Eva Gouel: A Brief Second Love

You can tell at a glance that Guitar and Bottle is a collage. While Picasso was making collages, another lover stood by him, so let's talk about her. We mentioned his first muse, Fernande. By the time of this work, Picasso had parted from her and was seeing someone new. Her name was Eva Gouel.

Eva had originally been engaged to the Polish painter Louis Marcoussis, but Picasso took her from him. Furious at losing his love to a colleague, Marcoussis vented by lampooning Picasso in cartoons. After that tangled start, Eva became Picasso's lover.

Of his well-known partners, Eva stayed by his side for the shortest time. Sadly, she fell ill and died young. In 1915, during World War I, she died of tuberculosis at a young age. We can imagine that she was beside him as he made early collages like Guitar and Bottle.