Cora Vaucaire – Le Temps des cerises

Before Françoise Gilot first met Picasso on May 12, 1942 at the Le Catalan restaurant on Paris’ Left Bank, he had been eyeing her from across the room where he sat with his lover Dora Maar. When he finally approached the young artist’s table, he did so with a bowl of cherries in hand. Whether the fruit was a simple excuse for flirtation or some deeper code of desire, the introduction worked, and the 21 year old Gilot would spend the next decade with the famous artist four decades her senior. The couple had two children together but their relationship ended much less sweetly than the crimson fruit that helped kick it off. Much like in the lyrics of “Le Temps des cerises,” one of the most recorded French standards, Picasso’s cherries could have served as a symbol of pleasure and pain, each enticing fruit an open wound. To Gilot, the dilemma was clear and she said, “I knew if I didn’t leave Pablo, he would devour me.”