There are eight of them in the painting, not counting the dog. In the centre sits the writer Guillaume Apollinaire, his hands resting in his lap. To the right is the artist herself, Marie Laurencin. On the left is novelist Gertrude Stein.
Didier Ottinger, assistant director of the Centre Pompidou in Paris points out these famous names, then draws my attention to a dark eyed man with a sweep of fringe, just behind Apollinaire’s left shoulder. It is Pablo Picasso – the man at the centre of the exhibition we are about to walk through, inside the National Gallery of Victoria.
