandably) wanted to hang on to her husband rather than lose him to another woman, was a harridan, on virtually no evidence except that the theme of metamorphosis Picasso was exploring in his work at the time of their separation included screaming female forms — which had other sources. Though Olga Picasso (née Khokhlova) was a member of Diaghilev’s renowned dance troupe the Ballets Russes, almost no attention has been paid to the years she spent as a dancer before marrying Picasso in 1918. Françoise Gilot was a successful painter, exhibiting in France, Britain and the United States. Who knew?”

Though Olga Picasso was a member of Diaghilev’s renowned dance troupe the Ballets Russes, almost no attention has been paid to the years she spent as a dancer before marrying Picasso in 1918.

In recent years, startling new discoveries have deepened our understanding of Picasso’s intimate world and the women who shaped it. Revelations about Marie-Thérèse Walter’s mysterious childhood and time at a German boarding school, and the unearthing of a travel trunk in 2019 — filled with Ballets Russes memorabilia and letters Olga Khokhlova had secretly exchanged with her family during the Russian Revolution — have added texture to women who have been invisiblised by history. These findings anchor Hidden Portraits as it tells the story of the women who shared Picasso’s homes, bore his children, and sat for his portraits. These women admired his genius even as some of them tolerated him, drawn to what Marie-Thérèse once called his “most wonderful terror.” However, to see these women merely as casualties of a destructive male genius is reductive. Their lives were changed, but they were not erased. They inspired him and, in ways still being uncovered, influenced Picasso and his art.

Now, let’s look a little more closely at the lives of these six women. Fernande Olivier was already a survivor by the time she met Picasso. Born in 1881, she had fled an abusive marriage and reestablished herself as an artist’s model in Montmartre. She arrived at the Bateau Lavoir — the ramshackle studio building that housed some of Paris’s struggling artists — in 1904. That’s where she met Picasso. Life with Picasso had its own travails, but it was also seductive. She kept a journal. She wrote about scraping by with little heat, drinking absinthe, talking to Gertrude Stein while sitting for portraits. She had a sense, even then, of being at the centre of something.

Fernande’s presence seeped into what’s known as Picasso’s Rose Period, spanning roughly from 1904 to 1906, during which his artistic style shifted from the sombre blue palette to a more cheerful one characterised by pinks, reds, and oranges. During this period, you see Fernande’s form in painting after painting, including The Family of Saltimbanques, Harlequin with a Woman, and Boy Leading a Horse. Fernande’s own work never received much recognition, and she knew it. After their relationship ended in 1912, she tried to make a living off her memories of him — publishing a serial, writing a memoir. Eventually, Picasso paid her a million francs to suppress a more intimate volume. The woman who inspired the tenderness of Picasso’s early work was ultimately seen as a threat — for what she remembered.

Olga was different. Unlike Fernande, she wasn’t from the bohemian fringe. Born in 1891 in Ukraine, she was a ballet dancer trained with the Ballets Russes. When she met Picasso in 1917 during the production of Parade, she had elegance, discipline, and a stable career. She married him a year later. Olga brought Picasso into a new world, with ballrooms and drawing rooms, not garrets and cafés. They lived in style, hosted dinners, and raised a son, Paulo. She tried to mould Picasso into a more respectable version of himself, a modern husband. But he didn’t want to become one.

Their marriage fell apart, slowly and bitterly. Olga’s classical grace, which inspired portraits like Olga in an Armchair (1917-1918, in a preparation for their marriage) and Olga in Yellow (1921) became the subject of increasingly fragmented, disturbing portraits: Nude in a Red Armchair (1929) shows Olga with contorted limbs and a distressed expression. She was painted not as a partner but as a figure of psychological disintegration. Roe writes that Olga’s presence in his work shifts from real woman to symbolic casualty. When she finally left him in the 1930s, it wasn’t for love or art — it was for survival. She died in 1955, isolated and estranged from the man who had once followed her across continents.

Marie-Thérèse Walter was 17 when Picasso approached her outside the Galeries Lafayette in 1927. He was 45. She didn’t know who he was. He told her, “You have an interesting face. I’d like to do a portrait of you. I am Picasso.” He was married and she was underage, but none of that stopped him. They began a secret relationship. Marie-Thérèse was young, trusting, and deeply in love. She appears in Picasso’s paintings like a dream — soft, full, glowing with sexuality.

Marie-Thérèse Walter was 17 when Picasso approached her outside the Galeries Lafayette in 1927.

Her presence in his art is the most erotic, the most idealised. She posed for Le Rêve (The Dream), a 1932 portrait that is now one of the most famous works of 20th-century modernism. But dreams fade. Picasso kept her hidden while maintaining other affairs. She gave birth to their daughter, Maya, in 1935. Even then, she lived in a separate apartment, raising a child alone while Picasso drifted toward other women. Marie-Thérèse never stopped loving him. She remained loyal, and largely out of the public eye. When Picasso died in 1973, she took her own life four years later.

Born in 1907, Dora Maar was a photographer, a painter, and an intellectual in her own right. She had political opinions, read poetry and was already an established artist when she met Picasso in 1936 at a café in Paris. According to lore, she impressed him by playing a game with a penknife, jabbing between her fingers without flinching. He was intrigued. Dora and Picasso’s relationship was turbulent and highly charged. It also coincided with some of his most politically loaded work — particularly Guernica, a response to the Nazi bombing of a Basque village. Dora photographed the painting’s progress and influenced its structure. Dora was a surrealist photographer and her photograph Père Ubu (1936), a haunting, ambiguous image of a malformed creature, became an emblem of Surrealism after it was exhibited at the International Surrealist Exhibition in London. But under Picasso’s influence, she gradually abandoned photography for painting — a decision arrived at, in part, by his disdain for the medium. Picasso believed photography was inferior, famously claiming, “inside every photographer is a painter trying to get out.” Inevitably, paired with such a towering figure, Dora’s own legacy was eclipsed; for years, she was remembered less as an artist than as the tragic muse behind his Weeping Woman portraits. Her presence, Roe argues, was crucial not only to the creation of Guernica, but to Picasso’s political engagement. But Picasso didn’t deal in equals. Dora began to unravel under the psychological strain of being near him — his moods, his other affairs, the emotional manipulation. She spent time in a sanatorium. He called her ‘the weeping woman’ — both in conversation and on canvas. Eventually, Dora pulled away. She returned to religion, to painting, to her private life. She never married, and she never spoke publicly about the affair. “After Picasso, only God,” she once said. It was another way of saying: after him, no more men.

Born in 1907, Dora Maar was a photographer, a painter, and an intellectual in her own right.

Françoise Gilot is the exception to the pattern. Born in 1921, she was already studying art when she met Picasso in 1943. He was 61 and she was 21, but the age gap didn’t intimidate her. Neither did his reputation. Their relationship lasted 10 years, and they had two children together — Claude and Paloma. Unlike the others, Françoise kept painting while she was with him. She didn’t let his shadow blot out her ambitions. She also didn’t fall for the drama. When things turned sour, she left. Just packed up and moved on. Picasso was furious. He told her, “No woman leaves a man like me.” But she did. Her memoir about her time with him became a bestseller. He tried to block it, but couldn’t. The French art world shunned her for years for daring to speak. And yet she had a long career as a painter, taught, exhibited widely, and remarried (to Jonas Salk, the man who developed the polio vaccine). She lived well into her 90s and remained clear-eyed about Picasso: brilliant, magnetic, difficult. But not someone she regretted walking away from.

Françoise Gilot is the exception to the pattern. Born in 1921, she was already studying art when she met Picasso in 1943. He was 61 and she was 21, but the age gap didn’t intimidate her.

Jacqueline Roque was the last woman in Picasso’s life. He met her in the 1950s, when she was working in a pottery shop in Vallauris. She was 34, four years younger. They married in 1961 and remained together until his death in 1973. Jacqueline wasn’t a fellow artist, but she became his companion, gatekeeper, and muse. She appears in more of his later paintings than any other woman — over 400 portraits. But life with Picasso during this time was secluded and tightly controlled. Visitors needed her permission. Old friends were pushed away. He grew paranoid and secretive. She enabled this. After his death, things became bleak. Picasso hadn’t made a will. There was a messy fight over the estate. Jacqueline, reclusive and grieving, prevented even some of Picasso’s children from attending his funeral. In 1986, she took her own life. Her story, like Marie-Thérèse’s, ended in suicide.

Jacqueline Roque was the last woman in Picasso’s life.

The lives of these women weren’t footnotes to Picasso’s — they were parallel stories, often more grounded, sometimes more remarkable. The sad truth is that most of these women were hurt. Some were erased. A few found the strength to keep creating. But in every case, their talent and individuality came second to the myth of the man they loved. Reading about these women, you get to know that each of them supplied Picasso with new energy. He and his work benefited from Fernande’s bohemia, Olga’s elegance, Marie-Thérèse’s sensual calm, Dora’s charm and political fire, Françoise’s intellectual sparring, and Jacqueline’s watchful care.

However, the ledger is not one-sided. Fernande cashed in on her memories of him in pursuit of late justice; Olga secured social rank even while her marriage failed; Marie-Thérèse left a daughter who fiercely defends her mother’s place in art history; Dora’s negatives are now studied as classics; Françoise wrote the sharpest insider account of twentieth-century art and painted for eight more decades; Jacqueline guarded a vast body of work that scholars still mine. Re-reading Picasso’s ‘diary’ through the eyes of the women he loved and lived with does not cancel his genius, but it does rebalance the lens through which the world has so far viewed him, and continues to do so.