Picasso is uncancellable, says his surviving daughter

In a rare interview, Paloma Picasso recalls growing up with her iconic father, and why she thinks his targeting by the #metoo movement is unfair.

Pablo Picasso, pictured in 1966, and his legacy have been in the crosshairs for much of the past decade, with many trying to label his behaviour as “toxic” more than 50 years after his death. Getty

Celia Walden

Oct 18, 2024 – 5.00am

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When Paloma Picasso was nine years old, she witnessed an extraordinary scene. “A man had come to see my father in Cannes,” says the jewellery designer, businesswoman and new administrator of the Picasso estate, “and when he left the room, the man walked out backwards.” All these years on, her eyes still widen at the memory. “Now, my father was very relaxed, so in no way would he have elicited that kind of behaviour, but it was obvious that this man felt he couldn’t turn his back on Picasso. And I thought: ‘Wow. This is the way people behave with kings and queens.’”

The incident may have given her a new understanding of what her father meant to the outside world, but it was hardly the first time Paloma – the last surviving of Pablo Picasso’s four children, Paulo Picasso, Maya Widmaier-Picasso and Claude Picasso – had realised her father was famous. “Because of course I’d always known that,” the 75-year-old says.

The Telegraph London