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Chance Encounters: Picasso, Wols, Tati – loves lost, creativity found

Pablo Picasso and Sylvette David met for the first time in the 1950s in the south of France - a fateful chance encounter. The young and beautiful girl inspired Picasso and he devoted a complete series of portraits to her. Now, 60 years later, the 79 year old Sylvette David remembers these times and tells how much Picasso changed her life and which other artists were struck by her appearance.

I met Picasso in February of 1954 in Vallauris. It was a chance encounter. My boyfriend Toby Jellinek had a metalwork shop in the Quartier du Fournas where Picasso had his studio up a small hill looking down on the potteries below. Picasso could see me walking regularly to visit Toby to help him with his work. Toby made two chairs, which he exhibited in the Madoura Pottery where Picasso also exhibited his pots. Picasso bought the chairs and we carried them to his house “La Galloise”. We only had a Vespa in those days and no car to transport items. The chairs were not too heavy, made of wood, metal bars and string or rope and a small red cushion made of red felt. Picasso was very pleased with the chairs and his children were too. Françoise brought us a drink of orange but did not stay! I have a lovely photo Toby took of Picasso, wearing a fur cap, his children Paloma and Claude and me (a).

Those days were the most exciting times in my life as I never studied anything. I was just dreaming and I think Picasso liked my innocence and seriousness. He was sad as Françoise left him together with his two children and I was just there as a new inspiration. When one creates you forget everything: worries, pains and one goes into another world – it is happiness. I posed for him for a few months. In the end he made me choose a painting of my portraits. I thanked him very much as the painting was such a beautiful gift. But he said: I thank you for being there at the time I was losing my wife and children! He loved his children Claude and Paloma and he was lost without them.

Picasso inspired me by the way he enjoyed creating with anything he found: bits of metal, bits of wood, baskets, toys, handlebars of bicycles turned into a bulls’ head. I could see all these things around him and me. When you are young you learn by seeing and observing. Now that I have lived my life (marriage, children, divorce …) I feel very inspired by that time. Now, in my old age, I go back to it so easily in my mind. I think he gave me the joy of creating. For me creativity is like a prayer: being at peace and one with the universe.

Also my father and mother were both very good artists. My mother loved portrait painting and my father was a humoristic artist in the war while we lived in Dieulefit (Departement Drôme). When I was about eight years old we lived in an old pension de famille – it had many flats and there lived a man who used to draw sitting outside under the lime trees. I used to sit nearby and watch him. His name was Wols (b). I was fascinated by his work: the lines, shapes and dots. He gave me a small drawing, which I sadly lost. Now I know he became a famous artist and has recently even been exhibited in the Kunsthalle Bremen – and soon I will see all the portraits Picasso made of me in the same museum. It is an amazing coincidence!

Toby and I bought a lovely flat in Paris where I lived in the sixties. It was in the Quartier de la Place des Vosges (Le Marais). We bought it with the money we got from selling Picasso’s painting of me and started a new life. It was very inspiring and I could see my father more often as he had an art gallery in Paris. I started to learn the guitar. Toby painted, he had a real talent and my father encouraged him.

One day I went to the Gare de Lyon train station and a man approached me. He gave me his card. It was the French director Jacques Tati ©! I was wearing a man’s raincoat from Aquascutum in London (d). During these days I liked wearing cloth and materials which originally were used for men’s clothing such as pinstripes and tweed. For the time it was very unusual for women to where cloth which didn’t accentuate the waist. So Tati said: Come to see me for my next film! But I was so shy I never went… I didn’t feel like I was meant to be a film actress. I did do a film once though – a short one in colour – called “Face of another” (Le visage d’une autre) with a poem by Henri Michaux and electronic music. The filmmaker was called Marie Claire Schaffer, the daughter of the famous Pierre Schaffer who discovered ‘La Musique Concrète’. It was filmed in the region called Camargue in the South of France by the sea amongst the dunes and the sea grasses under the hot the sun. It was very beautiful.

I had my first child, Isabel, in Paris where we lived during her first three years. Then we moved to London. I tried to do modeling to make money and photos of me appeared for example in fashion magazines like Harpers and Queen. But I did not like modeling, so life went on… My marriage to Toby broke up. On our walks in London Isabel and I used to pick leaves and flowers I would press them and make lampshades in tissue paper with them – that was fun. I used to sell them in the school Christmas fairs and once even in Liberties, London (e). I remarried and had two more children. With my new husband Rawdon we moved to Devon when Isabel was 15 years old, Alice was five and Laurence was three years old. The place we moved to was such an amazing place in beauty, acting, music and dance. The gardens were a place of peace, quiet and beauty. So I started painting there when my son went to school. Now I have a gallery in London in Maddox Street off Regent Street (Francis Kyle Gallery). I was 45 when I started painting and I haven’t stopped since.

Sylvette David, 25.11.2013

Annotations:
(a) The picture will be displayed in the exhibition.
(b) The Kunsthalle Bremen showed a large retrospective of works of the german artists Wols (Wolfgang Schulze, 1913-1951) in 2013 in cooperation with the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas. Information about the exhibition in German. Information about the exhibition in English.
© Jacque Tati (1907-1982) is a famous French director who is known for his movies about ‘Monsieur Hulot’. The screenplay for his movie “Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot” (1953) was nominated for an Oscar.
(d) ”Aquascutum” is a British classic high-quality clothing brand.
(e) “Liberties” was and still is an iconic shop and design brand situated on Regent Street in London.

Captions:
(1) André Villers, Picassos Model Sylvette David, 1954, Kunsthalle Bremen – Der Kunstverein in Bremen, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2013 | (2) Sylvette David, Portrait, 2013 | (3) Sylvette David with Pablo Picasso and his children Paloma and Claude, Foto: Toby Jellinek | (4-6) Sylvette David during the shooting for the movie „Face of Another“ (Le Visage d’une Autre), photographer unknown | (7-8) Sylvette as a model for a book cover, photographer unknown