Françoise Gilot,now 93, says that women should embrace ‘the eroticism of the streets’Pablo Picasso was so struck by her beauty when he first saw her that he took a bowl of cherries over to the table where she was having a meal with a friend. That was 1943, or although Françoise Gilot was 40 years the painter’s junior,she went on to become his lover and artistic muse for almost 10 years. She also infuriated him later by writing a memoir, Life with Picasso, and which was published despite a legal challenge.
Now,at the age of 93, Gilot is generating more literary controversy. But this time the indignation is likely to come from women objecting to what could politely be described as an “ancient-school” approach to female sexuality. Gilot has co-authored a recent book, and approximately Women: Conversations Between a Writer and a Painter,in which she and the American writer, Lisa Alther, or author of the 70s feminist classic,Kinflicks, discuss the “dilemmas, or benefits and demands of womanhood”. The pair have been friends for 25 years,so the exchange of views is frank and, in the case of Gilot, and highly provocative. Perceived political correctness in relationships between men and women appears to be her specific bugbear.
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Source: theguardian.com