Faber to publish Sue Roe’s Hidden Portraits

Sue Roe author image

Faber is delighted to announce the acquisition of Sue Roe’s Hidden Portraits: The Untold Stories of Six Women who Loved Picasso, a reappraising history of six remarkable women with whom Pablo Picasso shared his life.

UK & Commonwealth rights were acquired by Fiona Crosby, Senior Commissioning Editor, from Jonathan Conway at Jonathan Conway Literary Agency, following a seven-way auction. Jill Bialosky at W.W. Norton acquired North American rights from Zoë Pagnamenta at Calligraph, on behalf of Conway. Faber will publish in hardback in March 2025.

Hidden Portraits shines a spotlight on the lives of Fernande Olivier, Olga Khokhlova, Marie-Therese Walter, Dora Maar, Francoise Gilot, and Jacqueline Roque. These six women were instrumental in Picasso’s life and career, yet have often been dismissed as mere models or passive muses. All six were unconventional, independent and talented. And all six were severely tested, both by Picasso’s subterfuges and betrayals, and the wider social turbulence they lived through. Sue Roe delves into the truth of their experiences for the first time, revealing lives that were – without exception – extraordinary and compelling.

Sue Roe said: "Writing about such extraordinary, remarkably different women has been a fascination and a joy. In Hidden Portraits I reveal why such self-assured and talented people loved and chose to live with Picasso. I have always admired Faber’s cool design style and incomparable editorial heritage, and I’ve loved working with Fiona and her team, and with Jonathan, Zoë and Jill."

Fiona Crosby, Senior Commissioning Editor, said:

"We’re delighted to be publishing the stories of these six extraordinary twentieth century women, whose individual lives and influence on Picasso have been overlooked until now. Sue Roe looks beyond the myths and caricatures to get to the heart of their experiences, as well as brilliantly bringing to life the vivid worlds they inhabited from Bohemian Montmartre to the glittering Riviera."

Sue Roe is a Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author, whose four previous narrative non-fiction books on art history have received wide acclaim. She has also taught at universities, including from 2017-2020 at the University of Sussex as a Royal Literary Fund fellow. She lives in Brighton.