Detail of Dora Maar in an Armchair by Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, November 2008

Artist: Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881–1973)

Title: Dora Maar in an Armchair

Date: 1939

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 28 7/8 x 23 3/4 in. (73.3 x 60.3 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: The Mr. and Mrs. Klaus G. Perls Collection, 1998

Accession Number: 1998.23

Rights and Reproduction: © 2010 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Not On View


Description:

Picasso painted this portrait of his new lover, the Surrealist photographer Dora Maar (Henriette Theodora Markovitch, 1907-1997), during their yearlong sojourn at Royan, a small town on France's southern Atlantic coast. As with many of Picasso's depictions of Dora, she confronts the viewer with wide-eyed and high-strung intelligence. Her sparkling eyes compete with the stars on the garish wallpaper behind her, presumably the same paper that decorated their rooms at the Hôtel du Tigre.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/collection_database/modern...