Dora Maar was a French photographer, Surrealist painter, and poet. Her career and achievements were overshadowed during her lifetime by the details of her affair with Pablo Picasso. Over the course of her career, Maar created many poetic photographs, Surrealist collages, and painterly depictions of landscapes in Provence.
Background
Ethnicity:
Dora Maar's father was of Croatian origin, while her mother was French.
Maar was born in Tours, France, on November 22, 1907. She was the only daughter in her family. Her father, Joseph Markovitch, was a renowned architect, who received his education in Zagreb, Vienna, and then Paris where he eventually settled in 1896 and met Dora Maar's mother, Louise-Julie Voisin. Joseph Markovitch's job forced him and the rest of her family to move to Buenos Aires, Argentina, when Dora Maar was 3 years old. The family left for Buenos Aires in 1910, where the father obtained several commissions, including for the embassy of Austria-Hungary. Joseph Markovitch was decorated for his accomplishments by Emperor Francis Joseph I.
Education
Dora Maar stated to attend the Central Union of Decorative Arts and the School of Photography (École nationale supérieure Louis-Lumière) in 1926. Later she also studied at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julian (now part of the ESAG Penninghen), which offered the same instruction to women as to men. Maar also attended André Lhote's workshop where she had a chance to meet Henri Cartier-Bresson. It was around this time that she shortened her real name to Dora Maar. During her studies at the École des Beaux-Arts, she met fellow surrealist artist Jacqueline Lamba.
Dora Maar left Paris, moving to Barcelona and then London. There she took pictures of the effects of the economic depression following the Wall Street Crash of 1929 in the United States. When she returned to Paris, she opened a workshop with the help of her father. During this time, Maar worked on both painting and photography, but she paid much more attention to the latter. So, by the mid-1930s, she focused her energy on photography. Maar worked in the fashion and advertising industries. She also took photos of street scenes and worked as a still photographer on the set for Jean Renoir’s film Le Crime de Monsieur Lange (1936).
In late 1935, Maar met artist Pablo Picasso, becoming his companion and his muse. That year she experienced one of the defining moments of her life. Soon after their meeting, she moved to an apartment around the corner from Picasso's studio, though she wasn't allowed to enter it without an invitation. From 1936 to 1937, Picasso and Maar collaborated on certain artistic endeavors, and he constantly produced portraits of her, including Weeping Woman (1937) and Dora Maar Seated (1937), Dora Maar in an Armchair (1939) and Monument à Apollinaire.
Dora Maar joined the Surrealist movement of the time and had her first photography exhibition at the Galerie de Beaune in Paris in 1937. Her work began more of the absurdist and dreamlike. In the late 1930s Maar returned to painting and produced a portrait of Picasso in the colorful Cubist style. Despite her affair with Picasso and the success of her own works, Dora Maar suffered from despair and depression. Perhaps, it was because of a very large shadow of the man with whom she was sharing her life.
By 1944 relations between Dora Maar and Pablo Picasso were strained and they separated. After the pair split, Maar fell deeper into depression, which soon transformed into a full-blown nervous breakdown, and she subsequently underwent three weeks of electroshock therapy in a psychiatric hospital. From there, Maar was under the care of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, who personally oversaw her treatment for the next two years. It is believed that she recovered in part by embracing religion (and renouncing all ties to her Surrealist past). In her late years, she mostly painted still lifes and landscapes and continued to take photos. The artist spent her last years in the apartment in Rue de Savoie, Paris.
André Breton allongé devant un palmier à l’hôtel Vaste Horizon
Portrait de profil à la coiffure en hauteur
Picasso au crâne de boeuf
Untitled (On deck)
Gamin aux Chaussures Dépareillés
Religion
After the separation with Pablo Picasso, Dora Maar turned to the Catholic religion.
Views
Quotations:
"Average artists copy their peers, but the truly great artistic gesture lies in the shamelessness of stealing and getting away with it."
Interests
Artists
Man Ray, Brassaï
Connections
Maar was in relationships with Pablo Picasso from 1935 till 1943. In May 1943, Picasso met a woman, Françoise Gilot, and broke up with Maar. She was 20 years younger than Dora Maar and 40 years younger than Pablo Picasso.