Françoise Gilot

Marie Françoise Gilot (born 26 November 1921) is a French painter, art critic, and bestselling author. In 1973 she was appointed art director of the scholarly journal Virginia Woolf Quarterly. In 1976 she joined the board of the Department of Fine Arts at the University of Southern California, where she taught summer courses and took on organizational responsibilities until 1983.Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, she designed costumes, stage sets, and masks for productions at the Guggenheim in New York City. She was awarded a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur in 1990. 2Early life Gilot was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, to Emile and Madeleine Renoult-Gilot. Her father was a businessman and agronomist, and her mother was a watercolor artist. Her father was a strict man. Gilot began writing with her left hand as a young child, but at the age of four her father forced her to write with her right hand. As a result, Gilot became ambidextrous. She decided at the age of five to become a painte