Dora Maar. Despite Picasso

Henriette Theodora Markovitch, better known as Dora Maar, was born in Paris in 1907 from a Croatian father and French mother. The family lived for several years in Buenos Aires where her father, an architect, received some important commissions. A woman of rare beauty, Dora Maar joined the Academy of André Lhoteein Paris in 1927, where she met and formed a friendship with Henri Cartier-Bresson. She studied at the École de Photographie de la Ville de Paris, but it was above all Emmanuel Sougez, a photographer, who taught her the technical aspects of the medium. Dora Maar liked to alternate experimental photography with commercial work. She produced portraits, nudes, advertising photographs, photomontages and many “street” images. These works in particular, which are perhaps not so well-known, are extremely interesting for at least three features characterising them: the interest in the marginal elements of society (scenes of poverty and vagabonds, of the blind and cripples), her observation of the world of childhood and everyday life in the street (where she would photograph community scenes such as markets and fairs) and the eccentric (a tattoo shop, the window display of a magician, a straw kangaroo…).

Vai alla guida d'arte di Venice