Pablo Picasso and Olga Khokhlova met in a professional space and sparked a real connection. They crossed paths while collaborating on the ballet Passage by Sergei Diaghilev, where Olga crafted costumes, designed the sets, and danced with the renowned Russian Ballet. Picasso was 35; Khokhlova was just nineteen, beginning a life that would intertwine art and personal history in surprising ways.
The ballet premiered in Paris on May 18, 1917. After a tour of South America, Olga remained behind as Picasso brought his love to his hometown to meet relatives. A little over a year later, the couple formalized their partnership. At Olga’s insistence, they tied the knot in the capital city’s principal Orthodox church, the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral.
Olga arrived at the wedding with a walking stick, a reminder of a recent leg injury. She would soon retire from ballet due to ongoing health issues and because Picasso, who had become her husband, opposed continuing her career.
First years after marriage
The newlyweds spent their honeymoon in the coastal town of Biarritz, nestled in southwest France, staying at the villa of Chilean philanthropist Eugenia Errazuriz. Olga’s leg trouble kept her largely in bed, while Picasso kept himself busy painting the room where his wife slept, leaving nothing untouched by his brushwork.
Back in Paris, the couple settled into a two-story apartment. The first floor served as their living space, and the second floor functioned as a studio where Picasso created works that he would later help sell through neighbors and the famed art dealer Paul Rosenberg.
Picasso’s charisma and genius soon thrust them into Paris’s social elite. They hosted gatherings with the city’s fashionable crowd and frequented salons. Olga remained in Paris, gradually losing contact with her family as political upheaval rippled through the era.
Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, the artist’s grandson, recalled that in 1919 he learned his grandfather’s father, a general in the tsarist army, was missing, his brothers were involved in civil conflict, and his mother and sister were left starving. These details surfaced in a conversation with Forbes, illustrating the distant reach of world events into Picasso’s private life.
Olga’s experiences left a visible mark on the artist’s work. He portrayed her with a quiet, contemplative gravity, her head bowed and eyes downcast, as if to capture the weight of their evolving relationship.
The birth of a son and family tensions
On February 4, 1921, Pablo and Olga welcomed their first child, Paulo. The arrival briefly rekindled warmth between the couple, but it also signaled the onset of deeper strains within the marriage. Olga immersed herself in motherhood, while Picasso painted portraits of his wife and child, compositions that radiated domestic affection even as tensions simmered beneath the surface.
Over time, family pressures gnawed at the union. Olga sought to stabilize their finances by supporting Picasso with money and work, yet the efforts did not bear fruit. The death of Olga’s mother, Lydia, in 1927, from a heart attack, deepened the family sorrow. Olga never expected to reunite with her mother and sister, who faced hardship during tumultuous times.
Betrayal
The strain in the home grew as Picasso redirected his energy toward new fascinations on canvas. Realistic depictions gradually yielded to surreal imagery, mirroring the emotional distance opening between husband and wife. A second major complication emerged when Picasso began a relationship with a younger model, Marie-Therese Walter, who was 17 at the time they met. The affair began discreetly but would repeatedly intrude into the family’s life.
Walter briefly joined the couple on family vacations, and Picasso later arranged for her to live near them in Paris, keeping the situation discreet. On September 5, 1935, Walter gave birth to Picasso’s daughter, Maya. Olga learned of the child and, with her son in tow, left the marriage and filed for divorce, though the formal dissolution was never completed.
As Bernard Ruiz-Picasso explained, the union’s formalities were complicated by broader political issues. The couple had married in the Russian Orthodox Church in Paris, yet the legal framework of their divorce was affected by Franco’s rise to power after the 1936 coup, making a straightforward divorce difficult to pursue. The broader financial and property arrangements also played a role in how the separation unfolded.
Rumors persisted that Picasso resisted dissolution to avoid splitting property, though the truth remains part of the enduring mystery surrounding the couple’s later years.
The tragic end
Public perception suggests Olga’s inner turmoil intensified after the split. She believed Picasso continued to pursue new passions, even as she pleaded with his family and sent photos to reconnect. By the early 1950s, Olga faced cancer and sought treatment in Cannes, but the illness proved unyielding. On February 11, 1955, Madame Picasso died at 63.
Picasso did not attend the funeral. He lived on for another 18 years, later marrying again and having two additional children from outside the marriage. Marie-Therese Walter, the mother of Picasso’s daughter Maya, reportedly died by suicide four years after Picasso’s death, a stark coda to a life marked by immense creativity and personal upheaval.