Picasso's Final Years and What Came After

We've followed Picasso's life from childhood to old age. As death drew closer, he became increasingly isolated from the world. Tired of the people who gathered around his house to photograph it or catch a glimpse of him, he rarely left home, and he naturally drifted away from distant relatives and old friends, leaving only his wife, Jacqueline. His body, remarkably healthy compared with those of his contemporaries, began to decline. In 1966 the largest Picasso retrospective ever held, in Paris, drew more than 800,000 visitors, yet Picasso himself reportedly never went to see it. Though he spent more time at home, he kept producing a great many works to the end. He left no will, but a self-portrait made a year before his death speaks for his final years and his state of mind. Even with death approaching, Picasso in the self-portrait still stares at himself with a defiant expression.

Picasso died of congestive heart failure on April 8, 1973. In 1977, about four years after his death, his fourth muse, Marie-Thérèse, took her own life at the age of 68, saying that someone needed to look after the dead Picasso. In 1981, as Picasso had requested, *Guernica* finally returned to Spain after Franco's death and many twists and turns. In 1986 Jacqueline Picasso, his last love and wife, died by suicide with a pistol at the age of 59. In 1997 his fifth muse, the photographer Dora Maar, died alone at 89. And his sixth muse, Françoise Gilot, kept painting until her death in 2023 at age 101. So a great master continues to influence countless people long after his death. And with that, we'll slowly bring this tour to a close.