Malcolm admiring Picasso's Woman with Yellow Hair (1931)
at the Guggenheim (c. 1984) [1]
Doubtless many well-known people have died on April 8th, but the only two who really interest me are Malcolm McLaren and Pablo Picasso; the former departing this life in 2010, aged 64, and the latter in 1973, aged 91.
McLaren had a tremendous knowledge of modern art and admired many painters, but I seem to remember him having a genuine penchant for Picasso; he and Vivienne Westwood famously using Picasso's Weeping Woman (1937) on a toga dress in their Nostalgia of Mud / Buffalo collection (A/W 1982-83).
I was surprised, therefore, when I discovered that his response upon first hearing of the Spanish artist's death was simply to say 'Oh good' [2].
Nevertheless, when asked to pose for an official publicity shot at the Guggenheim ten years later, it was besides a Picasso that Malcolm chose to stand - not a work by Rothko, Warhol, or Francis Bacon ...
Whether he had a particular liking for this 1931 portrait of Marie-Thérèse Walter, I don't know. But I find it hard to believe that the picture was chosen purely at random.
Notes
[1] Unfortunately, I don't know the name of the photographer who took this picture, which was used as a publicity shot by Charisma Records, to whom McLaren was signed in the early-mid '80s.*
[2] See Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 185.
Roberta Bayley recalls that it was the American fashion entrepreneur, designer, and journalist Gene Krell who broke the news of Picasso's death to McLaren.
* Update: Paul Gorman kindly informs me the image is from S8/E9 of ITV's The South Bank Show on McLaren, which aired on 2 December 1984. For a post in which I reflect on this show, click here.
