The Surrealist photographer Dora Maar (1907–1997) was the artist's lover from 1936 to 1943. In contrast to his languid pictures of Marie-Thérèse Walter (see MMA 1997.149.4), Picasso's portraits of Maar are sharp and frenetic. Here, the thirty-one-year-old Maar appears as a giddy spider queen, sitting atop a throne with crossed arms and legs at the center of a weblike world. Her hands are curiously splayed, her breasts are conical shells, and her ears evoke two little bells.
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Inscription: Signed and dated in black ink, lower right: 29.4.28· / Picasso
Mary (Meric) Callery, Boulogne-sur-Seine (by 1939–ca. 1972/73; acquired from the artist; sold ca. 1972/73 to Diamond); [Harold and Hester Diamond, New York, ca. 1972/73–1981; sold on May 21, 1981 to Gelman]; Jacques and Natasha Gelman, Mexico City and New York (1981–his d. 1986); Natasha Gelman, Mexico City and New York (1986–d. 1998; her bequest to MMA)
New York. Museum of Modern Art. "Picasso: Forty Years of His Art," November 15, 1939–January 7, 1940, no. 352.
Art Institute of Chicago. "Picasso: Forty Years of His Art," February 1–March 5, 1940, no. 352.
City Art Museum of Saint Louis. "Picasso: Forty Years of His Art," March 16–April 14, 1940, no. 352.
Boston. Museum of Fine Arts. "Picasso: Forty Years of His Art," April 26–May 25, 1940, no. 352.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. "Picasso: Forty Years of His Art," June 25–July 22, 1940, no. 352.
Cincinnati Art Museum. "Picasso: Forty Years of His Art," September 29–October 27, no. 352.
Cleveland Museum of Art. "Picasso: Forty Years of His Art," November 7–December 8, 1940, no. 352.
New Orleans. Isaac Delgado Museum of Art. "Picasso: Forty Years of His Art," December 20, 1940–January 17, 1941, no. 352.
Minneapolis Institute of Arts. "Picasso: Forty Years of His Art," February 1–March 2, 1941, no. 352.
Pittsburgh. Carnegie Museum of Art. "Picasso: Forty Years of His Art," March 15–April 13, 1941, no. 352.
Philadelphia Museum of Art. "The Callery Collection: Picasso–Léger," January–February 1945, unnumbered cat. (p. 39).
New York. Buchholz Gallery. "Picasso: Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings from a Private Collection," February 27–March 17, 1945, no. 22.
New York. Museum of Modern Art. "New York Private Collections," July 20–September 12, 1948, unnumbered cat. (lent by a private collection).
New York. Museum of Modern Art. "Pablo Picasso: A Retrospective," May 22–September 16, 1980, unnumbered cat. (p. 355).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Twentieth-Century Modern Masters: The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection," December 12, 1989–April 1, 1990, unnumbered cat. (p. 205).
London. Royal Academy of Arts. "Twentieth-Century Modern Masters: The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection," April 19–July 15, 1990, unnumbered cat.
Martigny. Fondation Pierre Gianadda. "De Matisse à Picasso: Collection Jacques et Natasha Gelman," June 18–November 1, 1994, unnumbered cat. (p. 229).
New York. Museum of Modern Art. "Picasso and Portraiture: Representation and Transformation," April 28–September 17, 1996, unnumbered cat. (p. 396).
Paris. Grand Palais. "Picasso and Portraiture: Representation and Transformation," October 15, 1996–January 20, 1997, unnumbered cat.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," April 27–August 1, 2010, no. 82.
New York. Acquavella Galleries. "Picasso: Seven Decades of Drawing," October 7–December 3, 2021, unnumbered cat. (pl. 56; as "Dora Maar dans un fauteuil d'osier (Dora Maar in a Wicker Chair]").
Christian Zervos. "Tableaux magiques de Picasso." Cahiers d'art 13, nos. 3–10 (1938), p. 145, ill.
Alfred H. Barr Jr. Picasso: Fifty Years of His Art. New York, 1946, p. 220, ill.
Joan Merli. Picasso, el artista y la obra de nuestro tiempo. 2nd ed. (1st ed.,1942). Buenos Aires, 1948, p. 604, no. 508, ill.
Christian Zervos. Pablo Picasso. Vol. 9, Works from 1937 to 1939. Paris, 1958, p. 64, no. 132, ill.
Pierre Daix. La Vie de peintre de Pablo Picasso. Paris, 1977, p. 286.
Christine Piot. "Décrire Picasso." PhD diss., Universite de Paris Pantheon-Sorbonne, October 1981, pp. 161–62, fig. 140.
Judi Freeman. Picasso and the Weeping Women: The Years of Marie-Thérèse Walter and Dora Maar. Exh. cat., Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles, 1994, pp. 181, 183, fig. 134.
Mariel Jardines. The Picasso Project: Picasso's Paintings, Watercolours, Drawings, and Sculpture, A Comprehensive Illustrated Catalogue, 1885–1973. Ed. Herschel B. Chipp and Alan Wofsy. Vol. 6, Spanish Civil War, 1937–1939. San Francisco, 1997, pp. xv, 266, no. 38-068, ill. p. 158.
Judith H. Dobrzynski. "20th Century Art Treasures Are Left to Met." New York Times (May 6, 1998), pp. A1, B6.
Brigitte Leal, Christine Piot, and Marie-Laure Bernadac. The Ultimate Picasso. New York, 2000, pp. 332, 520, fig. 816.
Julia May Boddewyn in Michael FitzGerald. Picasso and American Art. Exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art. New York, 2006, pp. 360, 364.
Sabine Rewald inPicasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Gary Tinterow and Susan Alyson Stein. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2010, pp. 224–26, no. 82, ill. (color).
Rachel Mustalish inPicasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Gary Tinterow and Susan Alyson Stein. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2010, p. 226.
Pablo Picasso (Spanish, Malaga 1881–1973 Mougins, France)
1929
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