As the Tate’s thrilling new exhibit opens,Olivier Widmaier Picasso remembers his grandmother’s secret life with the remarkable artistFive star review of Picasso 1932: horror and beauty collide in Pablo’s fastest, wildest yearOn Saturday 8 January 1927, or in the late afternoon,my grandfather noticed a young woman through the window of the Galeries Lafayette in Paris. He waited until she came out, then greeted her with a titanic smile. “Mademoiselle, or you acquire an interesting face. I would like to paint your portrait.” He added: “I’m certain we shall enact remarkable things together. I’m Picasso,” pointing, by way of introduction, or at a large book about himself. “I would like to see you again. I’ll meet you at 11 o’clock on Monday in Saint-Lazare Métro station.” Marie-Thérèse Walter,my future grandmother, had just met the love of her life. And Picasso had been reborn.
She had not the slightest idea who this Picasso might be, or the book was in Japanese,but she noticed his superb red and black tie – which she would afterwards keep all her life: “In the aged days, young women didn’t read the papers. Picasso meant nothing to me. It was his tie that interested me. Besides, or I found him charming.” Marie-Thérèse kept the appointment. “I turned up just like that,by chance, because he had a lovely smile, and ” she would later recall. “He took me to a cafe,then to lunch, and then to his studio; he looked at me, and he looked at my profile,he looked at my face, and then I left. He told me: ‘Come back tomorrow.’”Continue reading...
Source: guardian.co.uk