Dora Maar

Henriette Theodora Markovitch was the only daughter of Josip Marković (aka Joseph Markovitch) (1874–1969), a Croatian architect who studied in Zagreb, Vienna, and then Paris where he settled in 1896, and of his spouse, Catholic-raised Louise-Julie Voisin (1877–1942), originally from Cognac.

Henriette Theodora Markovitch (22 November 1907 – 16 July 1997), known as Dora Maar, was a French photographer, painter, and poet.

A romantic partner of Pablo Picasso, Maar was depicted in a number of Picasso's paintings, including his Portrait of Dora Maar and Dora Maar au Chat.

In 1910, the family left for Buenos Aires where the father obtained several commissions including for the embassy of Austria-Hungary.

His achievements earned him the honor of being decorated by Emperor Francis Joseph I, even though he was "the only architect who did not make a fortune in Buenos Aires".

Maar's earliest surviving photographs were taken in the early 1920s while on a cargo ship going to the Cape Verde Islands.

In 1926, the family returned to Paris.

Dora Maar, a pseudonym she chose, took courses at the Central Union of Decorative Arts and the School of Photography.

She also enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julian which had the advantage of offering the same instruction to women as to men.

Maar frequented André Lhote's workshop where she met Henri Cartier-Bresson.

While studying at the École des Beaux-Arts, Maar met fellow female surrealist Jacqueline Lamba.

About her, Maar said, "I was closely linked with Jacqueline. She asked me, "where are those famous surrealists?" and I told her about Cafe de la Place Blanche."

Lamba then began to frequent the cafe where she would eventually meet André Breton, whom she would later marry.

When the workshop ceased its activities, Maar left Paris, alone, for Barcelona and then London, where she photographed the effects of the economic depression following the Wall Street Crash of 1929 in the United States.

On her return, and with the help of her father, she opened another workshop at 29 Rue d'Astorg in the 8th arrondissement of Paris.

At the beginning of 1930, she set up a photography studio on rue Campagne-Première (14th arrondissement of Paris) with Pierre Kéfer, photographer, and decorator for Jean Epstein's 1928 film, The Fall of the House of Usher.

In the studio, Maar and Kefer worked together mostly on commercial photography for advertisements and fashion magazines.

Her father assisted with her finances in this period of her life as she was establishing herself while trying to earn a living.

The studio displayed fashion, advertising and nudes, and it became very successful.

She met the photographer Brassaï with whom she shared the darkroom in the studio.

Brassai once said that she had "bright eyes and an attentive gaze, a disturbing stare at times".

During this time working in advertising and fashion photography, the influence of Surrealism could be seen in her work through her heavy use of mirrors and contrasting shadows.

She felt that art should represent the content of reality through links with intuitions or ideas, rather than visually reproduce the natural.

Maar also met Louis-Victor Emmanuel Sougez, a photographer working for advertising, archeology and artistic director of the newspaper L'Illustration, whom she considered a mentor.

In 1932, she had an affair with the filmmaker Louis Chavance.

Maar frequented the "October group", formed around Jacques Prévert and Max Morise after their break from surrealism.

She had her first publication in the magazine Art et Métiers Graphiques in 1932.

Her first solo exhibition was held at the Galerie Vanderberg in Paris.

After the fascist demonstrations of 6 February 1934, in Paris along with René Lefeuvre, Jacques Soustelle, supported by Simone Weil and Georges Bataille, she signed the tract "Appeal to the Struggle" written at the initiative of André Breton.

Much of her work is highly influenced by leftist politics of the time, often depicting those who had been thrown into poverty by the Depression.

She was part of an ultra-leftist association called "Masses", where she first met Georges Bataille, an anti-fascist organization called the Union of Intellectuals Against Fascism, and a radical collective of left-wing actors and writers called October.

She also was involved in many Surrealist groups and often participated in demonstrations, convocations, and cafe conversations.

In 1935, Maar was introduced to Pablo Picasso and became his companion and muse.

She took pictures in his studio at the Grands Augustins and tracked the latter stages of his epic work, Guernica.

She later acted as a model for his piece titled Monument à Apollinaire, a tribute to the late poet Guillaume Apollinaire.

It is the gelatin silver works of the surrealist period that remain the most sought after by admirers: Portrait of Ubu (1936), 29 rue d'Astorg, black and white, collages, photomontages or superimpositions.

The photograph represents the central character in a popular series of plays by Alfred Jarry called Ubu Roi.

The work was first shown at the Exposition Surréaliste d'objets at the Galerie Charles Ratton in Paris and at the International Surrealist Exhibition in London in 1936.

She also participated in Participates in Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism, at the MoMA in New York the same year.

Surrealist concepts and interests often aligned with the ideas of the political left of the time and so Maar became very politically active at this point in her life.