Françoise Gilot was a French painter who formed part of the School of Paris, which flourished in France’s capital after World War II. Her art career spanned eight decades, and her paintings show a constant experiment with colour and form. Gilot also had a 10-year relationship with Pablo Picasso, which she documented in a best-selling memoir from 1964 called Life with Picasso.
She was born in the Parisian suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1921. Her father was an agronomist, and her mother a ceramicist. The former wanted Gilot to take up a career in law, and was furious when she abandoned legal studies to attend the Académie Julian and become an artist instead.
Her first exhibition took place in 1943, the same year she met Picasso. Gilot would go on to describe their tempestuous relationship as ‘a catastrophe I didn’t want to avoid’. The Spaniard had an impact on her early work: in her distortions of the human figure, for example, though Gilot’s tended to be more lyrical and less violent than his.
She also produced many self-portraits during her time with Picasso. These are sometimes interpreted as an attempt to repossess her own image, given that Gilot frequently served as his model and muse.
The saturated colour of Henri Matisse’s art was another influence on Gilot at around this time. Her painting from 1953, Concert on the Green (Le Concert Champêtre), fetched €1.31 million at Christie’s in 2024, setting a record for the highest price ever paid for a work by Gilot at auction.
In the 1960s, she embraced abstraction and produced one of her best-known series, ‘Labyrinth’, comprising 50 canvases inspired by the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. In 1970, she married Jonas Salk, the American virologist who had developed the world’s first successful polio vaccine. The pair would remain together until his death 25 years later.
Gilot was a skilled printmaker, regularly working in techniques such as lithography and aquatint. In 1980, she began making her so-called ‘Floating Paintings’, canvases painted on both sides, which hang away from a wall and seem almost to float in mid-air.
In 2009, Gilot was named an Officer of the Legion of Honour by the French state. She died in 2023, aged 101.
FRANCOISE GILOT (1921-2023)
The Gordian Knot
FRANCOISE GILOT (1921-2023)
Meadow in the Sunshine
Françoise Gilot (1921-2023)
Concert on the Green (Le Concert Champêtre)
FRANÇOISE GILOT (B. 1921)
Living Forest
Françoise Gilot (b. 1921)
Claude et Paloma en Tunisie
法兰诗瓦.吉洛
生生不息的森林
法朗索瓦斯·吉洛(法国,1921年生)
穿突尼西亚裙子的保拉
Françoise Gilot (B. 1921)
Soleil et récifs
Françoise Gilot (b. 1921)
Oreste enfant
Francoise Gilot (b. 1921)
Claude et Paloma dans le jardin
Françoise Gilot (b. 1921)
La Hotte (Country Kitchen)
Françoise Gilot (née en 1921)
Nature morte au sécateur
Francoise Gilot (b. 1921)
La Réponse
FRANÇOISE GILOT (B. 1921)
Les soleils, tournesols
Françoise Gilot (French, b. 1921)
Untitled
Françoise Gilot (b. 1921)
Les amants
Françoise Gilot (B. 1921)
Vase au pois et bourgeon de pavot
Francoise Gilot (b. 1921)
Portrait de Paula
Francoise Gilot (b. 1921)
Danseuse devant un miroir
Francoise Gilot (b. 1921)
Vue de la Seine à Paris
Francoise Gilot (b. 1921) and Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
Owl necklace and ring
FRANCOISE GILOT (b. 1921)
"Per Aspera ad Astra"
Francoise Gilot (b. 1921)
Les Adolescents
Françoise Gilot (b. 1921)
Woman Yoyo
Françoise Gilot (B. 1921)
Tournesols dans le vent d'ouest
Francoise Gilot (b. 1921)
Le Thé
Françoise Gilot (b. 1921)
Le grand canal de Venise
Francoise Gilot (b. 1921)
Harmonie en rouge
Francoise Gilot (b. 1921)
Deux femmes
Françoise Gilot (Née en 1921)
La fleur
Francoise Gilot (b. 1921)
Deux amies
Francoise Gilot (b. 1921)
Magic Games
Françoise Gilot (b. 1921)
Vivre avec Picasso
Françoise Gilot (née en 1921)
Autoportrait au téléphone
Francoise Gilot (b. 1921)
Un arbre près de ruines grecques
Françoise Gilot (b. 1921)
Abstract Composition in Grey
FRANÇOISE GILOT (b. 1921)
From Yellow To Red
Françoise Gilot (b. 1921)
The Pool
Françoise Gilot (B. 1921)
Soleils et pétales
FRANÇOISE GILOT (b. 1921)
Window on Another Dimension
Françoise Gilot (French, b. 1921)
Nature Morte a L'Oeillet, Still Life with Pink Carnation
Francoise Gilot (b. 1921)
Autoportrait avec collier bleu
Françoise Gilot (b. 1921)
Free Wheels
Françoise Gilot (Neuilly-sur-Seine - Née en 1921)
Tug Boat at Tower Bridge
Françoise Gilot (French, b. 1921)
La tranche de pastèque
Francoise Gilot (b. 1921)
The Idol, The Child and Tulips
Françoise Gilot (b.1921)
Nature morte avec fleurs
Françoise Gilot (French, b. 1921)
Self Portrait of the Artist