Madame Picasso Book Review

Madame Picasso by Anne Girard (Mira; August 26, 2014; $14.95)

Combining her main character’s own correspondence and Pablo Picasso’s art with her historian’s keen eye for detail, author Anne Girard has woven a brilliant fact-based story about the artist’s first true love, Eva Gouel. This little-known figure had a huge impact on Picasso’s art, inspiring his style and even helping to broker better deals with his agents.

Madame Picasso begins with spirited Eva, newly living in Paris in 1911, landing her dream job: seamstress at the famous Moulin Rouge. Eva isn’t a naive country bumpkin, though; she reads the poetry of the time, by men like Guillaume Apollinaire and Max Jacob, and appreciates art and new ideas. When she meets the famous artist (and womanizer) Pablo Picasso, and begins a steamy affair with him, she doesn’t fool herself into thinking she is his one and only. Eventually, though, Picasso realizes that Eva is the only woman for him and he devotes himself to her and their life together. 

Not just a passionate love story, Madame Picasso takes readers on an incredible journey to Paris during a cultural renaissance and introduces the modern thinkers and artists of the day, such as Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas, Henri Matisse, Isadora Duncan and Sarah Bernhardt. It also helps us to understand what drove the artist himself; his personal demons and fears, his heartbreak and obsessions.

Anne Girard crafted the story by reading letters between Eva and Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas, and stationery that Eva and Pablo shared, “playfully adding to each other’s thoughts.” Her greatest delight in telling this tale was “spending time with one of Pablo Picasso’s last living friends, a man who was able to share stories with me about Picasso the tender and generous man, rather than the mythical figure he seems to have become for the world.”

Madame Picasso was a thoroughly enjoyable book which inspired me to read more about Pablo Picasso and research his art. Eva Gouel was a real-life trailblazer whose amazing story will stay with me for a long time to come.