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©Pablo Picasso - Francoise Gilot with Paloma and Claude 1951

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Picasso met Françoise Gilot in May 1943 at Le Catalan, a popular restaurant and artists' haunt on the Left Bank. When he learned that Françoise--then twenty-one years old, exactly forty years Picasso's junior--was an aspiring painter, he invited her to his studio on the nearby rue des Grands-Augustins. She visited several times in the ensuing weeks, eager for advice and impatient to prove her talent. Picasso was taken with her vitality, intelligence, and passion for art, and as the war ended, Françoise found herself the most likely candidate for Picasso's next love interest, his relationship with Dora Maar having drawn to a bitter end.