3. Picasso Frightened Women
Lady Caroline Blackwood, the renowned author and English noble, visited Picasso in his studio in the 1950s. In this period, he was creating pin-up style art that featured an autobiographical portrait leering at young women. Upon reaching the top floor of the studio, he lunged at her.
She later reflected, “All I felt was fear. I kept saying, ‘Go down the stairs, go down.’ He said, ‘No, no, we are together above the roofs of Paris.’ It was so absurd, and to me, Picasso was just as old as the hills, an old letch, genius or no.”
Lady Blackwood was a notoriously strong-willed woman with a dry wit who spoke directly. She added the ominous insight “And to think how many people he had up there.” It is no surprise that a wealthy, well-connected daughter of a Marquess and published author would feel comfortable both resisting Picasso’s advances and speaking of them publicly later, but it does cause one to wonder how many ingenues visited his studio wishing to see his art only to encounter similarly aggressive behavior.
Lady Blackwood, born Caroline Maureen Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood to the 4th Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, had a fascinating life. After an unhappy childhood, she married the painter Lucien Freud and was the model for his Girl in Bed. She also married the composer Israel Citkowitz. Her final marriage was to the poet Robert Lowell who described her as “a mermaid who dines upon the bones of her winded lovers,” not unlike some descriptions of Picasso himself.