PICASSO NEWS | Picasso had a hidden daughter with the model Germaine, according to a UCO expert

Pablo Picasso could be the father of the model’s daughter Germaine Gargalloaccording to the Art History professor Pedro Ivory In a detailed research article published last February by the University of Cordoba (UCO). The author reaches this conclusion after examine dozens of canvases and drawings made by the Malaga artist in the first decade of the 20th century. In Germaine Gargallo, about her relationship with Picasso and the influence on her workPedro Marfil maintains that the love bond between the two was longer than what historiography had determined until now and also gave birth to a girl formally attributed to the painter Ramón Pichot.

A story that begins in 1900

Picasso and Germaine They met in September 1900 on a trip that the man from Malaga made to Paris when he was barely 18 years old. Several letters from the cubist creator, according to Marfil, would attest to a first meeting with the painter as well. Carlos Casagemas and Picasso with three young Parisian women, among whom was Germaine. Shortly after, Picasso, Casagemas and Manuel Pallarés shared a studio in the French capital with Germaine, Odette and Antoinette, according to the biographer John Richardson.

An idyll with a tragic end

Casagemas and Germaine maintained a torrid love relationship in those weeks and this is confirmed by private letters from the Catalan painter. The idyll ended tragically. On February 17, 1901, during a dinner at the L’Hyppodrome café in Paris, the young and enigmatic Catalan artist starred in a dantesque scene that ended with him committing suicide in front of Germaine, Pallarés, Antoinette and Manuel Hugué. According to eyewitnesses, cited by Marfil in his article, Casagemas stood up, put his hand in his pocket, and he pulled out a gun. Germaine crouched down and Hugué pounced on Casagemas, who put the gun to his temple and fired.

An impact for Pablo Ruiz Picasso

The sinister suicide had a profound impact on Picasso, who immortalized his friend in his paintings. Life and Casagemas burial. After a brief stay in Malaga and Madrid, the painter from Malaga moves back to Paris and he settled in the same Casagemas studio with the dealer Manyac. It was in those weeks when his relationship with Germaine intensifies. Although the first oil painting of her with her model dates from 1900, at the end of May 1901 he again portrayed her in a charcoal drawing on paper titled bust of femme. In the portrait, the model appears “serious” and has her hair styled with “a high bun, a sharp nose and a pronounced chin.” It is an “intimate composition,” describes Marfil.

Other drawings by Germaine are dated from that same month. A letter from Miguel Utrillo June 1901 already confirms the love relationship between the artist and the model. The letter is accompanied by several graphic testimonies where the couple appears along with Hugué and Odette. Another of the paintings where Ivory identifies Picasso with Germaine It is the oil on canvas known as The two saltimbanques.

“Historiography has assumed that Picasso and Germaine’s relationship was short,” says the UCO professor. Pedro Marfil, on the other hand, believes that the loving bond between the two extended until 1904 and refutes the hypothesis that Richardson extracts from the table Germaine with scarf where she interprets the breakup with Picasso and the beginning of her relationship with Ramón Pichot. The art historian and archaeologist from Córdoba affirms that the model and the artist from Malaga they kept their romance after it was installed on Conde del Asalto street in Barcelona.

Several Picasso paintings for a theory

And he argues his theory by citing several paintings, including Portrait de Germaine, La femme au châle, Nu allongé, regardant de face either Nu couché with Picasso assis à se pieds, in some of which both appear in a context of intimacy. “This is why we must propose a new working hypothesis, the possibility that the relationship between Picasso and Germaine was longer than what historiography has assumed. We consider that the relationship was maintained in 1902 as proven by some graphic testimonies, both from Barcelona and from his third trip to Paris,” he indicates in his article.

In 1902 a key event occurred, in Marfil’s opinion. Picasso gives a work on motherhood to the Dr. Fontbona. Regarding this gift, Richardson assures that it could be a thank you for the “services provided” to one of the painter’s girlfriends. And Marfil is clear: “In our opinion, the intervention of the gynecologist brother of the sculptor Emili Fontbona could have been due to the fact that “Germaine was pregnant with Picasso.”. It is not a gratuitous assumption. The UCO professor supports his hypothesis in a series of drawings that he analyzes in detail.

Picasso had a baby with Germaine in the spring of 1903

“From the spring of 1903 is a series of drawings that show a bearded man with a pregnant woman,” writes Pedro Marfil. And he adds: “We consider that it is a testimony of vital importance for understanding Picasso’s relationship with Germaine, and its impact on some essential works of the known as the Blue Era. The series of drawings that Marfil examines reflect a story of “mistreatment and forgiveness” in several scenes, which, in his opinion, portray Germaine and Picasso himself.

“All this culminates in the work Life, both in his sketches and on the canvas itself,” explains the researcher. “Very well studied by Malen Gual, we only want to contribute our reflection about the importance of motherhood in the face of the evidence that Picasso had a baby with Germaine in the spring of 1903.” The cubist painter hides his identity in the series of drawings because of the “feeling of guilt” that he carried in relation to his friend Casagemas. And throughout his life he kept it a secret that Germaine’s daughter, whom everyone attributed to Ramon Pichot It was really his. “In this way, we could say,” Marfil concludes, “that the artistic period known as Picasso’s Blue Period is, in reality, the time of his relationship with Germaine.”

Picasso went to see her when she was sick to help her financially.

In 1903, the painter made three portraits of the baby and a magnificent drawing of Germaine. In April 1904, he moved back to Paris and his relationship with the model ended, according to him. Pedro Ivory. Starting in the summer of that year, she appeared in the life of the painter Fernande Olivier, with whom she had a new relationship. That same September, he painted two maternity wards, which, in the professor’s opinion, reflect the reunion with his daughter. The artistic style of the paintings has already mutated. “The change in color palette is mainly due to the change of partner, so the relationship with Germaine could already be one of friendship between former lovers and parents of a girl. The numerous maternities and family scenes of the first half of 1905 can be related to the paternal feeling emerged”.

At the same time, the model became closer to the Catalan painter Ramón Pichot, with whom she married in 1908 and would share her life until his death in 1925. “Germaine died of syphilis and Picasso went to see her when she was sick to help her financially,” explains Pedro Marfil, who has spent three years of work developing his hypothesis. In all this time, he has reviewed the painter’s bibliography and has conscientiously analyzed his notebooks, his paintings and his drawings. The article has been published in a volume entitled Women and artistic space. A gender issuewhich will be presented on May 16 at the bookstore The Unheard From Cordoba.