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Dedicated to The Woman in Picasso

The Woman in Picasso…?

(23.3./3.4.2023) This is not another gallery of Picasso’s female companions, no, this is something completely different. I am asking: in what terms might Pablo Picasso have reflected on sex and gender, in, let’s say, the years 1947 up to his death in 1973? In other words: this is another exercise in biographical writing, a genre that I have recently invented. Do you know the answer? Perhaps your answer will be: in terms of the Marquis de Sade. And then I will say: Good answer! But things are probably a little bit more complicated. We will have to discuss literature, but what we will find is also a strange little discourse on the woman in Picasso (not in his work, no, the woman in Picasso, the man), a discourse that goes back to Jean Cocteau publishing a book in 1947, a book which established this discourse, which Picasso, on his part and as we will see, enjoyed and knew. Yes, Picasso knew this discourse! Furthermore: also Picasso’s female companions knew this discourse, and further: even Picasso’s acquaintances (like Francine Weisweiller) knew this discourse. There was a discussion about the woman in Picasso, in Picasso’s circle and with Picasso, and this is what we will look at and discuss here, not actually with the intention to give a final question to the aforementioned question, but with the aim to come a little bit closer to an answer.

1) What is a Discourse?

I am using the notion of ›discourse‹ in a very concise way here: a discourse, here, is simply a way of speaking about certain things. This may sound banal, but it is not. A way of speaking about certain things, such as sex an gender, always, due to a specific vocabulary and a specific imagery being used, allows to reflect on certain aspects of these things, but this does not say that every aspect of the things talked about gets revealed and highlighted. No, a discourse is always also a way of not speaking about certain aspects. A discourse also encompasses silences, gaps, voids and vacancies. And if Picasso may have found it enjoyable to participate in a discourse dedicated to ›the woman in Picasso‹ does not say that he may have revealed in what terms and how he actually might have reflected on sex and gender (although he may have had an imagery and a vocabulary for that, and although this vocabulary that he may have revealed in his art and translated into his art or not, might have drawn on literature and particularly poetry. There is no doubt that Picasso, it is well documented, also had a sadistic side; and this sadistic side is not talked about in the frame of the discourse about the woman in Picasso; but this is just another reason to be cautious and not to rush into conclusions.

No, the woman in Picasso (stills from Paul Haesaerts’ film Visite à Picasso (1948), as used in the documentary Pablo Picasso & Françoise Gilot. »Die Frau, die NEIN sagte«, Annie Maïllis (dir.), France 2021, with Picasso painting on glass)

2) Where and Why did Jean Cocteau establish a Discourse on the Woman in Picasso?

In 1947 writer und multi-artist Jean Cocteau published a book that was and still is cherished by many: The Difficulty of Being is a collection of autobiographical essays. And it is a beautiful book, a book of magnificent, sensitive and original prose. Jacqueline Picasso, who also got to know Cocteau better than many, did like the man, and she did, as it is also known, particularly like this book. And in this book, in one of the essays that make this book, Cocteau developed his idea that Picasso was actually made of two human beings, a woman and a man, brief: that Picasso was actually a couple:

»This complete artist is made up of a man and a woman. In him terrible domestic scenes take place. Never was so much crockery smashed. In the end the man is always right and slams the door. But there remains of the woman an elegance, an organic gentleness, a kind of luxuriousness which gives an excuse to those who are afraid of strength and cannot follow the man beyond the threshold.« (from the English edition, published in 1966; translation by Elizabeth Sprigge; I have used the German edition, for which see reference below)

One has to know that Cocteau was, to some degree, obsessed with Picasso, and that he took every opportunity to develop ideas on Picasso, to explain Picasso (to himself or others), and, on some level, to experiment with ideas on Picasso and to test these ideas. And this was a way, as we have to observe, to start a discourse on ›the woman in Picasso‹ in 1947. Simone de Beauvoir had not yet published her seminal work The Second Sex, and we have to note that, since a discourse never exists on its own – there are other discourses, other ways to reflect on sex and gender, and discourses have a history, appearing and disappearing, gaining influence or losing influence again, and discourses only exist as long humans are willing to use them, to live with them, and, in some way, to live in them. And this is also what we have to observe here: that Picasso and his circle lived with and in the discourse on ›the woman in Picasso‹.
In 1947 Picasso was in a partnership with Françoise Gilot, but this does not say that she was the only woman in his life. The idea that Picasso’s life can be organized in periods that are named after his female companions is decidedly too simple. Beware, biographer, of that idea – it does completely mislead you and makes you blind for much that happens in Picasso’s art, and the idea that he worshipped one woman only and exclusively is a little bit naive, but a beautiful romantic fantasy, which does not say that it never may have happened, but every ›period‹ in Picasso is more complicated than that! The idea that there was one woman that exclusively fascinated and dominated Picasso is an idea that goes back to a woman, respectively to Dora Maar, and John Richardson did like her idea that everything changed in Picasso with the woman changing that was at his side, and he did find that idea amusing and repeated it whenever he could; but Richardson knew very well that things were more complicated: in 1947 Picasso was in a partnership with Françoise Gilot, yes, but his wife Olga was present to some degree in his life, Dora Maar was present to some degree, as were other woman, and instead of dedicating periods of Picasso’s life exclusively to a respective female companion a biographer has to observe who was present at what time and how. And often Picasso’s art is reflecting several woman being present, and also the rivalry of woman being present.
This excursion on the women in Picasso’s life is necessary to understand in what way the discourse on ›the woman in Picasso‹ got spread and existed from 1947 up to the period of Picasso being married to Jacqueline (who was a reader of Cocteau). Because Françoise Gilot knew of that discourse and participated in it (for example in 1955; see C IV, 245 (12 September 1955)), but also later referred to that discourse, for example when being interviewed, much later, by Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington, or for her book, by other researchers).

3) To What Consequences?

Thus the discourse on ›the woman in Picasso‹ originated in 1947, but it also can be traced: if Françoise Gilot could say to Cocteau in 1955 that he was always speaking of Picasso as a couple, she must have known this discourse for long, probably because Cocteau had not only started that discourse by writing in 1947, but because he was also a well-known and brilliant talker and raconteur, and constantly tested his ideas and theories by telling them to others. And it is also Cocteau’s diary that reveals that particularly in 1956, one did talk about the ›woman in Picasso‹ in Picasso’s circle, and that Picasso talked about ›the woman in Picasso‹ with Francine Weisweiller, a woman whose protegé Cocteau was at that time, and this talking about the ›the woman in Picasso‹ also got back to Cocteau, because Weisweiller, obviously, told Cocteau that Picasso found that Cocteau was right in finding also a woman in Picasso, and she seems to have reported what Picasso had said (for example that he was ›an old lesbian‹, because, actually, he liked woman – as well as he was made also of one), because what Picasso seems to have said found its way back to Cocteau and also appears in his diary (see C V, 195 and 198 (27 and 29 July 1956); Picasso used the old slang word ›gousse‹ for lesbian: see 198).

As we have to know, Picasso was in the habit of speaking half-jokingly and it is a big mistake to take seriously what he said all of the time, without being aware that, often, he did speak half-jokingly, a way of disguising – or telling – that he did actually refuse to have fixed opinions on things, rather playing around instinctively with ideas, and also with words, according to the situation.

But in 1956 he seems to have conceded that the woman in him was actually prevailing over the man (C V, 195 (27 July 1956)). And 1956, at least as far appearance was concerned, can be named to have been rather a year of personal harmony. The turmoils were political, and Picasso was in love with Jacqueline Roque who had found her place in Picasso’s life, or at least was finding it. And Picasso seems to have ended his relationship with Geneviève Laporte, did resist the temptation to paint Brigitte Bardot, and only here and there seems to have mourned the end of his relationship with Françoise Gilot, or had aggressive outbursts due to her having a baby with another man. But on the other hand Picasso seems to have pressured the Leiris Gallery to end the contract with Gilot, and even if, on the surface there was harmony, the conflict was not over, and new chapters were only to come.
This is important to recall, since the discourse on ›the woman in Picasso‹ defines certain human characteristics as male and as female, and it is a traditional discourse in that it defines gentleness as female, and aggressiveness as male. When speaking to Cocteau in 1955, Gilot had also mentioned that Picasso had wanted her to read the Marquis de Sade (C IV, 245 (12 September 1955))), and it is well known that Picasso seems to have tested women in wanting them to read de Sade. But is is more important here to mention that Gilot seems to have refused to play that game, by simply stating to Cocteau that she, on her part, preferred (›was closer to‹) Laclos – which means that she simply was inclined to play another kind of game, but a game she played, indeed. And this is exactly what the lesson of this biographical exercise might be: to raise the question in what way to speak about Picasso and his relations with women and men. Because in naming Choderlos de Laclos, Gilot suggested simply another way, not actually refusing to speak about the sadistic side in Picasso, but in showing how another discourse could be started, that one could reflect on sex and gender also in other terms, in terms of the Dangereuses liaisons, and not only in terms of a discourse on ›the woman in Picasso‹, or a discourse on Picasso’s sadistic side. It is complexity that is needed indeed, in terms of a discourse allowing to speak about complex things adequately. And it is necessary to accept complexity in things, in life, generally, and in Picasso biography specifically. And Choderlos de Lacos might, perhaps, offer that complexity. So we might be inclined to listen to Françoise Gilot a little bit more, but not uncritically. And not without being aware that also the game she played, as well as the discourse she suggested may have had its gaps, voids and vacancies.

Further reading:
Jean Cocteau, Die Schwierigkeit, zu sein, Frankfurt a.M 1988 [1958; French original: Paris 1947] [see pp. 25f.]

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