Picasso and the shadows of happiness

When I was a child in the 1950s, Picasso was everywhere: in museums, bullrings, beaches, and celebrity magazines. His dignified demeanor during the German occupation and his status as Franco's number one exile also earned him the respect of citizens, and Gernika , perhaps the most popular painting of the 20th century, was the undisputed star of MoMA. When he declared himself a communist, the Communist Party appropriated it, and poets and biographers, from Rafael Alberti to Louis Aragon and Paul Éluard, including Pierre Daix, devoted countless pages to him. Everyone paid homage to him; anything he did was cheered, commented on, praised... and any criticism turned against the critic and turned him into a right-wing old fogey.

Only in this context can one understand the vigor with which Living with Picasso , the book published by Françoise Gilot, Picasso's partner and mother of his children, Claude and Paloma, after their separation, was attacked. The book is a rich account of ten years of a vital and complex relationship, rich in love, work, art, books, children, friends, travel, and controversy, with occasional and inevitable grievances. Written with great affection and a sense of humor, it never descends into settling scores: exceptional, as Françoise Gilot was.

It's exciting to see Picasso applying himself to making something within reach of his children.

The exhibition, which opened on Thursday the 25th at the Museu Picasso, is a moving tribute by Paloma Picasso to her brother Claude, as well as a vindication of an unconventional relationship.

It's a long snapshot of ten years in the life of an unusual family, thanks to the abundant photos by David Douglas Duncan and other, more posed ones by Edward Quinn, with a few from the family archives. It's like a musical score on which a choral symphony is written, in which the love of the four protagonists flows through art.

Not only the Art with a capital A that Picasso inhabited and transformed, but also the many tiny objects he used, insignificant until he kidnapped and metamorphosed them, generally with the complicity and joy of Paloma and Claude, although sometimes the disappearance of a beloved toy or a jointly created doll left them with a handful of noses.

Read also When Picasso played like a child (and stole his children's toys) Teresa Sesé

A constant metamorphosis, evidence that the genius capable of portraying Gertrude Stein or composing Gernika resides in those unstoppable, playful hands, which captivate the amazed attention of her children until they transform the small discarded car, the cut-out doll, the colored splinter, into something capable of arresting the gaze of their elders, many years after those days of joy.

Because joy is what this exhibition tells us, very well complemented by a very effective catalogue: a riot of gestures, of complicity, of coincidences and causalities that restore the nature and naturalness of that overused word: creation.

It's moving to see Picasso, sometimes so Jupiterian, in a minor key, applying himself to creating something within reach of his children, drawing with his tongue between his lips to bring out in Françoise all the beauty he knows she is. It's also impressive to see the fortitude with which Françoise takes up the challenge and continues with her art, very aware of the talent before her, but serenely aware of her right to try. It's nothing: to be a woman and create in front of Picasso!

Seeing the result, it's understandable why she had an excellent career as an artist. Not thanks to Picasso, of course, but despite the barriers he tried to put in her way when she left. I don't think there were any barriers capable of holding Gilot back.

The exhibition is a well-deserved tribute to Claude, whom I met many years ago when I was president of the CIAGP when he hosted a delegation from Vegap at the beautiful Picasso Administration headquarters on Place Vendôme: that was one of his creations, his great contribution to his father's legacy. On that occasion, as on subsequent ones, thankfully less formal, he was always courteous, extremely kind, clearly aware of what he stood for, but never boasting about it.

Thanks to his sister Paloma, and the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, for this moving gift.