DORA MAAR

(1907-1997)

Born in Tours, France.

Daughter of a Croatian father and a French mother, the family  went to Buenos Aires in 1910.

Returned to Paris in 1926 and began studying at the Photograph School  in Paris, and then in the Académie Julian.

In 1931 Cartier-Bresson suggested her to change her name from Henriette Teodora Markovitch to Dora Maar. Well accepted.

When I red her biography  Dora Marr with and without Picasso I was surprised but certain she was more than the Picassos's lover and muse. She was , in fact, a good photographer not so good painter but, indeed, a wonderful surrealist photographer.

She photographed the street life, poor people and, in contrast, fashion, publicity, beauty, nudes, eroticism...Indeed a talented artist.

After Picasso broke off their relationship she began a painful life. First the depression and then the psychiatric hospitalization.

In result, she turned her life to Catholicism and mysticism. In fact,  she became a recluse, painting still lifes and landscapes until her death in 1997.

1936

"deux têtes de manequins coifées",  Paris, 1930

"Dora Maar with a Crown of Flowers", Picasso,  1937

Dora Maar with Picasso