Even now, Dora Maar is probably remembered for being Picasso’s lover and the subject of many of his paintings rather than as the innovative artist she was. Louisa Treger, whose latest novel retells her story, explains why Dora was much more than a muse.
For years, the epithet ‘Picasso’s Weeping Woman’ has followed every mention of Dora Maar, as if being his lover and muse were her only significant attributes. But Maar was a talented photographer, painter, and poet, as well as a committed left-wing activist. I wrote The Paris Muse, a fictionalized version of her life, to place her at the centre of the story.
Born in 1907, Maar was brought up between Argentina and France by a Croatian architect father and a French Catholic mother, both of whom encouraged her artistic ambitions. In her late teens, she studied at avant-garde schools in Paris, such as the Académie Julian and l’École de Photographie, where she developed her unique black and white photographic style.
She met Picasso in 1936. She was at the peak of her career, producing highly original photographs infused with a dreamlike, poetic quality, a heightened sense of the peculiar, and a macabre-edged humour.
The Museum of Modern Art in New York had just exhibited her Père Ubu – a monstrous armadillo foetus that doubled as a secret portrait of her psyche, half-armoured, yet vulnerable.
Picasso was emerging from what he described as “the worst time of my life”, following his separation from his wife, Olga. He had not sculpted or painted for months.
Maar apparently decided that the painter, nearly 30 years her senior, would be her next project. To excite his attention, she sat in Café les Deux Magots, driving a knife into the table between her splayed fingers, seeing how close she could come to her flesh without cutting herself. Sometimes she missed, and before she stopped playing, her hand was covered in blood.
It was Maar, not Picasso, who was in charge, staging a deliberate, perverse seduction. She set out to tame the dangerous man beneath the smiles and easy charm, drawn by the challenge as much as by his charisma. Their attraction was powerful; they were artists in their own right, and models for each other. Maar’s personality was as strong as Picasso’s and she was his intellectual equal.
They had fiery arguments, spoke Spanish together, and shared anxieties about current affairs. They both enjoyed experimenting in all things sexual, always wanting to learn something they hadn’t yet tried. The sado-masochistic element gave even more strength and urgency to their relationship, and heightened its exquisite moments. In many ways, it was a perfect match.
Despite Maar initially having the upper hand, the balance soon tipped the other way. Devoted love was too simple and one-dimensional for Picasso. He was a man of two souls: one violent and sensual, the other thoughtful and rational.
The process of wounding was of paramount importance to him. It brought vitality, energy, and suffering to his art. He was coercive and controlling, and what excited him above all else was domination. Moreover, his primary relationship was with his art. Everything and everyone existed only to feed it. There was a masochistic streak in Maar that meant she submitted to his treatment.
Picasso was having a long-running affair with Marie-Thérèse Walter, which he refused to break off. Marie-Thérèse was relaxed, easy-going, the opposite of the intellectual and volatile Maar. He got a twisted thrill out of making them compete for his affections, describing a story where they came to blows in his studio as “one of my choicest memories”.
Having initially painted Maar as a nymph or a bird, Picasso’s portraits began to show her in tears, notably the excruciating Weeping Woman (1937), now in the Tate’s permanent collection, in which she seems to disintegrate before our eyes.
Yet while the relationship was emotionally punishing, it was also productive. Picasso was obsessed by Maar’s face and body, and painted countless portraits of her that are among his finest works. In 1937, he asked Maar to photograph the creation of his masterpiece, Guernica.
Indeed, it is likely that his decision to depict that particular atrocity came from her, as she was more politically engaged than him. Not only does its style – severe black-and-white, almost photographic in its pitiless detail – borrow from her work, but she actually painted a small section of one of the horse’s flanks. He trusted her completely.
She also taught him the cliché verre technique – a complex method combining photography and printmaking. He encouraged her to switch her focus from photography to painting. As much as being a sexual or emotional relationship, it was a collaborative one.
But it destroyed Maar in increments. Under the strain, her personality and artistic talent disintegrated, and she stopped painting.
Picasso was like a child with a new toy, opening her up to see what was inside, and then discarding her when he had had enough. In 1945, he left her for Françoise Gilot.
This was start of Maar’s descent into a deep and frightening depression, followed by a breakdown. She would call Picasso in the early hours and let the telephone ring for a long time into the void. He did not answer, but Maar didn’t care. The ringing let her slip between him and Francoise. It made sure he didn’t forget that Maar was suffering.
She was found sobbing naked on her staircase, having no idea how she had got there. She was eventually committed to the Sainte-Anne Hospital, where she underwent electroshock treatment.
But she recovered, largely thanks to a two-year psychoanalysis with Jacques Lacan and, finally, she became deeply religious. “After Picasso, there is only God,” she said.
She died in 1997, leaving behind a series of questions. How involved had she been in Picasso’s most famous painting? Was there a debt he owed her that had never been acknowledged in the art world?
The truth is that Maar influenced Picasso, just as Picasso influenced Maar: both careers were impacted by their relationship. She was his lover, she was his muse, and many would say she was his victim. But in addition to this, she was so much more.
The Paris Muse by Louisa Treger was published on 4 July, 2024.
See more about this book.
Louisa is the author of three other novels, The Lodger, The Dragon Lady and Madwoman, which was a historical fiction Book of the Year in The Times and the Sunday Times, and a Book of the Month in the Independent. She’s written for a number of papers and magazines and appeared on various BBC radio programmes.
You may enjoy reading her feature The writer with the snake tattoo, or SD Sykes‘s review of The Dragon Lady.
Images:
- Portrait of Dora Maar by Pablo Picasso, 1937: Gandalf’s Gallery for Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
- The Years Lie in Wait for You by Dora Maar, c1935: B for Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
- Self portrait by Dora Maar, 1935: Courtesy Amar Gallery. © Dora Maar Estate
- Picasso under the trees — Hôtel Vaste Horizon, Mougins by Dora Maar, c1936–7: Courtesy Amar Gallery. © Dora Maar Estate
- Weeping Woman by Pablo Picasso, 1937: Tate © Succession Picasso/DACS 2024
