Music

Sheila (born Annie Chancel, 16 August 1945, Créteil, France)

Sheila (born Annie Chancel, 16 August 1945, Créteil, France) is a French pop singer, who became successful as a solo artist in the 1960s and 1970s and later fronted a disco act called Sheila and B. Devotion. Sheila has sold over 23,676,060 copies of records and was the top selling artist in France in the 1960s and 1970s,

Her stage name "Sheila" came from the title of her first release, a French cover version of the American hit by Tommy Roe.
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Sheila started her musical career in 1962, after being noticed by Claude Carrère, a French music producer and songwriter. Since she was 16, her parents signed for her a contract with Carrère. This artistic collaboration lasted for more than 20 years. In 1995 a lawsuit put an end to this life-time deal. She finally won a royalties battle against her former producer.

Sheila had numerous hits in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, playing the well-behaved young girl. Her first hit was "L'école est finie" (School is over), in 1962 (1 million copies).

In the Eight Women movie, Ludivine Sagnier sang her 1963 hit "Papa t'es plus dans l'coup" (Daddy, you are not in on it anymore). Sheila's music also features in the 1996 French film Une robe d'été (A Summer Dress). The character Sébastien is a fan of Sheila, and Sheila's version of Cher's "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" is on the soundtrack.

After 15 years of pop music mainly sung in French but also in Spanish, German and Italian, she started singing in English as Sheila and B. Devotion (in some countries records were under the name "Sheila B. Devotion") and changed her style to disco music. Sheila was accompanied by three male dancers who made up the "Black Devotion" in her routine. She enjoyed international success with hits like "Singin' in the rain", "Love me baby", "You light my fire" or "Spacer" (from the album King of the World, produced by Chic), which was later sampled for the song "Crying at the Discothèque" by Swedish pop group Alcazar. "Spacer" is one of her biggest hit with more than 5 million copies sold worldwide. According to different interviews, she often said her experience with Chic completely changed her way of working and singing. It was the beginning of a deep artistic disagreement with her French manager Carrère. She then decided to leave France, moved to New York "to start all over again" and studied at the Actors Studio.

After her Disco period, Sheila (without the "B.Devotion") recorded in 1981 a rock album called "Little Darlin'" produced by Keith Olsen (Pat Benatar, Blondie, Fleetwood Mac) and was back in the U.S. Billboard. This album is often considered by many fans as one of her finest work.

She put an end to her artistic collaboration with her manager Carrère at the beginning of the 1980s. She took a brand new musical direction in 1983 when she met Yves Martin, a composer and producer who later became her husband. She recorded 3 albums under his direction between 1983 and 1988 and her new songs were critically acclaimed. Becoming disillusioned with the music business and record industry, she abandoned her music career between 1989 and 1998. During this break, she wrote 3 successful books, had her own regular TV show, played in a TV series and started making sculptures.

However Sheila had a successful comeback in music in 1998 with a new CD of re-recordings of some of her hits and also new songs, it went gold within one month of release. Thanks to this unexpected success, another CD called "Dense" was released a year later with brand new songs.

Sheila is still very popular, performing successful concerts in 1998 and 2002 at the Olympia, in 2006 at the Cabaret Sauvage with an unplugged concert or on tour with "La Tournée des Idoles" in 2009 and 2010. CD's, VHS or DVD's from her live performances all went gold or platinum.

In 2005 she signed a deal with Warner Music France after many years of negotiation. All of her recordings, including her self-produced albums can now be released on CD under the same label. Following this agreement, her complete recordings were issued in an 18 CD box set in 2006. It includes more than 400 songs, unknown recordings, demos, alternative takes, duets, TV performances and German, Italian, Spanish and English versions of her hits. In 2007 Warner Music France decided to release separately each of her album on CD with its original artwork and bonus tracks. Most of them are also re-issued on vinyl LP format.

Her album "Little Darlin" was remastered and released in Japan in January 2011 on SHM-CD. This reissue is the replica of the original LP with its Japanese cover. The pictures and artwork are completely different from other international pressings. It also contains the title "Prisoner" as on the first Japanese release in 1981 (it remained unknown on other markets until 1996). The sound has been definitively improved thanks to the SHM-CD quality and the remastering work of a Japanese team.

Sheila will be celebrating her 50 years in music business on stage in 2012.

Pablo Picasso paint collection

painter Pablo Picasso

Early Life
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (full name Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Clito Ruiz y Picasso) was born on the 25th October, 1881 in Malaga in Spain. He was the first son of Jose Ruiz y Blasco and Maria Picasso y Lopez. His father was a painter and a professor of art at the School of Crafts and the curator of a local museum. Picasso learnt the basics of art from his father. Picasso also attended the Academy of Arts in Madrid, but dropped out within a year of joining it.
Life History of Picasso
He made his first trip to Paris in 1900 and loved the city. He lived with a friend Max Jacob who was a journalist and a poet. Max worked in the day and slept in the night, while Picasso slept during the day and worked during the night. Those were hard times for Picasso and he burned many of his paintings to keep himself warm.
In 1901, Picasso started a magazine called ‘Arte Joven’ in Madrid with his friend Soler. He completely illustrated the first edition of the magazine. It was at this point that he began to sign his paintings as simply ‘Picasso’ rather than ‘Pablo Ruiz y Picasso’.
While in Paris, Pablo Picasso had a propensity for entertaining and had among his friends people such as Andre Breton and Gertrude Stein. Picasso also had an active love life and usually had several mistresses along with a wife or a primary partner.
All the paintings by Pablo Picasso are usually classified into various ‘periods’ based on the moods and styles of the paintings. These, in turn, were largely affected by his personal and love life.
His real work and career as a painter is said to begin around 1894 with a painting called ‘The First Communion’ which showed his sister Lola, and the more famous painting by Pablo Picasso called ‘Portrait of Aunt Pepa’. In 1897, his realistic style of painting became influenced by Symbolism and came across in a series of landscapes where he used violet and green tones in the colors.
From 1899 to 1900 was a period where Picasso was creating paintings in a Modernist style which emerged due to his influence and exposure to the works of Rossetti, Edward Munch etc.
1901 to 1904 is called Picasso’s Blue Period because many of his paintings in that time were in the shades of blue and blue-green. The subjects of these paintings were prostitutes and beggars. Some of the famous paintings by Pablo Picasso during this period were ‘La Vie’, ‘The Blindman’s Meal’ and a portrait called ‘Celestina’. An etching called the ‘Frugal Repast’ also reflected his somber mood of the time. Blindness and destitution were an integral part of this theme of paintings. It was also during this time, that he began using the image of a harlequin, in checkered clothing, as his personal motif in his paintings.
1905 to 1907 is called Picasso’s Rose Period where his paintings became cheerful with the use of orange and pink colors. There were many harlequins also featured.
1907 to 1909 is called his African Influenced Period where his drawings were inspired by African artifacts. A good example of this period is his painting titled ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’.
1909 to 1912 is called Picasso’s Analytic Cubism Period. This style of painting was developed along with Georges Braque and was characterized by the use of monochrome brown colors. He took the objects apart and analyzed them within the medium of his paintings.
1912 to 1919 is called Picasso’s Synthetic Cubism Period where he began to use collage in his art. He would add paper fragments of wallpaper or newspaper pages and paste them into his work.

During the 1930s he returned to a more neo-classical style of painting. Another major change was the use of the Minotaur as his motif, rather than the harlequin in his paintings. His famous painting called ‘Guernica’ depicted the brutalities, and the hopelessness induced by war.

In the 1950s he started reinterpreting the works of great masters, including Velazquez, Goya, Manet and Delacroix.
In 1967, the Chicago Picasso was unveiled. A huge 50 foot sculpture made on abstract themes defies interpretation. It could be a woman, or a bird or a horse or quite simply anything. Picasso did not take the $100,000 payment offered for it, but donated it all to the people of the city.
From 1968 to 1971 he produced several paintings and copperplate etchings in the style now known as neo-expressionism. When these paintings were made, they were dismissed by critics as being the ‘pornographic fantasies of an old man’ and the ‘incoherent scribblings of a frenetic old man’.
Love Life of Picasso

Along with his art, Picasso’s love life was also always a center of attraction for his fans.
In 1904, Picasso began a relationship with Fernande Olivier who appears in some of his Rose Period Paintings.

Picasso left her for Marcelle Humbert, who he used to call Eva, and declarations of his love for her are seen in his Cubist paintings.

In 1918, Picasso married Olga Khokhlova who was a ballerina in Sergei Diaghilev’s troupe. Picasso was designing a ballet for him called ‘Parade’ in Rome. She was fond of high society life and introduced Picasso to it. They had one son, called Paulo. Her socializing and Picasso’s bohemian lifestyle clashed often and their marriage was not successful. They separated when Picasso began a secret affair with 17 year old Marie-Therese Walter. Since the French Law required that Picasso give half of his property to Khokhlova upon divorcing her, and since Picasso did not want her to have half of his wealth, they never divorced, but remained separated till she died in 1955.

Picasso continued his affair with Maria-Therese for a long time, and even had a daughter called Maia with her. She lived in the hope that he would marry her some day, which Picasso never did. Four years after Picasso’s death, Maria-Therese hanged herself.

Photographer and painter Dora Maar was also a constant companion and a lover of Picasso during the 1930s and early 1940s. She even documented the painting of the ‘Guernica’.

In 1944, Picasso began an affair with a young art student called Francoise Gilot. They had two children, Claude and Paloma. She was the first woman in Picasso’s life who left him because of his many infidelities. This was in 1953. Picasso was greatly disturbed by this. He was in his 70s now and began to see his old age from a very depressing point of view.

He had a six week long affair with a beautiful and young girl called Genevieve Laporte, probably on the rebound.

Then he met Jacqueline Roque who worked at Madoura Pottery where Picasso made and painted ceramic art. They were together till Picasso’s death. They married in 1961 so that Picasso could take revenge on Gilot.

Gilot, with Picasso’s encouragement, filed divorce with her husband and then was going to marry Picasso in order to legitimize the status of her two children and secure their rights. But when Gilot filed the divorce papers, he went ahead and secretly married Roque to foil her attempts and thus got revenge for her leaving him.

Death of Picasso

Pablo Picasso died on the 8th of April, 1973 while he and his wife Jacqueline were entertaining friends for dinner. His last words were: ‘Drink to me, drink to my health, you know I can’t drink anymore.’

By Madhavi Ghare