Double portrait avec chapeau (c.1936-1937)

Maar, Dora (1907-1997)

Double portrait avec chapeau (Double Portrait with Hat)
c.19361937
Gelatin silver print, montage with handwork on negative, 29.8 x 23.8 cm
Cleveland Museum of ArtCleveland

Maar sandwiched two negatives of the same model and painted the background and hat (or is it a decomposing halo?) onto the negative. Softening the emulsion, she scraped and lifted it off, techniques that involve destruction and suggest disintegration. The face evokes depictions of female faces in the art of her lover, Pablo Picasso, especially his 1938 paintings of weeping women for which Maar was the model. (CMA)