She spoke fluent Spanish and spent of her youth in Argentina and returning to France in 1920.
She began studying art in Paris in 1926, choosing photography as her preferred medium and eventually travelling in the circles of such figures as Henri-Bresson, Brassai and Man Ray.
Paul Eluard had introduced Dora Maar and Picasso to each other in October 1935 at the Café au Deux Magots. During 1936 they became lovers. Their love affair started in fall, as the Spanish Civil war escalated.
Dora’s face begins to appear in Picasso’s work during the fall of 1936 and it was she who next spring photographed Guernica in progress.
She suffered nervous collapse after the affair with Picasso ended in 1945. She underwent treatment in psychiatric hospital of Sainte-Anne, Paris and later with the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan.
She died on 16 July 1997.
Biography of Dora Maar (1907-1997)
