All is Fair in Love and Art

‍Françoise Gilot was no man’s muse. The late French painter’s dynamic yet intimate works speak for themselves and have been featured in numerous museums worldwide. Now—for the first time ever—she is finally being honored in her home country with a gallery dedicated to her work at the Musée Picasso in Paris. 

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The long-awaited debut is part of the museum’s reopening earlier this month that introduced a new selection of 400 works from its permanent collection. Situated in room 17, on the museum’s third floor, Gilot’s posthumous exhibition celebrates her eight-decade-long career and positions her as an equal among her more well-known artist peers who came out of World War II. 

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Yet the name of the museum itself offers a window into the reason why this recognition has taken far too long. In her bestselling 1964 memoir, Life with Picasso, Gilot shed light on her infamous, tumultuous decade-long relationship with the late Spanish artist (despite his attempts to thwart its release).

Gilot was 21 when she met the then-61-year-old Pablo Picasso in a Parisian cafe. As a young artist, she concentrated on figuration and still lifes yet experimented with a plethora of artistic styles. Her paintings, nine of which are displayed at the Musée Picasso through the end of the year, possess a certain autobiographical quality.

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In Adam Forcing Eve to Eat an Apple, 1946, the artist flips the familiar Genesis story on its head to consider man’s willing role in the unjust persecution of women. The poignant work undoubtedly mirrors her own experience facing Picasso’s wrath as he waged “war” on his former lover. In a fit of rage, he destroyed much of her artwork and belongings and abused his position to blacklist any galleries that exhibited her works. The hostile ordeal eventually led to Gilot’s move to America. Painted three years into their relationship, Eve’s eyes are wide and unblinking, hands clasped in deference, as Adam forcefully shoves the forbidden fruit into her mouth in an act of betrayal. The opening of Gilot’s own Paris exhibition, 51 years after her scorned lover’s death, amidst the very country that failed her, rights some wrongs and proves that all is fair in love and war—and art.

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The Françoise Gilot gallery is on view at the Musée Picasso at 5 Rue de Thorigny, 75003 Paris, France, through the end of the year.

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