Nautilus

The Last Love of Jonas Salk

The first time they met, French artist Françoise Gilot seemed more interested in her salad than in Jonas Salk—somewhat embarrassing for her friend Chantal Hunt, who had insisted she join them for lunch. Chantal’s husband, John Hunt, the executive vice president of the Salk Institute, had invited Salk to their home to discuss “Institute issues.” Gilot had warned Chantal that she was tired from completing the lithograph series at the Tamarind Workshop in Los Angeles, and she needed some rest before returning to Paris. “I’m going to go have lunch at a restaurant,” she told her friend. “I don’t want to see a scientist.” Chantal said she didn’t need to talk. “Fine,” Gilot replied, “I don’t talk.”1

The next evening, Gilot accompanied the Hunts to a black-tie dinner at the Institute. Seated with other artists, she enjoyed herself. Although she didn’t notice Salk, he saw her. Later he told Françoise he found the situation curious. One day she behaved “like a lump,” he said. The next day she was “laughing like I don’t know what.” He wondered, “Who is this person?”1 So he invited Gilot to the Institute for a private tour.

Once there, this woman who had silently looked at her salad two days before began talking with great animation and sophistication, a mixture of self-confidence and femininity. Salk knew almost nothing about art, and Gilot could not converse about science, but they had one common interest, modern architecture. That was a start.

Jonas became enthralled with Françoise. He didn’t know much about her life, except that she was a successful artist, although he had seen none of her paintings, and that she had been Pablo Picasso’s mistress, although he likely had not read her best-selling memoir, Life with Picasso. The past didn’t interest Salk; he was looking to the future.

he outbreak of World In May of 1943, Françoise had her first exhibition. Around the same time, she met Pablo Picasso. “I believe that if I had met Picasso in normal circumstances, nothing would have happened between him and myself,” she reflected.

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from Nautilus

Nautilus5 min read
I Never Stopped Learning from Daniel Dennett
They say, never meet your heroes. Daniel Dennett, who was exceptional in so many ways, and who died last month, was for me an exception to this rule, too. Like so many, I was first inspired by Dennett on reading one of his many bestsellers: Conscious
Nautilus7 min readIntelligence (AI) & Semantics
The Soviet Rebel of Music
On a summer evening in 1959, as the sun dipped below the horizon of the Moscow skyline, Rudolf Zaripov was ensconced in a modest dormitory at Moscow State University. Zaripov had just defended his Ph.D. in physics at Rostov University in southern Rus
Nautilus3 min read
The Curious Life of a Singing Fish
The world of larval plainfin midshipman fish may look alien, but it could be as close as the cobbles beneath your feet, if you walk the rocky shores found along much of the North American West Coast. Adults of this species swim each spring from the o

Related Books & Audiobooks