Dora Maar, Tate Modern, review: the woman who was so much more than Picasso's mistress - Telegraph.co.uk

JadeTotti Nisan 06, 2021

Dora Maar, Tate Modern, review: the woman who was so much more than Picasso's mistress - Telegraph.co.uk

Posted: 19 Nov 2019 12:00 AM PST

Dora Maar, an artist whose life and reputation were overshadowed by her association with Pablo Picasso, did not start out as a painter. Born Henriette Theodora Markovitch in 1907, she studied under the cubist André Lhote in Paris. But she made a living through photography, and it was as a photographer that she began, in 1932, to use the name Dora Maar.

Maar was a stills photographer on the set of Jean Renoir's film Le Crime de Monsieur Lange when she met Picasso. In 1936 they began a decade-long affair, during which he painted her over and over again, most famously in the guise of "weeping woman" – a series that would eventually comprise some 60 works. Picasso made clear that he thought photography to be the lesser medium; Maar began to paint again under his influence, thereby positioning herself, in the eyes of future critics, as his inferior.

The remarkable exhibition that opens today at Tate Modern is the first to examine her lifelong work as a photographer. It offers both a compelling view of a critical moment in 20th century artistic thought, and – through pictures alone – the powerful story of one woman's life.