About Francoise
Today Gilot’s work is found in important museums globally, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and the Musee d’Art Moderne, Paris.
She was awarded the Officier de la Legion d’Honneur bestowed by the French government in 1990. Gilot has been called one of the most respected female artists of the 20th century.
An artist who is capturing the world how she sees it.
Gilot was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, to Émile Gilot and Madeleine Gilot (née Renoult). Her father was a businessman and agronomist, and her mother was a watercolor artist. Her father was a strict, well-educated man. Gilot began writing with her left hand as a young child, but at the age of four, her father forced her to write with her right hand. As a result, Gilot became ambidextrous. She decided at the age of five to become a painter. The following year her mother tutored her in art, beginning with watercolors and India ink. Gilot was then taught by her mother's art teacher, a Mademoiselle Meuge, for six years. Gilot had her first exhibition of paintings in Paris in 1943.
Gilot's father Emile wanted his daughter to be just as educated as he, and as a result, oversaw his daughter's education very closely. Gilot was tutored at home, beginning at a young age, and by the time she was six years old, she had a good knowledge of Greek mythology. When Gilot was seventeen, she attended the Sorbonne and the British Institute in Paris and had a baccalaureate degree in Philosophy. She received her English Literature degree from Cambridge University. At the age of 19, she abandoned her studies in law to devote her life to art. She was mentored by the artist Endre Rozsda.
At 21, Gilot met Pablo Picasso, then 61. Picasso first saw Gilot in a restaurant in the spring of 1943. After Picasso's and Gilot's meeting, she moved in with him in 1946. They spent almost ten years together, and those years revolved around art.
It was believed by some art historians that Gilot's relationship with Picasso is what cut short her artistic career. When Gilot left Picasso, he told all art dealers he knew not to purchase her art, whereas Gilot herself has noted that continuing to identify her in relation to Picasso "does her a great disservice as an artist."
Sneak Peek into the life of Francoise Gilot
Born in 1921 , Francoise was the only child Emile Gilot and Madeleine Renault-Gilot
Marie -Florence married Edmon Gilot (1856-1911)
Edmon was owned a well-known Paris shop that sold and specialized in imported and quite exotic foods. Also, later he became a photographer and among the first to produce “ colour photographs” which with upmost certain introduced Francoise to the world of “ colour” ever so prevalent in her paintings, whether the family DNA or surrounding of colour at a young age something triggered her vast array of colours yet to come.
“As a woman who was part of the School of Paris, she held her own ground”
said Lisa Tremper Hanover, interim director of operations for the Berman Museum, referring to the French and émigré artists who worked in Paris in the first half of the 20th century.
“Gilot’s language and vocabulary is one of modernism, she plays and experiments with unnatural form and color, particularly with the potential to evoke emotional responses in a viewer.”
said Deborah Barkun, creative director of the Berman Museum.