She met Picasso in May 1943 and became a lover and artistic muse of Pablo Picasso from 1944 to 1953. The great artist was 40 years her senior when their decade long union began.
Francois Gilot was twenty one when she saw Pablo Picasso sitting with friends at a small restaurant in Paris. Gilot already was a painter, working then in a representational style that alter gave way to more expressive forms. She felt immediately attracted to Picasso, Together they had two children, Claude and Paloma.
She married to the painter Luc Simon in 1955 and divorce in 1962. Gilot’s 1964 book, Life with Picasso, sold more than a million copies in its first year and was translated into more than a dozen languages.
Françoise Gilot