In 1944 Geneviève Laporte, an 18-year-old Parisian, interviewed Pablo Picasso for her school newspaper. "He was smiley, polite and very nice," she recalls. Until "I told him that young people didn't understand his paintings"—and the great artist exploded in rage. But instead of kicking Laporte out of his atelier, Picasso, then 62, offered her an art lesson.

And more. The pair became friends, and seven years later began a discreet two-year affair. (Picasso was married to Olga Koklova and living with another woman, Françoise Gilot, at the time.) The relationship produced 34 seldom seen works of art, among them nudes of Laporte that Picasso called his "letters of love." Now 79, she plans to auction the treasures—worth an estimated $2.4 million—in Paris on June 27. Laporte says the artist's reputation as an egotist is undeserved. "I want to pass on the message that he was a loving man," she says. And a surprisingly restrained one: He waited until Laporte was 24 to seduce her.

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