Picasso: Love at Old Age
Picasso at Sixty
Post liberation Paris saw Picasso reborn as an incorrigible lover in his sixties. By this time he had left the company of the photographer Dora and in 1944 began courting his young art student Francoise Gilot. Two children Claude and Paloma were born from this relationship that continued till 1953. The notable feature of this end was that unlike in other cases where Picasso of his own terminated the affairs, it was Francoise who left Picasso unable to put up with his unfaithfulness and harsh treatment. Picasso so far in his life was used to take women for granted in the belief that they would be with him even if for some small favors. Francoise was the first woman to jolt him out of his perception that all women would be submissive to him.
Post Francoise
Rejection and forsaking by Francoise left the old Picasso for the first time in a crisis situation in his love life. It was extremely difficult for the man in his seventies to accept that old age had robbed him of attraction from women especially the younger ones Picasso loved to have as companions. This emotion is carried by the theme of his ink drawings of that time highlighting the contrasting figures of lovely young women and old ugly dwarfs resembling clowns.
Last Companion
After Francoise had left him, Picasso’s love life lay low for sometime. But the hiatus was not for long and in Jacqueline Roque Picasso found his new love. He was also doing ceramic arts and at a pottery he met her. They got married in 1961 and lived together till the end. Meanwhile he was looking for opportunity to have revenge on Francoise. Picasso did not want her two children with him to be legitimized which she wanted. However to make Francoise pay the price for leaving him, he persuaded her to get divorce from her then husband ostensibly to legitimize her children with him but married Jacqueline secretly when divorce was filed by Francoise.
