An outstanding artist, a great master, periodically requires additional energy and fresh ideas. Women are often the source of such energy. Dora Maar was also an artist. However, it turned out to be too close to the ruthless genius.
Childhood and youth
A true artist continues to work regardless of the events that take place outside the walls of the studio. His task is to capture the moment in which he is. According to contemporary experts, Dora Maar was a distinctive and talented artist. In addition to this, she was professionally engaged in art photography. Sensual and contemptuous of convention, Dora was a notable star in Parisian artistic bohemia. Her hair, black as a raven's wing and malachite green eyes, had a bewitching effect on men.
The artist, whose real name is Teodora Markovich, was born on November 22, 1907 in a family of creative intelligentsia. Parents at that time lived in the French city of Tours. His father, a native of Croatia, was engaged in architectural design. Mother, a native Frenchwoman, led a social life. Three years later, the family moved to distant Buenos Aires, my father got a decent job. Already in her school years, the girl was fluent in Spanish, French and English. When Dora was seventeen years old, she returned to Paris to pursue a specialized education at the Academy of Fine Arts.
In the shadow of a genius
Dora has completed a full course of photography training. In parallel with this, she developed close ties with artists who worked in the genre of surrealism. This passion was immediately reflected in the appearance of the woman photographer and her behavior. Maar dressed extravagantly and elegantly. She loved to wear wide-brimmed hats and long gloves. She smoked cigarettes with a long mouthpiece and painted her pointed nails a deep red. This is how the famous artist Pablo Picasso saw Dora. After the first meeting at the Two Macaques cafe, they went to Dora's studio, where she took some pictures of her future lover.
It is important to note that by this time Picasso had been in a creative stupor for more than six months. When they met, the famous master was only 55, and the photographer girl was 29 years old. Dora, with her energy and non-standard behavior, managed to rekindle the artist's desire for creativity. In the mid-thirties, Picasso created his best painting, Guernica. Maar captures the entire process of creation on film. After a while, the artist paints a picture entitled "Portrait of Dora Maar with a Cat".
Fading and oblivion
The relationship between the great artist and his muse lasted almost ten years. No, they did not become husband and wife. Such a turn of events would be in violation of all applicable rules. Picasso was carried away by a girl forty years younger than him, and Dora was left alone. I never got married.
Maar had a hard time breaking up with her idol, to whom she sacrificed her personal life. She spent almost two years in a psychiatric hospital. Dora spent the final part of her life shutting herself up in her apartment. She passed away in July 1997. The muse survived the great artist by almost twenty years.
