…for my inspiration…I liked to go out in the evenings…
and have a good-looking man tell me how beautiful I am
or how great an artist I am –
and he touches my hand … I loved it! – I needed that.
And I had many, many.”
Tamara de Lempicka
Tamara de Lempicka (Łempicka) (16 May 1898 – 18 March 1980), born Maria Górska in Warsaw, Poland, was a Polish Art Deco painter and “the first woman artist to be a glamour star”.
“Dora Maar in her Studio”
Paris, 1946 by Brassai
She was born Henriette Theodora Markovitch in Tours, Western France to a Jewish family. Her father, Josip Marković, was a Croat architect, famous for his work in South America; her mother, Julie Voisin, was from Touraine, France. Dora grew up in Argentina.
Before meeting Picasso, Maar was already famous as a photographer. She also painted. She met Picasso in January 1936 on the terrace of the Café les Deux Magots in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris, when she was 29 years old and he 54. The famous poet Paul Éluard, who was with Picasso, had to introduce them. Picasso was attracted by her beauty and self-mutilation (she cut her fingers and the table playing “the knife game”; he got her bloody gloves and exhibited them on a shelf in his apartment). She spoke Spanish fluently, so Picasso was even more fascinated. Their relationship lasted nearly nine years.
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* “I want my dark lady. I want my angel. I want my tempter. I want the lighter of my seven lamps of beauty, honour, laughter, music, love, life and immortality. I want my inspiration, my folly, my happiness, my divinity, my madness, my selfishness, my final sanity and sanctification, my transfiguration, my purification, my light across the sea, my palm across the desert, my garden of lovely flowers, my million nameless joys, my day’s wage, my night’s dream, my darling and my star.” ~
George Bernard Shaw in a letter to Mrs. Campbell.
Mrs. Campbell 1865 – 1940 was a British actress; the first actress to play “Eliza Doolittle in George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, which was the inspiration for the musical My Fair Lady.
Gala Dalí (7 September [O.S. 26 August] 1894 – June 10, 1982), usually known simply as Gala, was the wife of first Paul Éluard, then Salvador Dalí, and an inspiration for them and many other writers and artists.
Gala was born Elena Dmitrievna Diakonova in Kazan, Tatarstan, Russia, to a family of intellectuals. Among her childhood friends was the poet Marina Tsvetaeva.
She was a muse for Dalí who said that she was the one who saved him from madness and an early death.
A constant influence in Picasso’s life was the painter Dora Maar, with whom he had a parallel relationship (the closest was in 1930’s). She featured as his Muse in most of his Abstract Works and was responsible for documenting his most famous work “Guernica.” After the liberation of France, Pablo Picasso fell in love with a French art student, Francois Gilot.
Twenty-six years younger than Picasso, Maar was close to the surrealists. Her face and hands fascinated not only Picasso but also the photographer Man Ray, who took her picture several times.
When Picasso abandoned Maar for another woman in 1945, she had a nervous breakdown and became a recluse.
Photo of Dora Maar (1936) by Man Ray.
A constant influence in Picasso’s life was the painter Dora Maar, with whom he had a parallel relationship (the closest was in 1930’s). She featured as his Muse in most of his Abstract Works and was responsible for documenting his most famous work “Guernica.” After the liberation of France, Pablo Picasso fell in love with a French art student, Francois Gilot.
Twenty-six years younger than Picasso, Maar was close to the surrealists. Her face and hands fascinated not only Picasso but also the photographer Man Ray, who took her picture several times.
When Picasso abandoned Maar for another woman in 1945, she had a nervous breakdown and became a recluse.
Photo of Dora Maar (1936) by Man Ray.
Jeanne Hébuterne (April 6, 1898 – January 25, 1920) was a French artist, best known as the frequent subject and common-law wife of the artist Amedeo Modigliani.
Born in Paris to a Roman Catholic family, her father, Achille Casimir Hébuterne, worked at Le Bon Marché department store. A beautiful girl, she was introduced to the artistic community in Montparnasse by her brother André Hébuterne who wanted to become a painter. She met several of the then starving artists and modeled for Tsuguharu Foujita. However, wanting to pursue a career in the arts, and with a talent for drawing, she chose to study at the Académie Colarossi. It was there in the spring of 1917 that Jeanne Hébuterne was introduced to Amedeo Modigliani by the sculptor Chana Orloff (1888–1968) who came with many other artists to take advantage of the Academy’s live models. Jeanne soon began an affair with the charismatic artist, and the two fell deeply in love. She soon moved in with him, despite strong objection from her deeply Catholic parents.
