Since the 1980s, several controversial works have painted negative portraits of the idol of modern art, whose work has been nourished by his relationships with the women in his life.

Fernande Olivier, Olga Khokhlova, Marie-Thérèse Walter, Dora Maar, Françoise Gilot, Jacqueline Roque... so many "muses" with names cited many times in the history of art, who speak of "identities, personalities very different" and "relationships on which my grandfather never spoke publicly," Olivier Widmaier-Picasso told AFP.

The latter devoted two books to the painter, born in 1881 in Malaga (Spain) and died in 1973 in France, in Mougins, "by questioning his still living entourage and the family archives" to "set the record straight".

- "Missing" work -

"There were ascents, descents, violent works, others very tender, very gentle, we realize each time that after having exhausted his inspiration, he moves on to something else", adds the son of Maya Widmaier-Picasso, born of the union of the Spanish artist with Marie-Thérèse Walter, a "privileged confidante of his father until the 1950s", according to him.

"Without his women, the work would be missing."

"#MeToo damaged the artist", recognizes Cécile Debray, director of the Picasso museum in Paris, questioned by AFP on a feminist podcast created by Julie Beauzac, including an episode devoted to Pablo Picasso ("Separating the man from the 'artist') was followed by 250,000 people.

Pablo Picasso and Françoise Gilot in November 1948 in Paris - AFP/Archives

However, there is no question of approaching the subject "in a frontal and unequivocal way", continues the director of the museum.

This podcast gives the floor to Sophie Chauveau, journalist and author of "Picasso, the Minotaur" who describes, she told AFP, "the irresistible and devastating hold of genius on those who loved him".

Ms. Chauveau claims to have investigated "for years" without however having access to the family archives.

She evokes a "brilliant" painter as much as a "violent", "jealous", "perverse" and "destructive" man, "great seducer" not hesitating to conquer and abuse very young women.

"Assertions without reference to historical, approximate and anachronistic sources", deplores Ms. Debray.

- "Idol to tear down" -

"The attack is all the more violent because Picasso is the most famous and popular figure in modern art. An idol that must be destroyed," adds Ms. Debray.

Picasso's descendants never attacked the book, preferring "not to shed any additional light on it", according to Olivier Widmaier-Picasso.

Pablo Picasso and Jacqueline Roque in October 1961 in Vallauris ANDRE VILLERS AFP/Archives

“How do you resist such a personality?” he wonders.

"There are those who got away with it and some who struggled. I don't think it was voluntary and conscious, I think he had such a creative force that he is devoted to his art from an early age and finally, at the end of his life, he was facing the canvas all alone and did not need anyone, "he adds.

However, it is impossible to avoid a debate, he concedes, like the two representatives of the museums in Paris and Barcelona.

But "you have to show the work in a didactic, rich and varied way, in its formal radicalness, through a broad presentation of the collection and by inviting contemporary looks", explains Ms. Debray.

Among these looks: the French artist Orlan and her series "The crying women are angry", which offers a rereading of the work of Picasso "to put the woman-subject at the center", the Belgian visual artist Farah Atassi, who re-examines the question of the painter and his model, or the French visual artist Sophie Calle, programmed in Paris.

“This reflection on Picasso and the feminist or feminine gaze on his work is an eminently current debate, which must not be diverted or caricatured”, adds Mr. Guigon.

In Barcelona the Picasso Museum has launched a series of workshops and symposia inviting specialists, art historians and sociologists to offer a multiplicity of points of view on the work, which are also highlighted by exhibitions devoted to Picasso's sister. , Lola Ruiz-Picasso, or Brigitte Baer, ​​an art historian specializing in Picasso's engravings.

© 2022 AFP