Art

Dora Maar: Paris in the Time of Man Ray, Jean Cocteau, and Picasso

An exquisite volume on the beautiful, talented, and mysterious Dora Maar, showcasing her Surrealist photography, her life with Pablo Picasso, and her friendships with Surrealists
in 1930s Paris.
 
Highly regarded as a Surrealist photographer in the 1930s, Dora Maar was a fellow student with Henri Cartier-Bresson and friends with Brassaï, Man Ray, Jean Cocteau, and André Breton, the charismatic leader of the Surrealists.
 
When Maar met Picasso in the mid-1930s, she became the most influential of his many muses, inspiring much of what is considered to be his best work. But during the ten years they were together, she abandoned her career as an acclaimed professional photographer and instead photographed Picasso, including her famous series of him painting Guernica.
 
While Maar was considered an influential Surrealist photographer, most of her work vanished from the public eye once she stopped creating it in the late 1930s. Now, this volume restores her photographs to their place in history, featuring a treasure trove of incredible and never-before-published images.
 
An important look at Surrealist photography, Dora Maar is also beautifully illustrated with photographs celebrating Maar’s friendships with leading artists and intellectuals of the day, such as Georges Bataille (Maar’s former lover), glamorous Nusch Éluard and her husband, the poet Paul Éluard, and arts patron and hostess Marie-Laure de Noailles, evoking the atmosphere of 1930s and ’40s artistic Paris.

About The Author

Louise Baring has written on the arts for the Economist, Vogue, The Daily Telegraph, and the Independent on Sunday. She is the author of Norman Parkinson and Martine Franck and lives and works in London.

  • Publish Date: March 28, 2017
  • Format: Hardcover
  • Category: Art - Individual Artists - Monographs
  • Publisher: Rizzoli
  • Trim Size: 8 x 10
  • Pages: 224
  • US Price: $55.00
  • CDN Price: $75.00
  • ISBN: 978-0-8478-5853-8

Reviews

"In the skilled hands of art writer Louise Baring, the book heroically restores Maar’s photographs to their place in history, featuring never-before-published images, many from the Pompidou Museum in Paris, that showcase the magnitude of her photographic talent."
ArtDaily.org 

"The book is a small treasure—even after I realized that there are no photos of the Dora Maar House in Provence. Illustrations include many examples of her surrealist photography. Objectively, it’s a study of a woman’s life, and at the same time, it is a riposte to those who thought she was ‘nothing without Picasso’."
The Style Saloniste

"Exceptional, informative, and a seminal work of Surrealist photographic history, "Dora Maar" is an inherently fascinating and extraordinary photographic study that will prove to be a critically important and enduringly appreciated addition to personal, professional, community, and academic library 20th Century Photography collections in general, and Dora Maar supplemental studies reading lists in particular."
Midwest Book Review