Fernande Olivier stands out from Pablo Picasso’s former lovers — she was his first muse, and the only one to know him before the fame and fortune.
Olivier, who wrote a published journal chronicling her chaotic time with the Spanish painter, will be brought to the small screen by Aisling Franciosi (Game of Thrones, The Fall) in the upcoming National Geographic series, Genius: Picasso.
“I think she’s quite incredible because she had a pretty rough start in life. She was born out of wedlock and then given to a family member to be brought up. It was a pretty loveless household for her, abusive, and then when she was 17, she was raped and they made her marry her rapist,” said Franciosi.
The Irish-Italian actress delved deep into Olivier’s written works to prepare for the role. She called Olivier and Picasso’s relationship “pretty tempestuous”.
“But it’s interesting, in her diary, she does talk about him kind of being quite a gentle lover, even though they did sometimes have these arguments that descended into probably pretty abusive behaviour,” said Franciosi.
In the beginning, Picasso and Olivier lived in poverty. They were constantly frustrated at Picasso not being recognised as the artist he wanted to be.
“I guess she saw his more vulnerable side and also the darker sides of him where he was really quite possessive and jealous,” said Franciosi.
But the actress felt it important to point out: geniuses were not necessarily good people. If they were exceptionally skilled in one area, they were typically supremely flawed in other areas.
“I don’t think that you have to be a great person to create great art. Because I don’t think we’d have very much good art, if that was the case,” she said.
Actress Clemence Poesy (Harry Potter, War and Peace) will portray another one of Picasso’s lovers from his later years, French artist Francoise Gilot. Gilot is still alive at the age of 96. She wrote Life with Picasso in the 1964, providing a valuable resource for Poesy, who did not have the chance to meet her.
Poesy echoed Franciosi’s sentiments, saying: “Because they call the series Genius, I think it will be really interesting to see if they find a genius that was lovely to everyone around her or him.”
According to the French actress, the beginning of Picasso’s romances were always great love stories that later deteriorated, due to his tendency to replace the old with the new.
“Francoise was very much in love with him. Dora Marr was very much in love with him. I think we’re sort of telling a vampire story, in a weird way — that need to renew everything, that need to push those boundaries and look for something you’ve not done, somehow made him this person that needed to feed on new energies,” said Poesy.
“He was also constantly fighting getting old, fighting age, fighting time. That sort of turned him into someone who also needed that change, those waves.”
Poesy’s hope was that, in telling Picasso’s story, Genius: Picasso would also shed light on the women of his life, who were all different in their own way. Gilot was the first of them to reject Picasso’s toxic behaviour, and leave him to follow her own path.
“I think it is a portrait of Picasso, but it’s also lots of portraits of Olga [Khokhlova], of Dora, of Marie-Therese [Walter], of Francoise, and I’m hoping that we’re also just sort of telling all those stories,” said Poesy.
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Don’t miss it!
Genius: Picasso premieres on April 22 in the UAE and April 24 around the world.
