Picasso Museum will Show for the First Time the Works of his Partner Françoise Giglio, Whose Career the Artist Tried to Destroy

The Picasso Museum in Paris will open for the first time an exhibition of works by Françoise Giglio, who was Pablo Picasso's partner and mother of his children, despite Picasso's attempts to destroy her career, The Guardian reports.

Joanne Snrech, curator of the Picasso Museum in Paris, said it was important to include Gillot's paintings to dispel the idea that she was "just Picasso's partner".

"She was an artist in her own right with a very long career, during which her work evolved. What we show here is the diversity of her work," Snrech said.

Today, the Picasso Museum contains the world's largest collection of Pablo Picasso's works, and the new permanent exhibition of the artist's works is housed in 22 rooms on three floors: almost 400 paintings, sculptures, ceramics, drawings and prints. Gillot's works will be displayed in room 17 of the museum, and the exhibition will be temporary but is expected to last for a year.

Gillot held her first solo exhibition before she met Picasso. They met in 1943 in a Parisian cafe at the height of the Nazi occupation. She was 21 and he was 61. However, their romance began in 1948. In this relationship, Françoise Giglio gave birth to two children: Claude and Paloma. Gillot broke up with Picasso in 1953. At the same time, the artist remained married to the Ukrainian-born dancer Olha Khokhlova.

Gillot published a memoir, My Life with Picasso, co-authored with Carlton Lake. Picasso launched three lawsuits to prevent the publication of her 1964 biography, and 80 prominent intellectuals and artists signed a petition in the communist newspaper Les Lettres Françaises calling for the book to be banned. Nevertheless, the book became an international bestseller. It sold millions of copies and was translated into sixteen languages.

The curator of the Picasso Museum in Paris added: "It's true that after her book on Picasso was published, she was shunned by many people in the French art community. We felt it was important to show not only her place in Picasso's life, but also that she was much more than just his companion. After all, she only spent 10 years with him out of more than 100."

Following Picasso's breakup, he and his influential friends in artistic and intellectual circles in France waged what she called a "war" on Gillot. This eventually led her to leave France and settle in the United States, where she continued to paint until her death in 2023.

Picasso claimed that without him, Gillot would be worthless and decided to destroy her career. 

The artist recalled Picasso saying: "Do you think people will be interested in you? They will never be, really, only for you... It will only be a kind of curiosity about a person whose life has touched me so deeply."

At least in France, her success was overshadowed by Picasso. While in the United States, Gillot is known as an artist, in France she is only Pablo Picasso's ex-girlfriend and muse. Now, the Picasso Museum in Paris will try to partially correct this mistake by opening a new permanent exhibition of the artist's works, which includes a room with Gillot's works. This is the first time the artist's works are exhibited in this museum.

Cécile Debray, president of the Picasso Museum in Paris, said that Gillot "is getting the place she deserves as an artist".