In 1936, an inimitable force entered Picasso’s life. The successful Surrealist photographer Dora Maar (see fig. 1) first captivated Picasso’s imagination at the artist haunt Les Deux Magots where, as writer Jean-Paul Crespelle recounts, Maar was repeatedly plunging a knife between her fingers, occasionally drawing beads of blood between the embroidered roses on her gloves. Such an encounter set the tone for the passionate and turbulent love affair which soon unfolded, despite Picasso’s ongoing relationship with the mother of his daughter Maya, Marie-Thérèse Walter.
In addition to teaching Picasso about experimental photographic processes and documenting the creation of his masterwork Guernica, Maar proved to be one of the artist’s greatest muses, inspiring the famed crying figure in Guernica as well as the related series of Weeping Woman works (see fig. 2).
Picasso’s Dora Maars
Their relationship lasted nearly a decade and was a partnership of intellectual exchange and intense passion. Maar’s influence on the artist resulted in some of the most daring portraits of his career, the best of which arose from the war years when Picasso's art resonated with the drama and emotional upheaval of the era (see figs. 3-4).
Having relocated to Paris from the southwest of France with Maar, Picasso chose to spend the duration of the war in the capital city despite the dangers of the Occupation. He’d spend the ensuing years working in his Grands-Augustins studio and dividing his t.mes between his family and his lover. The intensive period of restricted movement saw an increased focus on still lifes and portraits of Maar, exemplified by the present work (see fig. 5).
In Portrait de Dora Maar, Picasso distorts the striking features he so loved about the photographer, translating her flowing dark hair, seductive eyes and strong nose into angular, linear projections. A tight smile graces her lips in keeping with the later, post-Weeping Woman works, belying the complexities and strain of life in the midst of occupied France. The palette is muted, like so many of the artist’s war t.mes works, which were often painted in the dim candlelight of the evening. Picasso’s keen draftsmanship pervades this work as his restrained handling of the paint and bold brevity of line achieve the impact of a much larger composition.
“There is no such thing as abstract or figurative, there is just good painting.”
The exceptional painting on paper mounted to canvas entered into the illustrious collects ion of Roger Dutilleul shortly after its execution in 1942 (see figs. 6-7). The French industrialist became one of the country’s top collects ors in the first half of the twentieth century, acquiring works directly from young artists’ exhibitions and working closely with dealers like Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler and his Galerie Louise Leiris. Beginning with the Fauvist paintings of Van Dongen, Braque and Vlaminck, Dutilleul soon acquired a wealth of Cubist works by Picasso, Léger and Braque and later built one of the most significant collects ions of the genre in his day. Dutilleul acted on instinct, often purchasing moderately sized canvases with a particular penchant for portraits and human figures like Portrait de Dora Maar.
“Though the painters in his collects ion were in their own t.mes misunderstood and rejected, Dutilleul himself was certain that their names would go down in history.”
Writing on Dutillel’s importance to Modern art, scholar Francis Berthier mentions a 1955 interview with Kahnweiler: “The great dealer said that, during the heroic period of Cubism, ‘a gallery, painters and the owner of the gallery could survive on very few collects ors, three or four; true, these were loyal friends. First and foremost, in France, Roger Dutilleul, who was from the very outset passionate about collects ing.’ collects ors like Roger Dutilleul were thus essential to the development of avant-garde art. At that point, the avant-garde was quite unrecognized. Painters hailed some decades later as the most representative and important artists of their day were at the t.mes completely unknown” (quoted in Modigliani: The Melancholy Angel, Milan, 2002).
The linear contortions and bisected planes of the present work anticipate de Kooning’s iconic abstracted women of the following decade (see fig. 8). An heir to Picasso’s legacy, de Kooning employed a similarly intense and visceral artistic process, his dynamic figures towing the line between abstraction and figuration.
In a legendary conversation on the very topic of abstraction, art critic Clement Greenberg questioned de Kooning, asking whether a truly modern artist could justify figurative painting: "In today's world, it's impossible to paint a face,” said Greenberg. De Kooning replied: "That's right. And it's impossible not to."
