NEW YORK — Françoise Gilot, a prolific and acclaimed painter who produced art for well more than a half-century but was nonetheless more famous for her turbulent relationship with Pablo Picasso — and for leaving him — died Tuesday in New York City, where she had lived for decades. She was 101.
Gilot’s daughter, Aurelia Engel, told The Associated Press her mother had died at Mount Sinai West hospital after suffering both lung and heart problems. “She was an extremely talented artist, and we will be working on her legacy and the incredible paintings and works she is leaving us with,” Engel said.
The French-born Gilot had long made her frustration clear that despite acclaim for her art, which she produced from her teenage years until five years ago, she would still be best known for her relationship with the older and more famous Picasso, whom she met in 1943 at age 21, his junior by four decades. The union produced two children — Claude and Paloma Picasso. But unlike the other key women in Picasso’s life — wives or paramours — Gilot eventually walked out.
“He never saw it coming,” Engel said of her mother’s departure. “She was there because she loved him and because she really believed in that incredible passion of art which they both shared. (But) she came as a free, though very, very young, but very independent person.”