Artists - Dora Maar

Dora Maar

Dora Maar (born a Henriette Theodora Markovitch) was a French Photographer, Painter and Poet who is most famous for being Pablo Picasso’s lover and muse. At the age 19 of she began studying photography and painting during her time with Picasso she felt she was living in his shadow and suffered from depression and self-doubt feeling her work would be overlooked because of her relation to the famous artist, during world war 2 Maar was left by Picasso for the younger Françoise Gilot after this Maar became more depressed and suffered a nervous breakdown, which she underwent electroshock therapy, after this she dedicated herself to the Roman Catholic Church while she still stayed an artist she cut all ties to her surrealist past.

It wasn’t until her death that her work was rediscovered and was finally put on exhibition, in 1931 she established herself as a professional photographer she tackled numerous commercial projects while adding in surreal imagery into them, such as her Pétrole Hahn image.

Maar also modelled for famous photographers such as Man Ray and Jean Cocteau, Andre Breton partly named his surrealist Gallery ‘Gradiva’ in her honor.