32’’ X 24’’
Acrylic on Canvas
2016
In my interpretation of Picasso’s girlfriend Marie-Therese Walter, one sees an eye reflecting innocence and surprise, while the other eye is in shadow, showing deliberation and danger. The right eye is how Marie-Therese saw the world when she met Picasso at age 17. The left eye is her experienced self after being mistreated and separated from the master for so many years. Picasso kept their relationship a secret during his marriage to Olga Khokhlova, almost the entire time he and Walter were together, 1927-35. Eventually, he split with Marie-Therese for the Surrealist Photographer Dora Maar.
In 1977 at the age of 68, Marie-Therese committed suicide.