![]() The paintings embodying the loneliness of these desperate, mistreated women. Picasso’s “Woman with Bonnet” (1901), “Two Sisters,” “Mother and Child” (1902), and “Melancholy Woman” were all inspired by his visits to the prison. ![]() Women who had venereal disease were singled out with white bonnets. The Saint-Lazare prison was situated near Montmartre and mainly housed prostitutes, some with their children. The women’s prison in Saint Lazare presented Picasso with scenes of deprivation, depression and helplessness that captured his feelings in a real and tangible way and initiated a series of paintings on motherhood which he continued to paint on his return to Barcelona. Traumatized by the death of his friend, the consequent sadness Picasso suffered in the aftermath revealed itself in this new approach to his painting. Many of the paintings on display in the Musée d’Orsay’s Picasso: Bleu et Rose exhibition depict Casagemas: “La Vie” and “Death of Casagemas”– a stark portrait of Casagemas’s head in death. On his return from Barcelona, Picasso moved into Casagemas’s studio on the Boulevard de Clichy. He died the next day in the hospital Bichat. Believing he’d wounded her, Casagemas shot himself in the head. Picasso was in Barcelona when in the Café de L’Hippodrome on the Boulevard de Clichy, Casagemas in a fit of jealousy, drew his gun on Gargallo. Their ‘affair’– ill-fated from the start since Casagemas was impotent and Gargallo fairly liberal with her favors– was to end tragically. Casagemas, an innovative and highly talented artist, fell in love with Germaine Gargallo. ![]() The two young artists from Catalan had first met in the Café Els Quatre Gats in Barcelona in 1899 and moved to Montmartre in 1901. Profoundly affected by Casagemas’ suicide, Picasso began painting in blue. In 1901, Picasso’s Blue Period coincided with the death of his close friend, Carlos Casagemas, and his first visit to the Saint-Lazare women’s prison near Montmartre. To coincide with the Musée d’Orsay’s hugely popular exhibition dedicated to Pablo Picasso’s blue and rose periods, we dive into the great artist’s time in Paris…
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