Oil on canvas 30 F 92 X 73

To paint Fernande Olivier is to depict the challenging female condition in 1900. Born in 1881, just like Picasso, she was an unrecognized child by her father, raped at the age of 17, and forcibly married to her abuser. Brave as she was, she left him at the age of 19 and moved to Montmartre. To support herself, she became a model and posed, notably, for Van Dongen.

She would be Picasso's companion from 1904 to 1911.

Thanks to Joy, the life model, for this pose.

Oil on canvas 100 X 70

In 1900, Picasso arrives in Paris during the Blue Period, a period of hardship. He settles at the Bateau-Lavoir. He meets Fernande, a model, and sees life through rose-colored glasses. He starts socializing with the Steins, and daily life improves. The Andalusian is difficult, jealous, and unfaithful: tired of it all, Fernande leaves.

Oil on canvas 80 X 60

Eva Gouel was Fernande's friend, but she quickly became Picasso's mistress.

Thanks to Isabelle, the life model,

for this pose.

Oil on canvas 25 F 81 X 65

Picasso falls in love with Olga, a Russian ballet dancer, in 1917 while he is working on the set designs for Cocteau's Parade. At the same time, his friends Braque and Apollinaire return from the trenches with head injuries.

"My memories are these eternal plains

Where commas, oh Lou, the sinister crows,

The airplane of love has folded its wings

And everywhere around, we find tombs."

Guillaume Apollinaire, My Lou, I will lie down

Oil on canvas 30 F 92 X 73 600 €

Olga's life was a tragic one. She started as a dancer, pursuing her career with the renowned Ballets Russes, but eventually became Picasso's first wife, the beloved dancer and mother of their son, Paul. However, she would later become a jealous and rejected spouse when her husband's painter's eye fell upon Marie-Thérèse.

Olga passed away while still married, in illness, without her husband deigning to attend her funeral.

Oil on canvas 30 F 92 X 73

In 1927, Marie-Thérèse, a seventeen-year-old blonde ingénue, catches the concupiscent gaze of Picasso, already rich and famous, and deeply married to Olga.

The "half-minotaur, half-devil" installs the young girl in an apartment very close to his marital home to passionately paint her, sculpt her, and have a child with her. Maya is born in 1935, while Paulo, Olga's son, is fourteen years old.

Oil on canvas 30 F 92 X 73

According to Brigitte Benkemoun, author of "sa vie pour Picasso," a novel dedicated to the gentle Marie-Thérèse Walter, "There was always the same mechanism. He would seduce, enchant, and guru these women, then he would start neglecting them and eventually discard them." Marie-Thérèse wrote him a letter every day throughout her life, and sometimes, as the undisputed master of rudeness, he would read the best passages to his new partner.

Unable to bear life without him, she hanged herself in her garage four years after the death of her only love.

Oil on canvas 30 F 92 X 73

It is at "Aux Deux Magots" that Eluard introduces Dora to Pablo. He falls in love with her and neglects Marie-Thérèse.

Dora during the week, Marie-Thérèse on weekends.

While the ingénue had been kept secluded throughout her relationship with Picasso, the intellectual Dora is seen with Picasso from Paris to Garoupe, alongside his Surrealist friends.

Oil on canvas 25P 81 X 60

Reducing Dora Maar to the role of "the weeping woman," as merely a muse of Picasso, would overlook her intelligence and immense talent as a photographer and painter. Dora was much more than a muse; she was a magnificent artist in her own right.

Oil on canvas 30 F 60 X 50

Picasso wrote : "Dora has always been a woman who cries. One day, I was able to make her cry. That's all. Women are machines for suffering."

The tragic fate of "the beloved Dora" includes being seduced and then abandoned for Françoise Gilot, who was half his age. Depressed and after a period of internment, Dora spent the remainder of her life in seclusion in Ménerbes.

Oil on canvas 100 X 50

Dora Maar was intelligent, and she could sense that her end was nearing. She could already perceive a new, younger muse emerging in Picasso's paintings.

In 1945, he completely abandoned her to settle down with his "flower wife," referring to Françoise Gilot.

Oil on canvas 80 X 60

Some verses of Eluard:

"I believed I could shatter the depth, the immensity,

With my naked sorrow, devoid of contact, without echo.

I lay in my prison with untouched gates,

Like a reasonable dead man who knew how to die,

A dead man crowned only by his nothingness.

I stretched out on the absurd waves

Of poison absorbed out of love for the ashes.

Solitude seemed to me more vivid than blood."

Thank you to Delphine, the living model, for this pose.

Thanks to Delphine, living model, for this pose.

Oil on canvas 30 F 92 X 73

When Picasso meets the radiant Françoise Gilot, she is very young but already a painter. This goddess inspires him to paint a flower woman. From their story, two children are born, Claude in 1947 and Paloma in 1949.

Thank you to Delphine, the living model, for this pose.

Oil on canvas 30 F 92 X 73

Françoise Gilot turned 101 years old this year, and she is the last of Picasso's companions still alive.

She is also known as "the woman who says no," the one who resisted him, left him, and successfully continued her painting career in the United States.

Oil on canvas 30 F 92 X 73

A feminist outcry against the aficionado Picasso, who turned his emotional life into a bullfight.

Oil on canvas 60X50

He said of her, "She has the gift of becoming painting to an unimaginable degree."

She said, "You don't cast a shadow on the sun." Jacqueline Roque, forty-five years Picasso's junior, inspired his work during his last twenty years. Jacqueline with flowers, Jacqueline from the lunches at Manet's, Jacqueline in oriental style, Jacqueline, his final muse.

She committed suicide in 1986, thirteen years after Picasso's death.

Oil on canvas 100 F 162 X 130 1000 €

"Why didn't I understand that Picasso was indifferent to everything that wasn't his work? The heart of his life was neither Pablito, nor me, nor my father, nor my mother, nor Olga, my grandmother, nor the women who died for him. Only one thing mattered: painting and nothing else. To create, he had to annihilate anything that hindered his creation.

"A painting," he said to Christian Zervos, the founder of the magazine 'Cahiers d'art,' "is a sum of additions. For me, a painting is a sum of destructions."

Marina PICASSO "Grandfather"

Oil on canvas 50 F 116 X 89 - 800 €

"To understand how one becomes that individual is to delve as much as possible into the engine of their creation, which can also be described as monstrous. So, I will simply attempt to unravel the thread of his life, in rhythm with the inventions of his genius, almost in a continuous flow. I will try to see, if not understand, without forbidding myself from judging, how the Picasso ogre was born. This Minotaur who devours his prey, his loves, like painting. The one who occupies all time, everywhere, all the space, every space."

Sophie CHAUVEAU, "Picasso: Le regard du minotaure"

Oil on canvas 50 F 116 X 89 - 800 €

In 2023, the muse conquers the Minotaur alone, without the help of Theseus.

Thank you to Delphine, the living model, for this pose.

Oil on canvas 30 F 92 X 73

And throwing flowers at each other feels incredibly good.

Thank you to Delphine, the living model, for this pose.

Cutting and resin collage of drawings, 80 x 60.

The muses rebel and say stop to misogyny.

Epoxy resin collage, 70 x 50, framed by Franco.

Epoxy resin collage, 80 x 60.

Clashing with Picasso!

And it will be justice!

Oil on paper 65 X 50

Collaboration with Joy, living model

Oil on canvas paper, 65 x 50, version with fans.

Collaboration with Delphine, the living model.

Oil on canvas paper 40 X 30 yellow version

Collaboration with Delphine, living model

Oil on canvas paper 40 X 30 red version

Collaboration with Delphine,

living model

Gouache on canvas paper 65 X 50