Gallimard
Gallimard Musée national Picasso - Paris
From 1917 to 1935, Pablo Picasso shared his life with Olga Khokhlova, a dancer with the Ballets Russes whom he married in 1918. Until her death in 1955, Olga would carry the memory of their life together in a large steamer truck containing memorabilia from her career as a ballerina, along with many letters sent by her family that remained in Russia, and dozens of photographs from these years: Olga with Picasso, Olga with their son Paul, society events, trips to Barcelona, Naples, and Monte Carlo. These documents, some of which have never been published before, cast a new light on Olga’s extraordinary destiny, the artistic output of the painter during this period, and the influence of his first wife over his work, long beyond their separation. Paintings, drawings, and etchings—from the classical portrayal of a pensive, melancholy woman, absorbed in reading sad news from her family, to the violent portrayals of the late 1920s—illustrate the dark metamorphosis to which the artist subjected his model and his own work, paralleling the changes in their married life over time.