Dora Maar (born Henriette Théodora Markovitch, Paris, 1907–1997) was a renowned artist within the surrealist movement. She shared professional relations and a friendship with André Breton and other intellectuals and artists of the period.

Dora Markovitch began taking photographs in the late 1920s. She opened a studio in Paris in 1931, where she took portraits of Paris’s cultural milieu, as well as fashion and advertising commissions. As her professional career gained recognition, she chose to sign her works as ‘Dora Maar’.

The New Vision movement in photography focused on compositions with unusual vantage points and the search for beauty in everyday life and objects. Maar’s images are a clear example of this innovative approach, which moved away from pictorialism.

The rise of fascism in Europe led artists to use their works to challenge social and political hostility. In 1933, Maar travelled to Barcelona, where she captured architecture and people in precarious situations, revealing the surrealistic side of life in Spain three years before the Civil War.

A selection of beautiful drawings, both figurative and abstract, created on loose sheets of paper or accounting books, also reflects Maar’s vision of everyday life. She additionally documented Picasso’s process of painting Guernica, providing an essential visual record that deepens our understanding of this masterpiece.

Although the public widely recognizes her surrealistic photography, this exhibition highlights her street photography and presents lesser-known drawings from a brief yet prolific period in her career. Dora Maar was a multifaceted artist who photographed, drew, wrote, made collages, and painted.