Channel 4 - Picasso: The Full Story - Death

Presented by a friend of Picasso in his later years, John Richardson, Picasso: The Full Story is an accessible and comprehensive look at the life of the most important artist of the 20th Century, examining the influences and the secrets behind many of the masterpieces he created. Televised previously on Channel 4 as Picasso: Magic, Sex and Death, the programme is divided into three parts.

Part 3: Death
Death (50 mins) charts the final stage in Picasso’s life from the war years in Paris through to his time in Antibes, his later involvement with the Communist Party, the Peace Movement and the years leading up to his death in 1973 at the age of 91. This is the period the presenter Richardson is most familiar with as it was the time he came to know Picasso, but there is surprisingly little personal reminiscence. The episode nevertheless covers well Picasso’s work and his relationship with the women in his life. These later years are marked with a struggle to remain vigorous and active against the encroaching spectre of death by keeping plenty of younger women around. Francoise Gilot, his lover and 40 years his junior at the time, contributes to this section with comments on the work he created in his later years, on the paintings that show the joy of life and the ceramics in which she is immortalised. His final works, revisiting and reworking the old masters, is also examined, along with his final years with Jacqueline Roque.