© Sucesión Picasso, VEGAP, Madrid, 2023
During the inaugural conference of the Picasso Celebration 1973-2023 last September, the researcher, essayist and professor at the Complutense University of Madrid Estrella de Diego pointed out that the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Pablo Picasso's death "may be the most important moment to review some of the questions" linked to the artist's life that are controversial. Estrella de Diego then asked herself "how can we accept the paradoxes of Picasso?, can we be critical from the point of view of gender and appreciate his work?
Some of the proposals in the Picasso Celebration 1973-2023 are committed to critically addressing these questions. Significantly, the Brooklyn Museum will do so with Picasso and Feminism curated by Lisa Small, Senior Curator of European Art, Catherine Morris, Senior Curator of the Center of Feminist Art, Elizabeth A. Sackler, in collaboration with Hannah Gadsby, Australian comedian. El Museo Reina Sofía addressed the issue during the last session of its international congress, entitled "Picasso in the context of denouncing institutional policies against women", the closing lecture of which was given by Abigail Solomon-Godeau, professor emerita of the Department of Art History at the University of California Santa Barbara, under the title "The Young Ladies of Avignon through a feminist prism".
The programme of the Picasso Celebration 1973-2023 paid special attention to the figures of important women throughout his life: the Kunstmuseum Pablo Picasso Münster dedicated its exhibition to Fernande and Françoise, while the Musée de Montmartre in Paris focused on the life of Fernande Olivier and Pablo Picasso, in the intimacy of the Bateau-Lavoir. In the same context, the biography Marie-Thérèse Walter et Pablo Picasso, biographie d'une relation (2022), written by Laurence Madeline, curator of the travelling exhibition Picasso's Landscapes: Out of Bounds.
Françoise Gilot: Woman in an Armchair (Françoise Gilot) at the Museu Picasso Barcelona
Gilot, a prolific French artist, art critic and writer, graduated in English literature at the Sorbonne and Cambridge, was the mother of Claude and Paloma, and author of Vivre avec Picasso (1965), with Carlton Lake. Picasso ended up composing a boldly schematic image of her, the flower woman, in which Françoise's face was reduced to its most elementary and generic form and her body to a series of almost geometric shapes, linked by long strokes.
Fernande Olivier: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, at MoMA, New York
Olivier was a French model and writer. She met Picasso in 1904, and her influence on the Malaga-born artist was such that from that time onwards he began to request women as models for his works. She wrote two books about Picasso: Picasso et ses amis (c. 1933) and Souvenirs intimes écrits pour Picasso (1988). During the period of their relationship, Picasso continued to advance the Cubist idiom with Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), of which it is said that one of the women could be Olivier.
Olga Khokhlova: Portrait of Olga in an Armchair at the Musée national Picasso-Paris
Khokhlova was a young star in Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company. After her marriage to Picasso, she obtained the leading role in his pictorial universe. Portrait of Olga in an Armchair is a work that depicts her from a photograph in the couple's home. The classical aspect is evident, the result of Picasso's travels in Italy and his visits to museums, which the exhibition at the Naples Archaeological Museum will show.
Marie-Therese Walter: Woman with a Hat and Fur Collar at Museu Nacional D'Art de Catalunya
Walter was a French model and mother of Maya Picasso. Her figure is associated with the artist's most romantic works. Woman with a Hat and Fur Collar is one of several portraits Picasso made of her, in which he carried out an exhaustive analytical exercise in which the youth and personality of the sitter were subjected to numerous transfigurations.
Dora Maar: Portrait of Dora Maar at the Musée national Picasso-Paris
Maar, a photographer, was one of the emerging figures of the artistic avant-garde. The young woman exhibited her photographs and photomontages in various Parisian and foreign galleries. In this work, Picasso seeks a form of balance in the composition of the painting through the representation of Dora Maar herself, who responds to the classical codes of painting with her gestures and her position in an armchair.
Jacqueline Roque: Woman by a Window [Jacqueline] at the Museu Picasso Barcelona
Roque, a French model and photographer, worked in Madoura's ceramics workshop in Vallauris, where Picasso met her in 1952. In 1954 Jacqueline and Picasso began their life together, marrying in 1961. They remained together until the artist's death in 1973. Roque made several donations that are in the permanent collection of the Museu Picasso in Barcelona, including Woman at a Window [Jacqueline].