Dora Maar
They met in 1936 in Les Deux Magots where Picasso tended to go after his evening walk. He had dinner with his friend, poet Paul Eluard, while Elf – Picasso’s dog – was cadging at near-by tables. Dora’s and Pablo’s eyes met. Impressed he mumbled a few words in Spanish – the language Dora knew perfectly, since she had spent her childhood in Argentine. They fell into talk, and Picasso moved to her table.
Many years later Picasso told that Dora was wearing black gloves embroidered with rose flowers that evening. She entertained herself stabbing spots between fingers of her left hand lying on the table with a knife. At one point she slipped a fraction of an inch. Picasso asked Dora to give him her blooded gloves. All his life he kept them in a special shadow box.
Dora Maar was a nervous and troubled creature who made it into Picasso’s art as
“the weeping woman”. With the image of Maar Picasso made a kind of retrospective journey across his artwork: she was represented in all styles and manners of painting the artist had tried before. However even Picasso himself noted that he could never paint her smiling. The most typical feature of Dora’s portraits are large and deep eyes full of tears, or anxiety, or grief, or just dreamy.
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12 recent comments
16 March Ryan Cantrell from USA wrote:
'What am I looking at? Picasso with a 9-year-old????!!!! FREAK'
03 March Brett from USA wrote:
'What 9yr old signs his work like that. Very interesting.'
25 February Pepe from USA wrote:
'Este es el peor cuadro que he visto en mi vida. Un chaval con 15 años, no puede estar pensando solo en dibujar.'
20 December Jason from USA wrote:
'So I'm an art collector who's stumped. I have a lithograph I can't find anywhere on the internet. I have a large litho ( around 28" tall 23" wide) of Picasso's Mother Child 4 hands study but it's different than any other I've found. Fist off, it's a 3 color litho. It's also on Montvall laid paper on board. The print definitely has age to it but obviously no way to tell how old. I have looked for various water marks but haven't found any. Being laid paper on board makes it difficult. I had originally thought it may be printed in France by La Photolithography L Delaporte. Basically because the size was about the same and the 3 print colors were the same. However, the Mother Child litho doesn't have the information located at the bottom margin of the print like others I've seen. So after all that any thoughts?'
16 December luis from Usa wrote:
'Wow nice and where is the original signed'
02 November samarrajo from levenmouth wrote:
'the measurements of the painting are 163.7cm x 132.1cm making the bread, fruit and table almost life size. A nice detail to add into an art and design exam :)'
19 October Front side tail from levenmouth wrote:
'i think the artwork should be abeled to be viewed from all side :((('
21 September Pascal from New York wrote:
'Like everything, you must study or practice to appreciate. If you have eaten burgers and pizza your whole life, it may be difficult to appreciate sushi.'
16 July steve from USA wrote:
'Breathtaking as everything he's ever done. Rich vibrant colors and sharp visceral angles. Picasso is a master'
28 June Nikolai from Switzerland wrote:
'The painting is certainly impressive, to say the least. But what has always struck me as curious is that none of Picasso's other works from this period are anywhere near as accomplished as this painting. It is a well known fact that at one time it was a common practice in teaching painting, for the master to repaint areas of the student's work. In the case of this painting, I cannot help but wonder how much of it might have actually been painted by Picasso's father.'
14 June Ricardo Lapin from Switzerland wrote:
'How much perversion to treat a couple as if they were an object (a model, "muse", etc.) and be indifferent to painting their suffering over and over again, for years without doing anything to help her.'
24 May byats wurnt from Switzerland wrote:
'I think, when dealing with an abstract piece, one must take an approach similar to reading.
On the right, I can see buildings, a staple of modern life.
Warm colours, may indicate heat?
There's a curtain on the left harlequin.
Now we just have to make sense of it.'
![Pablo Picasso. Woman with arms leves [Head of Dora Maar], 1936](images/works/1863_s.jpg "Pablo Picasso. Woman with arms leves [Head of Dora Maar], 1936")
