Hidden Portraits

From the New York Times best-selling author of The Private Lives of the Impressionists comes the first account of the women who loved Picasso—and who shaped his work far more than previously acknowledged.

Fernande Olivier, Olga Khokhlova, Marie-Thérèse Walter, Dora Maar, Françoise Gilot, and Jacqueline Roque. These six extraordinary women shared Pablo Picasso’s life and were instrumental in his career, yet they have long been dismissed as simply passive models or muses.

In Hidden Portraits, acclaimed author Sue Roe reveals that their lives were—without exception—remarkable. They each pursued their own ambitions in dance, writing, painting, and more. All six overcame significant challenges, including Picasso’s subterfuges and betrayals as well as the wider social turbulence of their time. In bringing them to vivid…