M

DORA MAAR

French

Acknowledged primarily for her role as Pablo
Picasso’s muse and mistress, Dora Maar is now
being recognized for the merits of her long artistic
career. She was established as an artist before
Picasso entered the Parisian art scene, having stu-
died painting with Andre ́Lhote and photography
with Henri Cartier-Bresson. It was Cartier-Bresson
who suggested to Maar that she become a photo-
journalist, which she did in the early 1930s, travel-
ing to Britain and Spain. These photographs of
street life are in direct contrast to her earlier elegant
fashion photography, but she is perhaps best
known for her paradoxical Surrealist images.
In the early thirties, the French set designer Pierre
Ke ́fer invited Maar to share his studio in Neuilly,
and they collaborated on portraits and advertising as
well as fashion photography. Her first professional
job was photographing Mont Saint-Michel for a
book the art critic Germain Bazin was producing.
Through a mutual friend, Maar was introduced to
the Hungarian-born photographer Brassaı ̈,whoat
that time was well-established as a photographer.
She was also influenced by Louis-Victor Emmanuel
Sougez, whom she considered a mentor. He was a
founder of the New Photography movement (in

Germany,Neue Sachlichkeitor New Objectivity).

When Maar was gravitating between painting and

photography, Sougez urged her to pursue photogra-

phy. The Ke ́fer-Maar studio closed in 1934 when

Maar’s father provided her with a studio and dark-

room of her own near the church of Saint-Augustine

in the eighth arrondissement of Paris. This address,

29 rue d’Astorg, became the title of one of her most

famous Surrealist photomontages.

Paul Eluard’s Surrealist poem ‘‘Identite ́s’’ was

dedicated to Maar and points to her ambiguities.

She read and signed numerous Surrealist manifes-

toes and participated in several Surrealist exhibi-

tions. Her subject matter is rooted in Surrealist

thought and writing; Maar’s flower pictures are

thought to have been stimulated by Georges

Bataille’s 1929 essay, ‘‘The Language of Flowers.’’

Her work seems also to have been inspired by the

concept of the minotaur, half beast and half man,

expounded upon in the Surrealist publication,Le

Minotaure.This is best expressed inPortrait of Pe ́re

Ube, 1936, the name of the protagonist in Alfred

Jarry’s trilogy of plays first produced in 1896. Using

a close-up of a baby axoloti (or armadillo though it

has not been confirmed) as her model for Ube,

Maar may have inspired Picasso’sDream and Lie

of Franco (1937). Maar achieved many of her