After World War I, Picasso made a number of important relationships with figures associated with Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes.

Among his friends during this period were Jean Cocteau, Jean Hugo, Juan Gris and others.

In the summer of 1918, Picasso married Olga Khokhlova, a ballerina with Sergei Diaghilev’s troupe, for whom Picasso was designing a ballet, Erik Satie’s Parade, in Rome; and they spent their honeymoon near Biarritz in the villa of the glamorous Chilean art patron Eugenia Errázuriz.

Khokhlova introduced Picasso to high society, formal dinner parties, and all the social niceties attendant on the life of the rich in 1920s Paris.

The two had a son, Paulo,[22] who would grow up to be a dissolute motorcycle racer and chauffeur to his father.

Khokhlova’s insistence on social propriety clashed with Picasso’s bohemian tendencies and the two lived in a state of constant conflict.

During the same period that Picasso collaborated with Diaghilev’s troup, he and Igor Stravinsky collaborated on Pulcinella in 1920. Picasso took the opportunity to make several drawings of the composer.

In 1927 Picasso met 17-year-old Marie-Thérèse Walter and began a secret affair with her.

Picasso’s marriage to Khokhlova soon ended in separation rather than divorce, as French law required an even division of property in the case of divorce, and Picasso did not want Khokhlova to have half his wealth. 

The two remained legally married until Khokhlova’s death in 1955