Dora Maar
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Henriette Theodora Markovitch alias Dora Maar (November 22, 1907 – July
16, 1997) was a French photographer and painter, best known for being a
lover and muse of Pablo Picasso. She was born in Tours, Western France, on
November 22, 1907. She died 89 years of age in Paris on July 16, 1997. Her
father was Croatian, her mother was born in Tourraine, France. Dora grew
up in Argentina. She was famous as a photographer, and also was a painter
herself, before she met Picasso. She made herself better known in the
world with her photographs of the successive stages of the completion of
Guernica that Picasso painted in his workshop on the rue des Grands
Augustins, and other photos of Picasso. Together she and Picasso studied
printing with Man Ray. Picasso met her in January 1936 (when she was 29
years old), at the terrace of the Café Les Deux Magots in Saint-Germain-des-Prés,
Paris. The famous poet Paul Eluard, who accompanied him, had to introduce
him to this beautiful, sad woman. He was attracted by her beauty and
self-mutilation (cutting her fingers and the table - he got her bloody
gloves and exhibited them on a shelf in his apartment). She spoke Spanish
fluently, so Picasso was even more fascinated. Their relationship lasted
nearly nine years. Dora Maar became the rival of blonde Marie-Thérèse
Walter who had given a daughter named Maya to Picasso. Picasso often
painted beautiful sad Dora (she suffered because she was sterile) and
called her his "private muse." Dora Maar kept his paintings for herself
until her death in 1997. They were souvenirs for their extraordinary love
affair which made her famous forever. For him she was the "woman in tears"
in many aspects. She suffered from his moods during their love affair.
Also she hated the idea that in 1943 he had found a new lover, Françoise
Gilot. Picasso and Paul Elouard sent Dora to their friend, the
psychiatrist Jacques Lacan, who treated her with psychoanalysis. In Paris,
still occupied by the Germans, Picasso left to her a drawing of 1915 as a
good-bye gift in April 1944; it represents Max Jacob his close friend who
had just died in the transit camp of Drancy after his arrest by the Nazis.
He also left to her some still lifes and a house at Ménerbes in Provence.
The picture, Dora Maar, is currently registered with the FBI's National
Stolen Art File. FBI reports that the picture was stolen from a Saudi
yacht in Antibes between March 7-11, 1999, which also unearths the
identity of the anonymous bidder, who obviously was a Saudi royal Picasso
aficionado.
