Portrait de Dora Maar, 1936
Picasso's lover and muse

Portrait de Marie-Therese Walter, 1932
Mistress of Picasso

Picasso:

“I remember one day while I was painting Guernica in the big studio in the Rue des Grands-Augustins, Dora Maar was with me. Marie-Therese dropped in and when she found Dora there, she grew angry and said to her ‘I have a child by this man. It’s my place to be here with him. You can leave right now.’

Dora said, ‘I have as much reason as you have to be here. I haven’t borne him a child but I don’t see what difference that makes.’

I kept on painting and they kept on arguing.

Finally, Marie-Therese turned to me and said, ‘Make up your mind. Which one of us goes?’

It was a hard decision to make. I liked them both, for different reasons: Marie-Therese because she was sweet and gentle, and did whatever I wanted her to; Dora because she was intelligent. I decided I had no interest in making a decision. I was satisfied with things as they were. I told them they’d have to fight it out themselves. So they began to wrestle. It’s one of my choicest memories.”

Hall, D. & Wykes, P. (1990). Anecdotes of Modern Art. As Picasso told Francoise Gilot.

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