Picasso's Weeping Woman

by Mary Ann Caws

In 1936 Maar was a successful Surrealist photographer, unconventional and sexually liberated. Picasso arranged for an introduction and soon she was his lover, his muse, and the subject of some of the greatest paintings of our century. At the height of the affair, Maar photographed the life and friends she shared with Picasso, among them Paul and Nusch Eluard, Jean Cocteau, Andre Breton and his wife Jacqueline Lamba, and Jacques Lacan. Maar's liaison with Picasso was turbulent and impassioned, ending in 1943. The love story between these two exceptionally talented individuals unfolds through Maar's striking photographs of Picasso and their brilliant circle of friends, artists and writers; in his famous weeping woman portraits of her; and in Mary Ann Caw's revealing text. The model for scores of portraits by Picasso and others in museums and private collections all over the world, Dora Maar subsequently became a reclusive figure until her death in 1997 when her estate revealed a treasure trove of her photographs and paintings along with little known paintings and drawings by Picasso and objects collected by her throughout their life together. Drawing on this poignant collection of memorabilia, the book is an enthralling revelation not only of one of the century's great love affairs, involving the century's greatest artist, but of the lives of a wholly exceptional circle of friends, especially during the dramatic events of the 1930s and the war years.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction

224 pages, Hardcover

First published October 6, 2000

About the author

Mary Ann Caws is an American author, translator, art historian and literary critic.
She is Distinguished Professor Emerita in Comparative Literature, English, and French at the Graduate School of the City University of New York, and on the film faculty. She is an expert on Surrealism and modern English and French literature, having written biographies of Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf, and Henry James. She works on the interrelations of visual art and literary texts, has written biographies of Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí, and edited the diaries, letters, and source material of Joseph Cornell. She has also written on André Breton, Robert Desnos, René Char, Yves Bonnefoy, Robert Motherwell, and Edmond Jabès. She served as the senior editor for the HarperCollins World Reader, and edited anthologies including Manifesto: A Century of Isms, Surrealism, and the Yale Anthology of 20th-Century French Poetry. Among others, she has translated Stéphane Mallarmé, Tristan Tzara, Pierre Reverdy, André Breton, Paul Éluard, Robert Desnos, and René Char.
Among the positions she has held are President, Association for Study of Dada and Surrealism, 1971–75 and President, Modern Language Association of America, 1983, Academy of Literary Studies, 1984–85, and the American Comparative Literature Association, 1989-91.
She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge University, and a Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities.
In October 2004, she published her autobiography, To the Boathouse: a Memoir (University Alabama Press), and in November 2008, a cookbook memoir: Provençal Cooking: Savoring the Simple Life in France (Pegasus Books).
She was married to Peter Caws and is the mother of Hilary Caws-Elwitt and of Matthew Caws, lead singer of the band Nada Surf. She is married to Dr. Boyce Bennett; they live in New York City.

Reviews

[Constance · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone knows there was a Picasso. Some have heard of Dora Maar. I thought she was one of many lovers in his life. She was, but so much more. She was strong, independent, a feminist, a survivor. She was a photographer, a Surrealist, an artist.

She was dark and brooding. The perfect muse for Picasso's painting "Weeping Woman." There are hundreds of portraits of "Weeping Woman" but only one Dora Maar.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the actress Samantha Colley who played Dora Maar in the National Geographic 2nd season of Genius about Picasso. Dora Maar seemed to be the most interesting of Picasso's love affairs. The book did not disappoint, it's a biography of Dora Maar including a lot of high quality pictures of her photography (she was a photographer by profession) and Picasso's paintings of Dora Maar.

[danielle; ▵ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dora Maar was smart and bold; she took photographs, painted her nails, painted portraits; she was admired and painted by Picasso (although she said Picasso painted only Picasso, that he never loved anyone); the book was fine

[Dagmar Cunningham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dora Maar, a successful young photographer, met Picasso in 1937 and was his lover and muse until 1943. She was immortalized in his paintings and sketches (lamp bearing woman in "Guernica")This book describes her life and art. She died, a recluse, in 1997 at the age of 89.

[Jez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Master's thesis topic. Love love love Dora.