She inspired him so much, he painted and drew her so much: in this exhibition, which runs until December 31 at the Picasso Museum in Paris, the infinite tenderness of the master for his eldest daughter, Maya Ruiz-Picasso, s expressed through a series of portraits whose bright colors speak of an immense happiness, that of being a father. A family story, the story of a mad love.
“Miss, you have an interesting face. I would like to do your portrait, I am Picasso. “The ogre is married to the dancer Olga Khokhlova and father of a boy when he meets, in front of the Galeries Lafayette, in 1927, this blonde beauty, sculptural, with blue-gray eyes. Her name is Marie-Thérèse Walter, she's not 18 (he's 45), doesn't give a damn about modern painting, but agrees to be chewed up...like a piece of candy.
Picasso secretly installed his lover at 44, rue de la Boétie, a few steps from the marital home. She will inspire him one of his greatest masterpieces, "Le rêve", where he represents her voluptuous, all in curves and eroticism. Fruit of this passionate love, Maria de la Concepcion, nicknamed Maya, was born on September 5, 1935. Picasso chose this first name from old Spain in memory of his sister who died of diphtheria at the age of 7. Separated from Olga, he can now shout his happiness.
A pampered princess, Maya will only have wonderful memories of her life with him.
After a period when he devoted himself only to writing and poetry, Picasso continues to represent his daughter in the acid colors of childhood. Little muse in the cradle sucking her thumb, little girl with a doll, in profile, in a sailor suit, with an apron... Between January 16, 1938 and November 7, 1939, he devoted fourteen paintings to her. A pampered princess, Maya will only have wonderful memories of her life with him. “I always had fun, he told me lots of stories, made me laugh and sang songs to me. Together, they draw with four hands. “He made models in my notebooks. He taught me to draw a grasshopper, a chick or even a hawk. Me, I put notes to him, I played the mistress of school. »
In the treasure-trove exhibition "Maya Ruiz-Picasso, daughter of Pablo", orchestrated by art historian Diana Widmaier-Picasso, daughter of Maya, and chief heritage curator Emilia Philippot, the album of tenderness can also be read through small toys made by dad during the war, matchboxes transformed into puppet theatres, paper animals... And we discover how superstitious the "Minotaur" was: nail clippings , locks of hair, worn overcoats and slippers... the artist kept everything! "He was afraid that someone would take it and cast a bad spell on him," explains Diana Widmaier-Picasso. He therefore entrusted them to Marie-Thérèse. Maya preserved them with the same devotion. »
The "Minotaur" was superstitious: nail clippings, locks of hair, worn overcoats and slippers... the artist kept everything!
Maya has seen everything, known everything in her father's life. Dora Maar, whom he met only a month after her birth and whom she nicknamed "the drooling lady", because she keeps licking her lips while looking at men. Françoise Gillot, with whom he fell in love in 1943 and with whom he had two children. Later, even if they move away a little, father and daughter keep their complicity, as evidenced by "The Picasso mystery", by Henri-Georges Clouzot on the filming of which she assists him. Then the master retired to Mougins to concentrate on his work, Maya founded her own family. They will never see each other again.
Guarantor of the moral rights of Pablo Picasso after his death, she alone knows precisely “why he put gray that day, green another day in his paintings”: “With his eyes, he watched. With his hands, he drew or modelled. With his skin, his nostrils, his heart, his mind, his very guts he felt what we were, what we were hiding, our being. This is, I think, why he was able to understand the human being, however young, with such truth. »
Anne-Cecile Beaudoin – Paris Match
art expert: https://www.vwart.com/