Dora Maar (born Henriette Théodora Markovitch in 1907) was an artist who exhibited with the first surrealists. She grew up between Argentina and Paris, and began her art studies as a painter. She went on to become a successful photographer, beginning work as an assistant of Man Ray, and going on to work for press, fashion, and advertising in the 1920s. She also was a photo-journalist after the Crash, documenting the impact of the crisis on the poor, in line with her leftist politics. Her influential experimental photo-montages used her own photographs, and were exhibited in various surrealist shows in the thirties.
This podcast tells the story of both Dora Maar, and of Brigitte Benkemoun's reconstruction of her life and career based on the artist's address book, which fell into her hands from ebay. Thumbing through the diary, she realized that its owner had known everyone in the Parisian artistic milieu between the wars, and set about trying to discover who this was. This reconstruction is echoed on a broader scale by the recent solo exhibition of her work. A major retrospective organized by the Tate Modern (with the Centre Pompidou and the Getty Museum) returns focus to her work itself. Dora Maar's relationship with Picasso has overshadowed her own artistic story, as is so often the case with women artists who are relegated to the role of muse. He was awful to her, as he was to so many women, but they also collaborated with photographic experiments and influenced each other's work. She photographed Guernika while Picasso was painting it. He pressured her to give up photography, and she returned to painting which she was to carry on for the rest of her life. She also became severely depressed after the war and the end of the relationship with Picasso, but recovered in part due to analysis and electroshock therapy with Jacques Lacan. Later in life she became very religious. Her house in Provence, where she spent time every year, has been transformed into an artist's residence. Her painting and later photography were re-discovered after her death at 89. She apparently never stopped experimenting with photography, as we can see in this preview of the restrospective at the Centre Pompidou:
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