‘Lydia Corbett’ is a picture that R.O.L painted during his ‘Addictive
Behaviour’ project. Lydia put her name forward when R.O.L asked for
famous subjects with addictions. Lydia’s addiction was her religion.

Lydia Sylvette David began her artistic life not as a painter, but as a
model for Pablo Picasso. When she was seventeen years old, she was
living in the south of France with her English-born mother who was an
artist, her brother, and her boyfriend, Toby Jellinek, a maker of
avant-garde metal chairs. Picasso had set up a studio nearby and
noticed Jellinek’s unusual pieces. He asked him to deliver a couple of
the chairs to his studio, and with him went Sylvette David. Shortly
after, Picasso presented a picture of her, drawn from memory, and
convinced David to model for him.

A shy girl, David was tall and had striking looks. She wore her hair in
a long, blond ponytail, a style like that which Brigitte Bardot would
later adopt. It was her hair and face that captivated Picasso, but
unlike many of his other models, their relationship was purely
platonic. In the months she sat for him in 1954, Picasso produced over
forty pieces based on her likeness (‘The Girl with the Ponytail’ series
of paintings and sculptures). Photos of Picasso and his model also
appeared in an issue of the widely read magazine Paris-Match.

David would relate that she began drawing to pass the time while she
sat for Picasso, often posed in a rocking chair. She later married and
moved to England with her husband, and not wanting to capitalize on her
fame as a painter’s muse, signed her work with her married name, Lydia
Corbett. Eventually, she added a second signature to her paintings and
watercolors, that of Sylvette David. As her reputation as an artist
grew, she exhibited her work in England and France , including several
London exhibitions.

Photos of Lenkiewicz's painting of Lydia, shots of R.O.L painting
Lydia, and a photo of a recent meeting with Lydia where she signed the
piece, and a few of Picasso’s painting of her can be viewed here.