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DORA MAAR: WITH AND WITHOUT PICASSO: A PICASSO
Author
Mary Ann Caws
Picasso first saw Dora Maar across the tables of the Café Deux Magots. Poised, beautiful and dramatically unconventional, Dora Maar already had a reputation as an accomplished photographer who produced disturbingly powerful Surrealist images alongside more conventional portraits, reportage and fashion shots.
She was to become Picasso’s lover and muse for seven years. In that time she photographed him at work and at ease, alone and with friends. In 1937 she recorded step-by-step the painting of Guernica, Picasso’s searing protest against the Spanish Civil War. Dora’s own features appear in that painting and in many others of Picasso’s from those years, as well as in his drawings and sketches: many shown in this book.
Though she outlived Picasso by a quarter of a century, little was known of her, for she lived as a religious recluse, painting and writing poetry behind a veil of fiercely guarded privacy: After Picasso, only God, she once said. As a result, she was only seen as the tragic muse, a woman forever shattered by the cruel genius Picasso.
Mary Ann Caws tells a different story. She places Dora’s time with Picasso as one dramatic episode in a productive and prolific life of ninety years. It talks not about a myth, but about a charismatic, deeply intelligent woman and artist whose recognition is long overdue.
Mary Ann Caws has published extensively on 20th-century art and literature, including several works on Surrealism and its leading figures.
She was to become Picasso’s lover and muse for seven years. In that time she photographed him at work and at ease, alone and with friends. In 1937 she recorded step-by-step the painting of Guernica, Picasso’s searing protest against the Spanish Civil War. Dora’s own features appear in that painting and in many others of Picasso’s from those years, as well as in his drawings and sketches: many shown in this book.
Though she outlived Picasso by a quarter of a century, little was known of her, for she lived as a religious recluse, painting and writing poetry behind a veil of fiercely guarded privacy: After Picasso, only God, she once said. As a result, she was only seen as the tragic muse, a woman forever shattered by the cruel genius Picasso.
Mary Ann Caws tells a different story. She places Dora’s time with Picasso as one dramatic episode in a productive and prolific life of ninety years. It talks not about a myth, but about a charismatic, deeply intelligent woman and artist whose recognition is long overdue.
Mary Ann Caws has published extensively on 20th-century art and literature, including several works on Surrealism and its leading figures.
