Picasso’s grandson and of his partner and muse, Marie-Thérèse Walter, stands up for the famous painter, 50 years after his death – a momentous anniversary that has inspired a series of exhibitions around the world.

Pablo Picasso was a notorious ‘womanizer’, known for mistreating his mistresses and even encouraged them to… fight each other. However, the artist’s grandson, Olivier Widmaier Picasso, claimed that these women knew what they were getting into and that some of his partners, including his grandmother, “enjoyed” the intensity of their relationship with him.

Picasso’s legacy has been the subject of study for years. 2023, marking the 50th anniversary of his death, has been the subject of much controversy over how his work is discussed. More than 40 exhibitions are organized across Spain, France, the USA, Germany, Romania and other countries as part of the ‘Picasso Celebration 1973-2023’, an annual program of events organized by the French and Spanish governments.

Widmaeir Picasso, a television producer, told the Observer magazine that his grandmother Marie-Thérèse Walter – who appears in many of Picasso’s works – described the artist as “beautifully awful” and fondly recalled the excitement she felt when she was with him. Picasso was still married to ex-ballerina Olga Khokhlova when he spotted Walter, then just 17, outside the Galeries Lafayette in Paris in 1927. Struck by Picasso, who was 28 years her senior, the model became a muse as well as his mistress, until he abandoned her (and their daughter, Maya) for the surrealist photographer and painter Dora Maar.

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