Dora Maar in an Armchair

Pablo Picasso

1939 · Oil on canvas · Modern and Contemporary Art

Picasso painted this portrait of Surrealist photographer Dora Maar (1907–1997), then his lover, during their yearlong sojourn at Royan, a small town on France’s southern Atlantic coast, from which they witnessed the outbreak of World War II. Her face and body have been radically distorted. The garish background, with its irregular patterns that seem to tilt and sway, might represent the wallpaper that decorated their rooms at the Hôtel du Tigre.

Artist

Pablo Picasso

Date

1939

Medium

Oil on canvas

Department

Modern and Contemporary Art

Credit line

The Mr. and Mrs. Klaus G. Perls Collection, 1998