Muse bulletin
Hidden Portraits Sue Roe (Faber, £25)
NOBODY leaves a man like me,” Pablo Picasso is reputed to have thundered in 1953 in response to his then partner Françoise Gilot’s suggestion that, due to the artist’s repeated infidelities, it might in fact be better all round if she were to, ‘ow you say, buggeur off. Picasso was, for once, wrong. Gilot upped sticks, married a buff young Frenchman and later wrote a wildly successful memoir (1964’s Life with Picasso). Le nerve!
Picasso never forgave her, his enduring huff almost certainly compounded by the fact that, unlike his other ex-inamoratas, Gilot’s happiness and financial stability did not appear to depend on the irascible old tart.