French photographer, painter and poet Dora Maar (b. Henriette
Theodora Markovitch, 1907-97), was a remarkable artist who
straddled both the artistic and commercial realms. Until recently
Maar's work has often been overlooked in favour of her role as
model to many greats of the early twentieth century, including Man
Ray and Picasso, to whom she acted as model and archivist to for
over 10 years. Yet Maar had been making a name for herself on the
avant-garde scene long before she met these men.
Born to a French mother and a Croatian father in Paris in 1907, Maar
grew up in Argentina. Aged 19 she returned to Paris and enrolled at
the Academie Julian which would catapult her towards stardom. Here
she began to study art seriously, at Andre Lhote's atelier, alongside
Henri Cartier-Bresson, as well as at the Ecole de Photographie de la
Ville de Paris and the Union Centrale des Arts Decoratifs.
Her celebrated image Pere Ubu - titled after the absurd dictatorial
antihero of Jarry's Ubu Roi (1896) - would become the emblem
for the surrealist movement after it was exhibited in London at
the International Surrealist Exhibition in 1936. And today Maar's
imaginative evocation of the pear-shaped, breast-plated Ubu in
the monstrous reality of a baby armadillo remains one of the most
compelling and repellent of surrealist photographs.
Texts to include: `Fashion and advertising' by Amanda Maddox; `Nude
and Eroticism' by Alix Agret; `Social Engagement' by Florian Ebner;
`Barcelona' by Victoria Combalia; `Social and Political Engagement'
by Patrice Allain; `Found Surrealism' by Dawn Ades; `Photo Collages'
by Karolina Ziebinska-Lewandowska; `Surrealist Exhibitions and
the "Ubu" Portrait' by Ian Walker; `Women of Surrealism: Maar's
constellation' by Abigail Solomon-Godeau; Maar's Portraits by
Picasso' by Emma Lewis; `Late Work' by Damarice Amao; and `Late
Negatives' by Anne Cartier-Bresson.