Getting Pablo Out of Bed

Life with Picasso by Francoise Gilot and Carlton Lake.  New York Review of Books Classics. 344 pp.  $17.95.

I picked up this book because my wife had read it and talked about it endlessly on our morning walks.  Francoise Gilot was the fourth major woman in Picasso’s life (there were any number of minor ones); when they met in 1943 he was 62 and she 22.  They stayed together for ten years, eventually living together and having two children, though technically Picasso was still married to his first wife, Olga.  Gilot was a burgeoning artist when they met and was partly attracted just because of the man’s fame, but the two of them also had a real connection that was more than just sexual or romantic.  Picasso said he could be himself and talk to Gilot in a way that he never had with anyone else.  That fact, combined with the oddity that Gilot seems to have complete recall of all the important conversations, makes for fascinating reading.

All through this period of his life, Picasso was in the habit of awakening slowly and not terribly early—more on that later—seeing people interested in his art in the morning (at first Gilot was one of them), then getting to work in the early afternoon and working until quite late, sometimes 2:00 AM.  He was astonishingly creative, did paintings, lithographs, ceramics, sculpture; he went from one thing to another almost whimsically.  Put this man down anywhere and he’d find a way to create art.  (I was astonished to find, for instance, that a sculpture of his wife in the illustrations is partly made from an empty cookie box.)  And he was eloquent in talking about it.  Often artists of all stripes are adept at creating art, but basically don’t know what the hell they’re doing.  Picasso did know, and could explain it in detail.

But what a screwed-up human being.  I would have titled the book, Picasso; My Life with a Turd by Francoise Gilot.  He was utterly self-centered, honestly believed that the world revolved around him; when his wife was pregnant, for instance, and needed the chauffeur to take her to the hospital for an important medical procedure, he said that was out of the question; he wanted the driver to help him set up a show.  He was generally contemptuous of the people who came to see him in the mornings, though for some reason—probably pure vanity—allowed them to visit.  He also liked having women from his past around, wanted all his women to meet and know each other, partly because he enjoyed the conflicts that often took place.  He had few real friends even in the art world, and treated other artists badly.  He seemed to care for his children but wasn’t interested in being an attentive or helpful father.

Gilot is telling the story, of course, many years after the fact, but one can’t help feeling that she—forty years his junior—was the more mature and self-aware human being.  She didn’t have illusions about their situation; she knew Picasso would never be fully, or even largely, hers.  She learned from him and grew as an artist.  But her husband seemed hardly to grow at all in the time she knew him.  He was the same screwed up human being the whole time.

Nowhere is that more evident than in the bizarre rituals that were required to get him out of bed in the morning.  He’d had his long evening of creating art, of course; that might leave anyone a little spent.  He didn’t seem to sleep a great deal, or sleep very good hours, but somehow had decided this was his best way to work.  First the maid went in with his breakfast of café au lait and toast (he always complained of how it was arranged on the tray, no matter how she arranged it), then came his man servant with the newspapers and a daily letter from his first wife Olga, who herself seemed mentally ill; her letters always degraded her husband, including his ability as an artist (?), but Picasso insisted on reading and was terribly disturbed by them.  He complained to Francoise about his state in general.  “You have no idea how unhappy I am.  Nobody could be more unhappy.  In the first place I’m a sick man.  My God, if you only knew what sicknesses I have.”  He would go on and on—this passage is three pages long—more or less insisting that life wasn’t worth living, there was no reason to get out of bed, while his twenty something wife told him that everything would be okay if he would just get up and get started, maybe create some art later in the day.  “Are you sure of what you say?” he would ask eventually.  “Are you absolutely certain?”  She insisted she was.  Finally this man/child managed to pry himself out of bed.

I found this account—pp. 145-48—to be the most astonishing in the book.  This is a man who had no apparent fear of creativity whatsoever; he faced the void every evening, coming up with astonishing results.  Even if you don’t like Picasso’s art—and it’s hard not to like at least some of it, it’s so varied—you have to admit the man was remarkably fertile.  But that didn’t extend to the rest of his life.  He was terrified of death, had a kind of late-life crisis after he passed the age of 70, when he started seeing younger women and partying like a teenager.  He had no religious beliefs at all, though when Francoise’s grandmother was praying for her and her children he wanted to be included, just in case, apparently.  He was the most famous artist of his day, probably the best paid, one of the most famous people of his time, and he could face the void out of which all art comes, but couldn’t face the new day.  Were these things somehow connected, or are they all parts of an oddly disconnected human being (like some of his wilder paintings)?[1]

Gilot had the good sense to leave Picasso after ten years, when she could see things weren’t going to change.  She married another artist for a period of time, and had a child with him, but that marriage ended as well.  Eventually, astonishingly, she found a long-lasting marriage with Jonas Salk, the inventor of the polio vaccine.  She’s still alive, and will celebrate her 99^th birthday in November.  She’s published other books, though this was her first, and it’s beautifully written, with a wealth of anecdotes about everyone in the world of 20^th century French art, Matisse, Giacometti, Chagall, Braque, also various writers and poets.  There are any number of reasons to buy and read this book.  But I have to admit it was all I could do to continue to the end.  It’s hard to spend evening after evening with a turd.

[1] I too can feel fear of the new day when I wake up in the morning.  I don’t think that’s entirely unusual.  But years ago I learned the daily habit of sitting down and facing that fear, for however long it takes (or longer) and I’ve found it an opportunity for growth.