10. Picasso’s granddaughter described him in an unforgiving way, hinting that years of abuse may have led two lovers to crippling depression.
Picasso’s own granddaughter, Marina Picasso, unflinchingly described the brutal nature of her grandfather’s relationships with women when she said, “He submitted them to his animal sexuality, tamed them, bewitched them, ingested them, and crushed them onto his canvas. After he had spent many nights extracting their essence, once they were bled dry, he would dispose of them.”
With this description in mind, it is unsurprising that two of Picasso’s lovers ultimately took their own lives after being subject to years of the abuse described by his granddaughter. The extremely submissive mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter, who had an illegitimate child with Picasso, killed herself four years after his death. She, like Jacqueline Roque, appeared to be content sacrificing everything of herself to exist as a muse for Picasso. She even lived in secrecy for almost a decade to hide her relationship with Picasso while he navigated his first marriage in the public eye.
Jacqueline Roque, his second wife, is often described as being much like Walter in that she existed to be a muse for Picasso and was extremely dedicated to him. Roque eventually shot herself in the home she had shared with Picasso 13 years after his death. A biographer famously quipped that both “Marie-Thérèse and Jacqueline were evidently prepared to sacrifice themselves on the altar of his art.”