Picasso and Wright

Pablo Picasso, the famous abstract painter, and Frank Lloyd Wright, the famous architect, found themselves sitting next to each other on an airplane flying high over North Dakota.   Frank Lloyd Wright peered down at the flat land below them.  Studying the endless squares and rectangles of tended fields, all connected by a perfect grid of roads straight roads without turns, Frank Lloyd Wright said: “I like this landscape.  The flatness allows for clean and simple design.  Something like a blank sheet of paper.”

Pablo Picasso, sipping a mixed drink, allowed his eyes to trace a few square fields below the wings of the plane.  “Cubes and sharp angles,” Pablo Picasso said.  “At one time, I co-founded the cubist movement in painting.  That was something.  But I am beyond that now.  I like women these days.”

“Yes, I have heard that you like women,” Frank Lloyd Wright responded.  “Young women, I dare say.  Didn’t you also once say that women ‘are machines for suffering?’  And that there are only two kinds of women: goddesses and doormats?”

Pablo Picasso smiled.  “Hmmmm, that’s quite interesting.  Sounds clever to hear you say it.”

“Clever is not the word that comes to my mind.”  Frank Lloyd Wright said.  He reflected for a moment and then added: “If you find me on Wikipedia you’ll discover that my life is filled with women, scandal, and tragedy.  I learned to embrace that.”

“Yes, I am familiar with your story.  You abandoned a wife and six children so you could dash off to Europe with a lover.  Upon your return to America, she was murdered, by hatchet, along with six others and then burned inside your house.” 

Frank Lloyd Wright watched the squares and rectangles passing below, saddened.  After a while, he spoke again.  “We are similar, I suppose.”

Pablo Picasso drank deeply from his glass.  “No.  We are very different, friend.  As I said, I like women.  I believe you love them.”

--Mitchell Hegman