Françoise Gilot / La Marionette, 1955

 

La Marionette (Claude and Paloma Picasso with Germaine Brooks), 1955. Oil on canvas.

Françoise Gilot. 

Françoise Gilot

La Marionette (Claude and Paloma Picasso with Germaine Brooks), 1955.

Françoise Gilot (French, b. 1921)
La Marionette (Claude and Paloma Picasso with Germaine Brooks), 1955
Oil on canvas
46 x 28-1/2 inches (116.8 x 72.4 cm)
Signed lower left: F. Gilot.
Titled and dated on the stretcher bar: La Marionette 1955

PROVENANCE:
Collection of the artist;
Vincent Mann Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana;
Acquired by the present owner from the above, February 20, 2010.

EXHIBITED:
Paris, Galerie Louise Leiris, n.d..;
New Orleans, Louisiana, Collection Privée: Early Works by Françoise Gilot 1940-1960," February-May, 2010.

LITERATURE:
M. Yoakum and D. Vierny, Françoise Gilot: Monograph 1940-2000, Lausanne, Switzerland, 2000, p. 135.

Famous for her bold, modernist canvases and successful career as a painter in postwar Paris, Françoise Gilot is also renowned for having been the muse and lover of Pablo Picasso. While her story may be inextricably linked to 20th century art's most towering figure, Gilot's remarkable life and vast oeuvre is extremely impressive on its own merits. In a career spanning over seven decades, her distinct artistic language reveals a mastery of modernist concepts, technical skill, and a dual focus on both personal and universal themes. A sort of playful abstraction, Gilot's style lies somewhere between that of Picasso and Henri Matisse, whom she also counted as a close friend and mentor.

In conversation / Claude Picasso and John Richardson

Claude Picasso, New York, November 29, 1967, photographed by Richard Avedon 

IN CONVERSATION

CLAUDE PICASSO ANDJOHN RICHARDSON

Picasso biographer and family friend Sir John Richardson sits down with Claude Picasso for a wide-ranging conversation. The two discuss Claude’s photography, his enjoyment of vintage car racing, his encounters with Willem de Kooning, and the future of scholarship related to his father, Pablo Picasso.

Nightmare at the Picasso Museum

John Richardson

Winter 2018

JOHN RICHARDSON So, what brings you to New York?

CLAUDE PICASSO Well, tomorrow is my birthday and I thought I’d spend it with [my mother] Françoise [Gilot]. It’s amusing because we’re exactly twenty-five years apart, so it’s easy to remember: When I turned twenty-five, she turned fifty. When she turned seventy-five, I was fifty. This week she said, “And what are you going to be? Oh, seventy-two? So it means I’ll be a hundred” [laughter]. I said, “Not yet.”