Dora MAAR (1907-1997) - Lot 64

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Lot n° 64
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Estimation :
4000 - 6000 EUR
Dora MAAR (1907-1997) - Lot 64
Dora MAAR (1907-1997) Cubist Face, circa 1940 Ink on paper, signed lower left, sale stamp (DM 1998) lower right 48 x 48.5 cm Provenance: Sale Dora Maar, Mathias-Piasa, Drouot, Paris, 1998-1999 Dora Maar and Pablo Picasso (1936-1945) It was not a fragile and destitute young girl that Paul Eluard introduced him to at the terrace of the Deux Magots, but a woman with an already strong and famous character. Like many others of her generation, she was an icon of surrealism, a friend of Breton and Brassaï, who trained her with Man Ray in photography. She ran a studio where she had models and figures from the Parisian elite pose. It was at a time when Picasso was going through a dry spell that she entered his life. Her assertive temperament appealed to Picasso; he liked her freedom, her almost virile assurance (she often dressed like a man), her natural authority and the inner fire that burned in her, the violence of which he had sensed. The years during which he lives with her are leaden years. History invites itself into the euphoric and creative life of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The Spanish war revived his identity and, taking the side of the Republicans, he embarked on the adventure of Guernica (1937). Dora Maar followed the progress of the work by executing a real report on the painting in the process of being made: it was a first in photography, and Dora invested herself fully in it. Picasso works with her, they are both in creative fusion. But his ogre nature prevents him from continuing the experiment. Was it he who finally prevented her from continuing her work as a photographer and asked her to sacrifice it? In any case, for love, Dora Maar abandoned her passion and, on Picasso's advice, took up painting. From muse and lover she became his model. He devoted many paintings to her, some of which he would never part with. He painted her crying: "For me," he admitted, "[Dora] is a woman who cries. For years, I painted her in tortured forms, not out of sadism but out of pleasure. I could only give the vision that imposes itself on me, that was the deep reality of Dora." She was a major episode in Picasso's love life. But the creative and bulimic power of the Minotaur was not satisfied with this unique love. Dora Maar could nevertheless take pride in it, because this funereal decade was undoubtedly Picasso's most brilliant and strongest period...
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