ing herself insufficiently talented in the presence of an artistic of such greatness as her lover. Although he would refrain from sadistic lines related to Maar, Pab- lo’s obsession with her tears and agonised face testify to something quite different. Furthermore, he would always ‘hit’ Do- ra where it hurt the most – with the fact that she could not give him children, un- like his other lover, whose existence she had to accept. The humiliation she would experience at the hands of her lover would become more severe year after year, such that Do- ra even shared the same canvas with his other lovers. All of this became too much for her when Picasso introduced her to his future wife, after which her already dis- turbed psychological condition only wors- ened. The situation became increasingly alarming, and she hit crisis point in 1946, when she was hospitalised. This was fol- lowed by two weeks of electro-shock ther- apy, then two years of treatment with psy- choanalysis. Dora found solace in her faith, in writ- ing verses and in painting, though she re- fused to exhibit in galleries until the end of her life. Regular contact with Picasso didn’t stop even in the subsequent decades, so they sent each other unusual gifts, with meanings known only to them. Still, it is not difficult to work out the hidden meaning behind the fact that Pablo once sent her a chair that he’d made that was inspired by medieval torture devices. Until her death in 1997, Maar contin- ued to live in the apartment where she didn’t want to change the furniture from the way it had been when Picasso saw it for the last time. She sustained herself in the final years of her life by selling some of the Picasso paintings she possessed. Nev- ertheless, she never wanted to get rid of them all. “These paintings are mine. On the walls of a gallery maybe, they’re worth only half a million. On the walls of Picas- so’s mistress, they’re worth a premium, the premium of history.”
world would remember her: that of the lover of Pablo Picasso. One rainy day in pre-war Paris, Pab- lo was unable to shift his gaze from the 29-year-old girl whose distinctive look didn’t enchant him, like many before him. It was unable to do so because that look was directed towards her hands, which were exposed on the table of a café in Saint-Ger- main-des-Prés. She lethargically played a game that wasn’t innocuous in the slight- est and consisted of stabbing a knife in- to the table between her own fingers at incredible speed. Although the glove on her hand was marked increasingly by trac- es of blood, no pain could be detected on Dora’s face. Indeed, she revealed nothing but an astonishing commitment to con- tinue this unusual game. The 56-year-old painter approached Maar hypnotised, ex- pressing a desire to meet her. Although his first words were uttered in French, Do- ra replied to him in fluent Spanish, well aware that this language was the moth- er tongue of this ingenious painter who already at that time – even more fasci- nated by this unusual girl – knew that he would never forget her. Dora and Pablo soon became associ-
ates, but also lovers. There is a famous se- ries of photographs that she shot as Picas- so painted his Guernica masterpiece. The history of art would remember this as the first photographic documenting of the cre- ation of a painted artwork. Moreover, Do- ra’s name would remain intertwined with this recognisable anti-war painting that emerged in a Europe that was then de- scending towards the devastation of World War II. Specifically, in addition to serving as the model for the woman in the paint- ing who uses a lamp to shed light on the entire scene and thus reveal the horrors of war, Maar personally contributed sev- eral vertical strokes to the horse shown on this canvas. Picasso would go on to spend the next nine years painting Dora Maar. Although he would confess in one diary entry that he’d never laughed so much with any oth- er woman, as he was fascinated by her in- telligent humour, he would note the fact that he was never able to paint her smil- ing. The pictures from this almost-dec- ade-long period actually document the fall into depression of this once success- ful photographer, who set aside her cam- era forever when she met him, consider-
Često je delila platno sa drugim Pikasovim ljubavnicama She often shared the same canvas with Picasso’s other lovers
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