Thérèse Walter (July 13, 1907, Le Perreux, France, - October 20, 1977, Juan-les-Pins, France) was a French woman, who was mistress of Pablo Picasso, and the mother of his daughter, Maya Picasso. She first met Picasso on 8th of January 1927 in front of the Galeries Lafayette, Paris (author Herbert T. Schwartz dates the first meeting back to January, 1925, at Gare St-Lazare, Paris; author Roy MacGregor-Hastie dates the first meeting up to 8th of January 1928). From 1927 onwards Marie-Thérèse Walter stayed close to Picasso's family without his wife, Olga Khokhlova, realizing what was occurring. From 1930 she stayed in a house opposite to Picasso's at Rue La Boétie 44. In July 1930, Picasso bought a castle at Boisgeloup close to Gisors in the Normandie, which he used as studio for sculptures mainly. Marie was the unseen shadow of the family and became his model and muse for both paintings and sculptures. For some years their love affair was kept secret until Olga was told of Marie's pregnancy by a friend. Olga and her son Paulo Picasso immediately moved to the South of France. Picasso's and Marie's daughter Maria de la Concepcion (Maya) was born on September 5, 1935. Picasso and Olga never were divorced, because Picasso wanted to avoid the even division of property dictated by French law, but they lived separately until Olga died in 1955. Marie stayed together with Picasso at Juan-Les-Pins in South of France from March 25 to May 14 in 1936, and then at Le Tremblay-sur-Mauldre, 25 km from Versailles, where Picasso visited them during the weekends and on some days of the week to play with his daughter. Maya also became model for some of his paintings. Marie-Thérèse became jealous when Picasso started to fall in love with Dora Maar in 1936. Once both ladies met accidentally in Picasso' studio (when he was painting Guernica). Picasso asked them, "Why don't you fight for me?" Indeed they started wrestling, and the artist became amused. While Dora is painted dark and in pain as "Woman in Tears", Marie-Thérèse is blonde and bright on Picasso's works of art, just the opposite. In 1940, Marie and Maya moved to Paris, Boulevard Henri IV no 1, since the house at Le Tremblay-sur-Mauldre was occupied during World War II. Picasso supported Marie and Maya financially, but he never married Marie. On October 20, 1977, four years after Picasso's death, Marie-Thérèse committed suicide by hanging herself in the garage at Juan-les-Pins, South of France.
Trivia
- Le Reve, a 1932 portrait of Marie-Thérèse, was purchased by Steve Wynn in 1997 for $48.4 million. Wynn agreed to sell Le Reve to Steven A. Cohen for $139 million, but while showing the painting to friends in his Las Vegas office, Wynn accidentally punctured a hole in the canvas with his elbow, scuppering the sale.
External links
- http://www.tamu.edu/mocl/picasso/biog/photmthere.html
- http://www.insecula.com/contact/A009008.html
- http://www.insecula.com/contact/A009015.html
- http://home.hccnet.nl/att.leurs/kbd120.html (dutch)
Literature
- Olivier Widmaier Picasso (grandson of Picasso and Marie-Thérèse (Maya's son)). PICASSO: The Real Family Story. Prestel Publ. 2004. 320 p. ISBN 3-79133-149-3 (biography)
Picasso at Wiktionary • 
Picasso at Wikibooks • 
Picasso at Wikiquote •
Picasso at Wikisource • 
Picasso at Commons • 
Picasso at Wikinews
