82 Artists&Illustrators
PABLO PICASSO, SEATED
WOMAN (DORA), 1938
ART IN FOCUSWHO WAS THE
SEATED WOMAN?
This is a portrait of Henriette Theodora
Markovitch, known as Dora Maar. She
first met Picasso in 1935 and the pair
soon began a nine-year affair. A former
assistant of Man Ray and celebrated
photographer in her own right, Maar is the
subject of a Tate Modern retrospective
that runs until 15 March 2020.WHEN WAS IT DRAWN?
Seated Woman (Dora) was drawn on 27
April 1938. Picasso routinely completed
large artworks in one day. The previous
day, he completed another portrait of
Dora, Buste de femme, that was one of
his personal favourites and still hung in
his home when he died 35 years later.WHY DID HE DEPICT
MAAR IN THIS WAY?
Maar documented the creation of
Picasso’s most political work, 1937’s
Guernica. Her likeness appeared in the
anti-war mural as a woman holding a
dead child and he later made several
additional portraits of her in this guise.
“For me, she’s the weeping woman,” he
later said of Maar. “For years I’ve painted
her in tortured forms, not through sadism,
and not with pleasure, either; just
obeying a vision that forced itself on me.”HOW DOES IT COMPARE TO
PICASSO’S OTHER PORTRAITS?
The Spaniard’s portraits of his wives and
lovers were integral to the different
phases of his career, from the rose-
tinted Rose period paintings of Fernande
Olivier to the Neoclassical forms used on
first wife Olga Khokhlova. Picasso had a
tendency to approach his portraiture
with the eye of a caricaturist too, cruelly
exaggerating unflattering features.HOW WAS PICASSO’S
STYLE CHANGING?
By 1938, the fluid forms of his earlier
pieces were transitioning into more
intricate works. The twisting webs of
lines point to the artist’s new interest in
the skeletal human form and he said the
rhythmic repetitions were an attempt to
capture Maar’s agitated demeanour.WHAT CAN I LEARN FROM IT?
Look particularly at the varied ways in
which Picasso uses line, rather than
tone, to depict form. There are nohighlights or shadows; colour appears
only in uniform blocks. Instead,
seemingly decorative patterns actually
cleverly indicate the shape of elements
such as the back of the chair or the
sweep of her hair.
Seated Woman (Dora) features in Picasso
and Paper, which runs from 25 January to
13 April 2020 at the Royal Academy of Arts,
London W1. http://www.royalacademy.org.ukFONDATION BEYELER, RIEHEN/BASEL, BEYELER COLLECTION. PHOTO: PETER SCHIBLI. © SUCCESSION PICASSO/DACS 2019STEVE PILL reveals the
story behind the Spanish
master’s semi-abstract
portrait of his mistressABOVE Pablo Picasso, Seated Woman
(Dora), 1938, ink, gouache and
coloured chalk on paper, 76.5x56cm