Pablo Picasso ,Le soleil ou le diable?

Pablo Picasso was declared a genius, but his family life was unsuccessful. During the years he was growing up he was a rather preoccupied child during the lessons, who sketched pigeons and bullfighting in his sketch block.

After a relatively plain childhood and adolescence in Malaga in Spain he met the Russian-born ballet girl Olga Kokhlova when he was in Rome with his close friend Jean Cocteau to perform the stage design for Parade. He became fascinated by her beauty and charm. He danced attendance upon Olga and followed her to Rome, Naples and Barcelona, she avoided him but he was not to be rebuffed. When Olga was introduced to his mother in Barcelona she warned Olga: “No woman can be happy with my son.” But 1918 Pablo and Olga got married in the Orthodox Church in rue Daru in Paris.

Marriage with her became a gateway to high society since she was born in a well off family. Her father had been a brigadier. Pablo showed off before the wedding about the advantages that the marriage with Olga would bring him. He started to buy clothes in London and he learnt to love champagne. They got a son, Paulo, a rather pitiable person who lacked self-confidence. Paulo was put into the shade by his famous father- Le Soleil. Paulo attended frequent his father at his villa La Californie on the French Riviera with his two children, Pablito and Marina. But every now and then the power-hungry and hard Jacqueline Roque prevented them from entering already at the iron gates with the harsh words: “The master is not at home to visitors or the master is working or the master is sleeping”. When it wasn’t the great master or monseigneur it was Le Soleil which Pablo Picasso preferred to be called.

Jacqueline Roque was Pablo Picasso’s last wife, they had a daughter called Catherine. Pablo had several children with different wives. Francoise Gilot was the mother of Paloma and Claude. Picasso also had a daughter, Maya Widmayer with his muse Marie-Thérèse Walters. But everyone was refused admittance to his stronghold for different reasons. When Francoise Gilot wrote her biography “Live with Picasso” her children Paloma and Claude were no longer welcome.

Marina and Pablito grew up and lived in poverty a couple of blocks from their well-known grandfather’s residence. Their father had to humiliate himself and beg Picasso for money but sometimes Picasso refused to help. The whole family Picasso were dependent on Pablo, they lived off and for him. To Paulo’s wife Émilenne (or Mienne which she wanted to be called because it sounded more Americanized) was the name Picasso like a medal. She used to brag about being daughter-in-law to Picasso. She also said that he admired her beautiful figure as the womanizer he was. But she became furious when her husband got home and was out of funds. “What does he think we’re going to live off? “ she bawled and she had a nervous breakdown in front of the kids.

Marina and Pablito didn’t feel appreciated neither by their absent grandfather nor their irresponsible father and dreamy mother. Gradually their mother gave her whole and undivided attention to younger men and their father almost abandoned them entirely. He only popped up occasionally with some young woman by his side. Marina and Pablito weren’t allowed to educate themselves though their grandfather was a multimillionaire. They only had contact with him via his attorney.

The greatest degradation of all ,however, came when Pablito and Marina were refused permission to be present at their grandfather’s funeral .Pablo Picasso died on 8th April 1973. Pablito broke down and swallowed bleaching solution. His sister found him bloody and with corrosion damage in his gullet. Pablito struggled for his life for three months. His life could have been saved if he had come to a bigger hospital in Paris but his sister and mother couldn’t afford this and they didn’t hear from either his father or Jacqueline Roque who had access to the inheritance. Marie-Thérèse Walters Picasso’s former mistress finally rung Mienne up and offered to sell two of her signed pictures of Picasso. In spite of this Pablito’s life couldn’t be saved and 12th July 1973 he passed away.

Marina lapsed into a deep depression. She had an implacable hatred of her grandfather who was sparing of praise and love and was mean towards her during her childhood and her father whom she regarded as a coward. She was obliged to undergo 14 years of psychotherapy under her grown up life to get over her loathing. Later when her father died of cancer at the age of 54 years she was not in mood to go to his funeral but she felt she owed her brother that because he wasn’t allowed to attend his grandfather’s funeral.

The day after she met one of Picasso’s lawyers, maitre Bacque de Sariac. He delivered an envelope which contained 100 000 franc and some wobbly lines: “ I hope this amount will help. 1000 hugs.” It was signed Paulo. Only Paulo. A father’s regret in the form of a last maintenance to his daughter. Pablo once told Marina: “ My death is going to be like a shipwreck. When a large ship sinks, everybody is dragged along with the whirlpool and they certainly did. All of them. Pablito, Paulo, Marie-Thérèse Walters who hung herself in her garage in Juan-les-Pints and eventually Jacqueline who shot herself in the head. Some people shine so strongly that they consume those around them, like a big sun.

Skriven av: Linda-Miranda Garbén