O lga Khokhlova - the first official wife of Pablo Picasso and the first in a galaxy of Russian muses that inspired European artists. There are more legends than facts in the history of their relationship. Now it is no longer possible to say for sure whether Olga was overly jealous, or whether Picasso was overly frivolous. Today, the most reliable evidence of the development of relations in the family of the artist and the ballerina is the portraits of Olga Khokhlova painted by Picasso during their life together from 1917 to 1935..

Muse

Portrait of Olga Khokhlova. 1917

Olga Khokhlova was born on June 17, 1891 in Nizhyn. She was a true Russian young lady of the 19th century - she loved balls, "tea, caviar and cakes." In 1917 in Rome, while dancing in the corps de ballet with Diaghilev, she met Picasso. The artist was invited to create costumes and scenery for the ballet Parade. The mysterious Koklova, as Picasso called the ballerina, was the embodiment of meek female beauty. “You compromise me,” she said to the Spanish macho. And he met Khokhlova on the threshold of the workshop in just shorts. It worked with others! “You only need to marry Russians,” Diaghilev advised the seducer. Picasso saw in Olga the ideal of classical beauty, thus the first portrait of the artist's Russian bride was born.

Aphrodite

Olga Khokhlova. 1918

1918 Picasso departs from the Cubist painting method he invented and writes endless female images in the neoclassical style. “I want to know my face,” the young wife told him. She painfully experienced the revolution in Russia and tried to arrange a new life in a foreign country with her husband, about whose bohemian past she knew almost nothing. Having married Picasso according to the Orthodox tradition, Khokhlova believed that her mission was to guide Picasso to true painting and give simple family happiness. And Picasso himself almost believed it. Each portrait of Khokhlova at that time embodied the image of the ideal beauty of the ancient goddess.

Hera

Family at sea. 1922

In 1921, Khokhlova and Picasso had a son, Paul. The child gave the artist inspiration. Picasso paints many portraits of his wife in the image of Madonna, indicating not only the dates, but the hours and minutes of the painting. It seemed that Olga's dream came true. An idyll reigned in the family. Picasso was rich and in demand.

In the summer of 1922, the family went on vacation to Dinard in the south of France, where the lightest mood works were created. Now Khokhlova in the portraits of Picasso is not an elegant beauty, but a powerful Hera, who does not obey anyone except her husband.

Shrew

Portrait of a woman with an ermine collar (Olga). 1923

In his fifties, Picasso, in search of new sources of creative energy, became interested in a young mistress. Until 1935, Olga maintained the appearance of family relations, even suffered beatings. According to Picasso, Khokhlova began to torment him with unreasonable jealousy and moralizing long before the first betrayal.

Picasso tries himself in a new direction of painting - surrealism. Against the background of quarrels, in the eyes of the artist, Khokhlova turns from a goddess into a salon coquette, obsessed with outfits.

Ariadne

Head of a woman (Olga Khokhlova). 1935

Olga Khokhlova was having a hard time parting with her husband. Contemporaries said that Khokhlova pursued Picasso on the streets, loudly shamed for debauchery and received slaps for it. She sent portraits of Rembrandt and Beethoven to her husband, trying to remind the artist of "true" art. Like Ariadne, she was looking for a guiding thread that could lead them out of the labyrinth of intricate relationships.

Olga Khokhlova died in Cannes in 1955. Until her death, she remained the official wife of the artist. Picasso did not agree to a divorce because he did not want to give away half of the property, and she loved Picasso and believed in the inviolability of the marriage union concluded in the church.

In October 2018, the Pushkin Museum will host the exhibition "Pablo Picasso and Olga Khokhlova", dedicated to the Russian wife of the Spanish artist, ballerina of the Russian Seasons Olga Khokhlova. The exhibition will show the works of Picasso, which reflect the history of the dramatic relationship between the artist and his first official wife. The project is being prepared in collaboration with the Picasso Museum in Paris. In addition to paintings and drawings from the Parisian museum, the exposition will be complemented by items from other foreign museums and private collections. The museum notes that the history of Olga Khokhlova is closely connected with the Pushkin Museum: in the 1920s, the ballerina sent many photographs to her relatives in Russia, and now this unique collection is kept in its funds.

The exhibition at the Pushkin Museum was preceded by a Paris exhibition at the National Picasso Museum, which will close on September 3. It contains more than 350 paintings, drawings, documents and photographs, illustrating the chronicle of the work and relationship between Pablo and Olga.
Olga was born on June 17, 1891 in the family of the colonel of the Russian Imperial Army Stepan Vasilievich Khokhlov and his wife Lydia in the city of Nezhin. She wanted to become a ballerina since childhood, her parents did not approve of her choice, but still paid for her studies at the private studio of Evgenia Sokolova, the leading ballerina. and then a tutor at the Mariinsky Theatre. Anna Pavlova, Tamara Karsavina, Lyubov Egorova, Yulia Sedova, Vera Trefilova - all future celebrities passed through her hands. She prepared students seriously, but in St. Petersburg, a professional career only shone for them on the stage. Olga still managed to get into the troupe of Sergei Diaghilev himself.

Pablo Picasso. A group of dancers. Olga Khokhlova lies in the foreground, 1919 - 1920. Technique: Paper, pencil

Khokhlova never became a prima, but it was during the Parisian tour of the Russian Ballet that she met the Spanish artist, who was destined to become her first and only husband.

Pablo Picasso and Olga Khokhlova in front of a poster for the ballet Parade, 1917

Olga Khokhlova and Pablo Picasso met in Rome in the spring of 1917, when the artist, at the invitation of Jean Cocteau, was working on the sets and costumes for the ballet Parade. They got married a year later in the Orthodox Cathedral of Alexander Nevsky on Rue Daru in Paris: the witnesses were Jean Cocteau, Max Jacob and Guillaume Apollinaire. From that moment on, Picasso dramatically changed his artistic language.

Pablo Picasso and Olga Khokhlova in a theater workshop in London in autumn 1919

For the next ten years, his beloved wife became Picasso's main model. She changed not only the life of the artist, but also his work. Olga demanded that in the portraits of her husband she could recognize herself and like herself. And Picasso obeyed her: the blue and pink periods, African primitivism, and even cubism, which brought the first big earnings, were forgotten.

Olga, 1920s

Picasso reintroduced forgotten classicism into fashion, reminded the world of romanticism. Olga Khokhlova, we owe one of the best periods of Picasso's work.

Pablo Picasso. Portrait of Olga, 1917

Picasso painted a portrait of Olga in a Spanish costume especially for his mother, who was worried about her son's marriage to a foreigner. In Barcelona, ​​the son introduced her chosen one and the future mother-in-law then said to Olga: “If I were your friend, I would advise you not to marry him under any circumstances. I don’t believe that a woman can be happy with my son. He is only concerned about himself.”

Pablo Picasso. Olga Khokhlova in a mantilla, 1917

Portrait of Olga Khokhlova, 1918

Pablo Picasso. Portrait of Olga in an armchair, 1918

Pablo Picasso. Three dancers: Olga Khokhlova, Lidia Lopukhova and Lyubov Chernysheva, 1919

Pablo Picasso. Seated dancer (Olga), 1920

Pablo Picasso. Reading woman (Olga), 1920

Pablo Picasso. Reading woman, 1920

After the birth of her son in February 1921, Olga inspired Picasso to numerous scenes of motherhood filled with tenderness. Letters and photographs from the personal archive testify that during this period the couple was happy, and Picasso received worldwide recognition.

Pablo Picasso. Mother and child on the seashore. 1921

Pablo Picasso. Mother and child, 1922

Pablo Picasso. Olga, 1923

1927 was the beginning of the end of the relationship between Picasso and Khokhlova. The artist started an affair with 17-year-old Frenchwoman Marie-Thérèse Walter. And the realistic portraits of his wife were replaced by canvases on which the artist plunged headlong into surrealism.

The artist and the ballerina: the love story of Pablo Picasso and Olga Khokhlova in photographs and paintings

Tomorrow, November 20, at the Pushkin Museum im. A. S. Pushkin opens the exhibition "Picasso & Khokhlova". Its main character is Olga Khokhlova, a Russian ballerina and the first official wife of a Spanish-French artist. For decades, she was his main model, and Picasso's paintings became a kind of chronicle of their relationship, dramatic and ultimately tragic. In addition to works from the National Picasso Museum in Paris, the exhibition includes materials and paintings from the personal archives of the spouses, which were provided to the Pushkin Museum by the grandson of Picasso and Khokhlova, Bernard Ruiz-Picasso (including works by the artist that have never been exhibited before). Esquire, together with exhibition curator Alexei Petukhov, prepared a timeline for the opening of the exhibition, revealing key milestones in the creative and personal relationship between Pablo and Olga.

June 17, 1891

Olga Khokhlova was born in Nizhyn, Chernigov province (now Ukraine), in the family of Colonel Stepan Khokhlova and his wife Lydia (née Vinchenko). She had an older brother Vladimir, and after that three more children were born in the family: Nina, Nikolai and Evgeny. From Ukraine, the Khokhlovs moved to St. Petersburg (the exact date of the move is unknown), and around 1910 - to the Kars region (now Turkey).

1911

Olga joins the Russian Ballets troupe and travels with it around Europe and the USA.

Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte

1914−1915

Olga returned to her family for the last time, and in December 1915 she again left for a foreign tour.

February 1917

A revolution is taking place in Russia. Emperor Nicholas II abdicates the throne, a provisional government is formed. For three post-revolutionary years, Olga will lose contact with her family.

At the same time, Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau come to Rome to work on the production of the ballet "Parade" with the troupe of Sergei Diaghilev. The premiere takes place on May 18 at the Chatelet theater in Paris.

In Rome, 25-year-old Olga meets Picasso, and in the fall he travels with her troupe to Barcelona. There the artist paints one of the first portraits of Olga - "Olga Khokhlova in a Mantilla". A significant detail of her outfit was just a mantilla - an attribute of a traditional Spanish costume, to imitate which Picasso used a tablecloth.

Succession Picasso 2018

“Portrait of Olga in an armchair”, painted a few weeks later from a staged photograph, marked Olga’s full-fledged entry into the work of her future husband, who at that time was fascinated by the rethinking of the neoclassicism of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.

Succession Picasso 2018

During the tour, Picasso introduces Olga to her mother. Maria Picasso tells her that her son is not made for family life, that it is impossible to be happy with him.

Early 1918

Olga gets a leg injury and temporarily leaves the stage.

July 12, 1918

Olga and Pablo marry and are married in a Russian church on rue Daru in Paris. Sergei Diaghilev, Jean Cocteau, Gertrude Stein, Henri Matisse, Guillaume Apollinaire and other famous artists of that time were invited to the ceremony. Picasso and Khokhlova sign a marriage contract, according to which, in the event of a divorce, all the property of the spouses, including works of art, is divided in half.

After the wedding, Picasso and Khokhlova go on a honeymoon trip to Biarritz, where they stay at the villa of the Chilean philanthropist Eugenia Errázuriz "La Mimosre".

Mid November 1918

The newlyweds settle in a Parisian apartment on Rue La Boesie (house 23), not far from the gallery of Paul Rosenberg, who has recently become Picasso's agent. The manner of Picasso is changing, and his position in society: together with Olga, they turn into fashionable socialites, acquire a stable social status. The circle of Pablo and Olga's closest acquaintances includes Igor Stravinsky, Jean Cocteau, as well as Count Etienne de Beaumont, the organizer of luxurious receptions that Olga adores.

May-June 1919

Picasso travels with Olga to London to work on the sets and costumes for the ballet The Three-Cornered Hat to music by Manuel de Falla. Olga, having briefly resumed her dance classes, soon finally leaves the Russian Ballets troupe and ends her career as a ballerina.

1920

Olga manages to reconnect with her family. She learns that her younger brother Eugene died in September 1917, the middle brother Nikolai (like many other White Guards) fled to Serbia, and her mother and sister live in Tiflis (Georgia), more and more in need.

At the same time, Olga becomes Picasso's permanent model. In many of his neoclassical portraits, she almost always appears calm and thoughtful. In her frozen look, directed rather at herself than at the viewer, one can feel anxiety about the fate of her relatives.

Succession Picasso 2018

February 4, 1921

Paulo (Paul) Picasso is born, the first and only child of Olga and Pablo. Scenes of motherhood appear in Picasso's work.

Succession Picasso 2018

Pablo Picasso. Mother and child. Paris, autumn 1921. Almina and Bernard Ruiz-Picasso Art Fund, Madrid

In these scenes, peace reigns, which was consonant with Picasso's interest in Antiquity and the Renaissance, which arose during his acquaintance with Olga in Italy and revived again in 1921, when the family spent the summer in Fontainebleau. The birth of a son brought Olga and Pablo closer together and changed the course of their lives: their family circle included a nanny, a cook and a driver. Olga gave her son all her attention; For his father, Paul became a source of pride. In many portraits of his son, Picasso symbolically conveys his hobbies to him, dressing the boy in the costumes of the characters of the commedia dell'arte, in particular Harlequin, with whom in his youth - as the paintings of the "pink period" testify - he identified himself.

Succession Picasso 2018

One of the portraits captured Paul drawing - perhaps Pablo was trying to remember his own childhood feelings, because he was also the son of an artist. Paul did not know his Russian relatives, who, meanwhile, often wrote to him, attaching postcards to letters to Olga. As long as the connection with the Khokhlovs remained, Picasso regularly sent them money, and sometimes his works - for example, a horse cut out of paper, close to the work he created at the same time for little Paul.

Succession Picasso 2018

1925−1926

In 1925, Picasso begins to realize that their happy marriage to Olga is coming to an end. In April, they travel together to Monte Carlo, where they meet Diaghilev. Pablo draws dancing ballerinas with enthusiasm. Undoubtedly, this exacerbates Olga's bitterness, caused by the forced refusal to continue her ballet career a few years before. However, it was in the image of a ballerina that Picasso decided to present her in his large painting "Dance" (Tate Modern Gallery, London). The simplified, primitivist forms and sharp color contrasts of this canvas make it possible to consider it the first manifestation of a change in the artist's view of his wife.

Succession Picasso 2018

Olga, visibly present in the portraits of the "neoclassical" period, retains a prominent place in his work after 1925, although it becomes difficult to recognize her in the paintings. The idealized, melancholic image of a young woman gives way to ruthlessly deformed figures, assuming menacingly aggressive poses. Olga perceptibly pursues Picasso's painting, penetrating into the impregnable refuge of the artist - the studio. She turns into a terrible monster with a pointed nose, like a dagger, and protruding teeth. In several paintings and drawings, her image even overlaps Picasso's profile self-portrait, thus indicating the power she retains over her husband - both artist and man.

January 1927

Picasso meets seventeen-year-old Marie-Therese Walter at the entrance to the Galeries Lafayette. He approaches her with the words: “I am Picasso. You and I will do great things together." They begin an affair.

1928

In the work of Picasso, the image of the minotaur appears for the first time. The Minotaur, an image of the unity of the drives for life and death, became Picasso's new alter ego, symbolizing the complex dual relationship that the artist had with women in the early 1930s.

Succession Picasso 2018

Torn between passion for Maria Theresa and conjugal duty to Olga, Picasso encoded his personal history in the images of ancient myths. In the scenes of violence, inspired by the ancient Dionysian cults, he found expression for the cruelty of love and the indomitability of desire.

Succession Picasso 2018

Two shots of Olga and Paul Picasso from a photo booth. Around 1928, photograph. Olga Ruiz-Picasso Archive, Almina and Bernard Ruiz-Picasso Foundation for the Arts, Madrid

In the summer, Olga and Pablo with their son rest in Dinara; Maria-Teresa Walter also settles not far from them, with whom Pablo secretly meets. The setting inspires him for the Bathers series. Succession Picasso 2018

1935

Picasso creates his own mythology, mixing such heterogeneous themes as bullfighting, crucifixion and the minotaur into the famous "Minotauromachia" - a tragic parable in which the crisis that tormented him crystallizes. From that moment, which coincided with the final rupture of marital relations with Olga, her presence in the work of Picasso becomes more and more quiet and inconspicuous, but still paradoxically reminds of the loneliness and suffering of a woman who day after day wrote letters to her lawful husband.

Picasso temporarily leaves painting for literature.

June 1935

Pablo and Olga are leaving. Olga lives by changing one hotel to another. Two lawyers take on a divorce case at once. According to French law, Picasso is obliged to give half of his property to his wife, which means half of the paintings. Picasso always had a hard time parting with his work. The divorce did not take place. Olga remains his official wife until her death.

September 5, 1935

Marie-Therese Walter and Picasso have a daughter, Maria de la Concepcion, or, in the circle of relatives, Maya.

Autumn 1936

Picasso gives the estate in Buagelou to Olga, who, however, will come there only occasionally. Ambroise Vollard puts at Picasso's disposal a new studio in Le Tremblay-sur-Moldre near Paris, where the artist lives with Marie-Therese and Maya.

Succession Picasso 2018

1940s

Relations between Olga and Pablo, despite short-term gaps, remain strained.

Early 1952

Olga is diagnosed with cancer. She begins treatment at the Beau-Soleil clinic in Cannes.

February 11, 1955

Olga Picasso dies in Cannes.

Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images

The exhibition "Picasso & Khokhlova" will run from November 20, 2018 to February 3, 2019 at the Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin in Moscow. After completion in Moscow, the exhibition will be held at the Picasso Museum in Malaga (from February 25 to June 2, 2019) and at the Caisa Forum Cultural Center in Madrid (from June 18 to September 22, 2019).

Curators: Emilia Filippo, curator of the National Picasso Museum (Paris); Joaquim Pissarro, art historian, director of galleries at Hunter College; Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, co-founder and co-chair of the Almina and Bernard Ruiz-Picasso Foundation for the Arts (FABA) (Madrid); Aleksey Petukhov, senior researcher at the Department of European and American Art of the 19th—20th Centuries. ekov Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin.

Not so long ago, on June 17 of this year, the ballerina from the Diaghilev troupe Olga Khokhlova, who went down in history under the name of Picasso, turned 125 years old. For almost ten years she was the Russian Muse for Pablo Picasso, a model for his paintings, wife and mother of his son.
Picasso met Olga Khokhlova when Diaghilev's ballet Russian Seasons in Paris toured Paris with great triumph.
Despite the free European mores and temptations that surrounded the girl, Olga, an aristocrat by birth and apparently in spirit, lived in her own world. Most likely, it was this dissimilarity to others, a good education and discipline that could make a very strong impression on Pablo Picasso.
Of no small importance was the fact that Olga was Russian. In those years, Picasso, the great revolutionary in art, was extremely interested in everything Russian. Acquainted with Khokhlova, Picasso often asked her to speak Russian. He enjoyed the very sound of foreign speech. He was even going to learn the language of this mysterious country for him, he closely followed the development of events in Russia, the February Revolution. Apparently, all this gave the ballerina a special romantic-revolutionary flair in his eyes.

Picasso soon became interested in Olga, with all his characteristic temperament. "Be careful," Diaghilev warned him with a grin, "you have to marry Russian girls." "You're joking," answered the artist, who claimed that he remains the master in any situation.

1920 Danseuse assise (Olga Picasso)

Outwardly, Khokhlova and Picasso were very different from each other. He is stocky. She is slim, tall and graceful. But, of course, the main differences were in their views on life. The 36-year-old artist, before meeting Olga, put pleasure at the forefront and knew a huge number of women. The ballerina at the age of 27 was a virgin and obviously did not plan to become another easy prey for Pablo.

Portraits of Olga Khokhlova 1917

Picasso behaved with Olga in a special way, not like with others. He not only made an official proposal to the girl, but also led the dancer down the aisle. For Khokhlova, this was a natural step, for Picasso, who does not believe in God, it was a desire to please his beloved.

Picasso painted her a lot in a purely realistic manner. The ballerina herself insisted on this, who did not like experiments in painting that she did not understand. "I want," she said, "to know my face."

In Barcelona, ​​Picasso introduced Olga to his mother. She warmly received the Russian girl, went to performances with her participation, but once warned: "With my son, who was created only for himself and for no one else, no woman can be happy." In Barcelona, ​​the artist painted her "Hispanic" portrait in a mantilla, which he presented to his mother.

On July 12, 1918, the wedding ceremony of Pablo Picasso and Olga Khokhlova was held at the City Hall of the 7th Parisian arrondissement. From there they went to the Russian Cathedral of Alexander Nevsky on Daru Street, where the wedding took place. The service was Orthodox.
Picasso was convinced that he would marry for life, and therefore an article was included in his marriage contract that their property was common. In the event of a divorce, this meant dividing it equally, including all the paintings.
Witnesses from the groom's side were Jean Cocteau, Marc Jacob and Guillaume Apollinaire, the great poet of France and Poland.
The wedding was magnificent, luxurious, and after it the young people left for their honeymoon.

In France, they settled in a small house in the Parisian suburb of Montrouge - with a maid, dogs, birds and a thousand other items that accompanied the artist everywhere. Olga spoke good French, although with a strong Russian accent, and loved to listen to long fantastic stories that Pablo told her
in Montrouge, he painted the famous "Portrait of Olga in an armchair", which is now exhibited in the Picasso Museum in Paris. Comparing it with a photograph taken at the moment of posing, it is easy to see that the artist somewhat embellished her features.

1917 Portrait d "Olga dans un fauteuil

In family life, Picasso did not lose his enormous capacity for work, striving for perfection. He painted portraits of Diaghilev, Stravinsky, Bakst, Cocteau. He drew Olga for his first lithograph, which was used for an invitation card to his exhibition.

On February 4, 1921, their son Paul (Paulo) was born. At 40, Picasso became a father for the first time. He made endless drawings of his son and wife, marking on them not only the day, but also the hour. All of them are made in the neoclassical style, and the women in his image resemble the Olympian deities.

Olga Picasso con el pequeño Paulo, 1923

The artist seemed to follow the advice of Van Gogh, who wrote in a letter to his brother Theo: "exaggerate the most essential." In those years, Picasso "Searchs in painting do not matter. Only finds are important ... We all know that art is not truth. Art is a lie, but this lie teaches us to comprehend the truth, at least the truth that we are, people able to comprehend."

Portraits of son Paulo

All his life his main passion was creativity, for the sake of which he was ready to sacrifice everything. Picasso often spoke of the 16th-century French ceramist Bernard de Palissy, who threw his furniture into the kiln to keep the fire going. Picasso was very fond of this story and saw in it a real example of "burning" in the name of art. He himself claimed that he would have thrown both his wife and children into the oven - if only the fire in it had not died out.
“Every time I change a woman,” Picasso said, “I have to burn the last one. Thus, I get rid of them. They will no longer be around me and complicate my life. This, perhaps, will also return my youth. By killing a woman, they destroy the past that she represents." The artist liked to repeat that only work and women prolong life.

Olga felt: Picasso began to change his artistic style. By the way, this was inherent in him: whenever he had a new woman, Pablo changed his creative manner. And now he stopped drawing ballerinas, began to be burdened by the acquaintances that his wife imposed on him, to shun Russian emigrants. Olga was in despair. She didn't know how to prevent the impending rift...

Picasso's heart was conquered by 17-year-old Frenchwoman Marie-Therese Walter. This girl with the face of a child by the time she met Pablo knew nothing about him and about art in general, she had completely different hobbies. But the already middle-aged artist was able to easily seduce the young beauty. Their passionate romance brought Olga incredible suffering.
The artist himself once said that he divides all women into “goddesses” and “floor mats”, according to this logic, Olga, with the advent of Marie-Therese, became the very “rug” that Pablo, without thinking, wiped his feet every day.

Picasso began to take out his hatred for her, in painting. In a series of paintings dedicated to bullfighting, he depicted her either as a horse or as an old vixen. Explaining later the reasons for their breakup, the artist will say: "She wanted too much from me ... It was the worst period in my life."
They did not divorce, so wanted Picasso not to share property
according to the marriage contract.
Due to strong experiences, Khokhlova began a nervous depression, with which she lived until the end of her days. Olga died in 1955 of cancer in Cannes and was buried in the local cemetery. Pablo didn't come to say goodbye to the woman he once idolized. He had a completely different life, there was no place in it for the former lover and mother of his son.

The Picasso Museum in Paris has more than a hundred of Olga's letters addressed to her husband, but so far access to them is closed.

PABLO PICASSO Woman Reading

On June 6, 1975, Paulo Picasso, the son of the artist and Olga, died at the age of 54 from cirrhosis of the liver caused by alcohol and drugs. His two children, Marina and Bernard, were among the heirs. All heirs were given the right to take one of the artist's works as a keepsake. Marina chose a painting depicting her very young grandmother, Olga Khokhlova.

Source http://www.liveinternet.ru/community/camelot_club/post393142010/

Not so long ago, on June 17 of this year, the ballerina from the Diaghilev troupe Olga Khokhlova, who went down in history under the name of Picasso, turned 125 years old. For almost ten years she was the Russian Muse for Pablo Picasso, a model for his paintings, wife and mother of his son.
Picasso met Olga Khokhlova when Diaghilev's ballet Russian Seasons in Paris toured Paris with great triumph.
Despite the free European mores and temptations that surrounded the girl, Olga, an aristocrat by birth and apparently in spirit, lived in her own world. Most likely, it was this dissimilarity to others, a good education and discipline that could make a very strong impression on Pablo Picasso.
Of no small importance was the fact that Olga was Russian. In those years, Picasso, the great revolutionary in art, was extremely interested in everything Russian. Acquainted with Khokhlova, Picasso often asked her to speak Russian. He enjoyed the very sound of foreign speech. He was even going to learn the language of this mysterious country for him, he closely followed the development of events in Russia, the February Revolution. Apparently, all this gave the ballerina a special romantic-revolutionary flair in his eyes.

Picasso soon became interested in Olga, with all his characteristic temperament. "Be careful," Diaghilev warned him with a grin, "you have to marry Russian girls." "You're joking," answered the artist, who claimed that he remains the master in any situation.

1920 Danseuse assise (Olga Picasso)

Outwardly, Khokhlova and Picasso were very different from each other. He is stocky. She is slim, tall and graceful. But, of course, the main differences were in their views on life. The 36-year-old artist, before meeting Olga, put pleasure at the forefront and knew a huge number of women. The ballerina at the age of 27 was a virgin and obviously did not plan to become another easy prey for Pablo.

Portraits of Olga Khokhlova 1917

Picasso behaved with Olga in a special way, not like with others. He not only made an official proposal to the girl, but also led the dancer down the aisle. For Khokhlova, this was a natural step, for Picasso, who does not believe in God, it was a desire to please his beloved.

Picasso painted her a lot in a purely realistic manner. The ballerina herself insisted on this, who did not like experiments in painting that she did not understand. "I want," she said, "to know my face."

In Barcelona, ​​Picasso introduced Olga to his mother. She warmly received the Russian girl, went to performances with her participation, but once warned: "With my son, who was created only for himself and for no one else, no woman can be happy." In Barcelona, ​​the artist painted her "Hispanic" portrait in a mantilla, which he presented to his mother.

On July 12, 1918, the wedding ceremony of Pablo Picasso and Olga Khokhlova was held at the City Hall of the 7th Parisian arrondissement. From there they went to the Russian Cathedral of Alexander Nevsky on Daru Street, where the wedding took place. The service was Orthodox.
Picasso was convinced that he would marry for life, and therefore an article was included in his marriage contract that their property was common. In the event of a divorce, this meant dividing it equally, including all the paintings.
Witnesses from the groom's side were Jean Cocteau, Marc Jacob and Guillaume Apollinaire, the great poet of France and Poland.
The wedding was magnificent, luxurious, and after it the young people left for their honeymoon.

19017

1921

In France, they settled in a small house in the Parisian suburb of Montrouge - with a maid, dogs, birds and a thousand other items that accompanied the artist everywhere. Olga spoke good French, although with a strong Russian accent, and loved to listen to long fantastic stories that Pablo told her
in Montrouge, he painted the famous "Portrait of Olga in an armchair", which is now exhibited in the Picasso Museum in Paris. Comparing it with a photograph taken at the moment of posing, it is easy to see that the artist somewhat embellished her features.

1917 Portrait d "Olga dans un fauteuil

In family life, Picasso did not lose his enormous capacity for work, striving for perfection. He painted portraits of Diaghilev, Stravinsky, Bakst, Cocteau. He drew Olga for his first lithograph, which was used for an invitation card to his exhibition.

On February 4, 1921, their son Paul (Paulo) was born. At 40, Picasso became a father for the first time. He made endless drawings of his son and wife, marking on them not only the day, but also the hour. All of them are made in the neoclassical style, and the women in his image resemble the Olympian deities.

1921

1921

Olga Picasso con el pequeño Paulo, 1923

The artist seemed to follow the advice of Van Gogh, who wrote in a letter to his brother Theo: "exaggerate the most essential." In those years, Picasso "Searchs in painting do not matter. Only finds are important ... We all know that art is not truth. Art is a lie, but this lie teaches us to comprehend the truth, at least the truth that we are, people able to comprehend."

Portraits of son Paulo

All his life his main passion was creativity, for the sake of which he was ready to sacrifice everything. Picasso often spoke of the 16th-century French ceramist Bernard de Palissy, who threw his furniture into the kiln to keep the fire going. Picasso was very fond of this story and saw in it a real example of "burning" in the name of art. He himself claimed that he would have thrown both his wife and children into the oven - if only the fire in it had not died out.
“Every time I change a woman,” Picasso said, “I have to burn the last one. Thus, I get rid of them. They will no longer be around me and complicate my life. This, perhaps, will also return my youth. By killing a woman, they destroy the past that she represents." The artist liked to repeat that only work and women prolong life.

Olga felt: Picasso began to change his artistic style. By the way, this was inherent in him: whenever he had a new woman, Pablo changed his creative manner. And now he stopped drawing ballerinas, began to be burdened by the acquaintances that his wife imposed on him, to shun Russian emigrants. Olga was in despair. She didn't know how to prevent the impending rift...

Picasso's heart was conquered by 17-year-old Frenchwoman Marie-Therese Walter. This girl with the face of a child by the time she met Pablo knew nothing about him and about art in general, she had completely different hobbies. But the already middle-aged artist was able to easily seduce the young beauty. Their passionate romance brought Olga incredible suffering.
The artist himself once said that he divides all women into “goddesses” and “floor mats”, according to this logic, Olga, with the advent of Marie-Therese, became the very “rug” that Pablo, without thinking, wiped his feet every day.

Picasso began to take out his hatred for her, in painting. In a series of paintings dedicated to bullfighting, he depicted her either as a horse or as an old vixen. Explaining later the reasons for their breakup, the artist will say: "She wanted too much from me ... It was the worst period in my life."
They did not divorce, so wanted Picasso not to share property
according to the marriage contract.
Due to strong experiences, Khokhlova began a nervous depression, with which she lived until the end of her days. Olga died in 1955 of cancer in Cannes and was buried in the local cemetery. Pablo didn't come to say goodbye to the woman he once idolized. He had a completely different life, there was no place in it for the former lover and mother of his son.

The Picasso Museum in Paris has more than a hundred of Olga's letters addressed to her husband, but so far access to them is closed.

PABLO PICASSO Woman Reading

On June 6, 1975, Paulo Picasso, the son of the artist and Olga, died at the age of 54 from cirrhosis of the liver caused by alcohol and drugs. His two children, Marina and Bernard, were among the heirs. All heirs were given the right to take one of the artist's works as a keepsake. Marina chose a painting depicting her very young grandmother, Olga Khokhlova.

1917