As has been confirmed to the New York Times by the artist’s daughter, Aurelia Engel, Françoise Gilot has died in Manhattan at the age of 101. Gilot, who was active as an artist for eight decades, continued to paint well into her 90s.

Gilot was born in the Parisian suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1921. Her father encouraged her to pursue a career in law and by the age of 17 she had already received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Paris. However, from a very young age she was drawn to creating art and was taught to paint with watercolours and India ink by her mother. As a young adult in occupied Paris, she took private art lessons with the fugitive Hungarian Jewish artist Endre Rozsda and studied at the renowned Académie Julian, where artists such as Duchamp and Matisse had taken classes before her.

At the age of 21, Gilot was introduced to Pablo Picasso at Le Catalan restaurant in Paris. Picasso was forty years older than Gilot at the time. The pair began a relationship which lasted the best part of a decade, with Gilot having two children with the Spanish artist; Claude and Paloma Picasso. In 1953, Gilot decided to leave Picasso. In 1964, she published a memoir of the relationship Life with Picasso, in which she cited the physical and emotional abuse she had suffered at the hands of her older partner, whose mistreatment of women is now well known. The book became an international bestseller, although many supporters of Picasso criticised the publication; Picasso himself ended all contact with Gilot and his two children by her at this time, after filing three unsuccessful lawsuits against the book. In 2019, Gilot addressed the criticism of her in an interview with The New York Times Style Magazine, saying that, “sometimes people like you. Sometimes people don’t. But you are not going to fashion yourself according to other people’s wishes, whether they are negative or positive, you know?”

Despite the fact that Gilot is often discussed and remember as ‘in the shadow’ of her former partner Picasso, Gilot had a hugely successful career. She recounted how when she left Picasso, he said, “you imagine people will be interested in you? They won’t ever, really, just for yourself. Even if you think people like you, it will only be a kind of curiosity they will have about a person whose life has touched mine so intimately.” But Gilot and her work have been enduringly interesting and popular. She was accomplished before meeting Picasso, exhibiting with art dealer Madeleine Decre in 1943. She had her first solo museum exhibition in 1970. In 1972, she published her first artist book which featured her prints and poetry. Other notable exhibitions include the 2012 Gagosian exhibition which featured her work alongside Picasso’s. An auction record was set for the artist in 2021 with her painting Paloma à la Guitare selling at Sotheby’s London for £922,500. At the time of her death, she left behind around 1,600 canvases and 3,600 works on paper, attesting to her continued creative and productive life as an artist. Her works were influenced at times by Cubism but have their own distinctive style and are often interested in figuration. She also published further books, including Interface: The Painter and the Mask (1975) and, at age 96, she published a book of sketches made in India, Senegal and Venice between 1974 and 1981 (2018).

In 1955, Gilot married a childhood friend, artist Luc Simon, with whom she had another daughter, Aurelia Engel. After divorcing Simon, Gilot married Jonas Salk in 1970, an American doctor responsible for one of the first successful polio vaccines. The couple split their time between San Diego and Gilot’s studio in the south of France. Oliver Barker, Chairman of Sotheby’s Europe, said, “the entire Sotheby’s community is saddened at the passing of Françoise Gilot”, and Benjamin Dollar, Chairman of Sotheby’s America added that “she was a brilliant artist, author and a true genius. A stunning person with great style. She once said to me that she would only stop painting when she stops breathing.” Gilot is survived by her three children and four grandchildren.