The other day, while re-shuffling some of my old photographs, I pulled up one that struck me like pleasant lightning, all over again.
It was an 8 x 10 black-and-white, up-close photograph I took years ago of Paloma Picasso in Washington, D.C.’s National Gallery of Art.
That photo, a lightning strike of memory, re-reminded me of one of the most extraordinary coincidences of my life – the chance meeting with Paloma and how it happened.
I’ve been fascinated all my life by the art works of Pablo Picasso, the Spanish-born genius who is still considered the greatest artist of the last century. I’d read many books about his life, including one called “My Life with Picasso” by Francoise Gilot, an accomplished French painter who lived with Picasso in France for 11 years. She was the mother of two of his children, Claude and Paloma.
Throughout the years, while paging through art books, I would often come across Picasso’s cubistic portraits of Paloma when she was a toddler. Much later, as a young woman she became an admired designer of jewelry and a creator of perfumes. She was often seen in magazine ads wearing bright-red lipstick and red clothing or hats – red being her “signature” color.
One November day in 1986 I walked into the National Gallery of Art, eager to see up close all the wonderful paintings. In one gallery, I stopped dead in my tracks in front of an oil painting entitled “The Dead Toreador” by one of my all-time favorites, Edouard Manet. Though I’d seen it in books many times, I stood there stunned by the impact of that large picture, painted in 1864. It depicts a dead bullfighter sprawled on his back, holding his cape in his left hand, his right hand on his chest. The figure is painted in extreme foreshortened perspective so that viewers feel as if they are kneeling on the ground, just a few feet from death. I kept thinking, “No wonder the often death-obsessed Picasso was so knocked out by this painting!”
After pondering it some more, I turned around and my jaw just about hit the parquet floor. There, just three feet from me stood a rather short woman dressed all in red, wearing bright-red lipstick and carrying a red clutch purse. Next to her was, I presumed, her husband.
Like a starstruck kid, I began to stutter.
“Are you, are you, um, Puh-Puh-Paloma Picasso?”
“Yes,” she said, kindly, smiling.
“What a – what a surprise!” I stammered.
Pointing back to the Manet, I said, “That was one of your Dad’s favorites.”
“Yes, I know,” she said.
“And I was just thinking of your Dad when I turned and saw his daughter – you! – standing here. I’m Denny Dalman from Minnesota. I have your Dad’s painting, “Guernica,” on my wall at home. Not the real one. Just a print of it.”
She giggled and smiled sweetly again. I felt so dumb as the following thoughts scurried through my head. (Well, duh! Of course I don’t have the “real” “Guernica.” It’s about 25 feet wide. It’s one of the most famous paintings of all time. I couldn’t afford to buy it, and it’s way too big to steal.)
“Can I take your picture?” I asked, pointing to my camera.
“Yes, if you hurry,” she said, still smiling. “We have to go.”
I snapped a photo, we shook hands and off they went. I stood there stunned. Did I just dream that or what?! An hallucination?
I later learned in a newspaper that celebrities had gathered at the National Gallery for a dinner before the world premiere at Kennedy Center of an opera called “Goya” by Gian Carlo Menotti. The opera was based on another grand Spanish painter, Francisco Goya.
There had been a pre-opera dinner for celebrities at the National Gallery. Thus, Paloma had been a dinner guest. That explained her appearance in the gallery. But still, wow!, what a coincidence!
