Dora Maar; Picasso Mistress, Portrait Subject

Dora Maar, 90, a mistress and muse of Pablo Picasso. Maar, who met Picasso in 1936 at Les Deux Magots cafe in Paris, was featured in the Picasso exhibit titled “Weeping Women: The Years of Marie-Therese Walter and Dora Maar” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1994. When the two met, Picasso was involved with another woman, but he soon began meeting Maar in a studio she found. Among his portraits of her were “Bust of a Seated Woman,” which sold at auction in 1995 for $3 million, and “Portrait of Dora Maar.” When Picasso left Maar in the 1940s, she fell into a deep depression and became a recluse. Herself a painter and photographer, she was overwhelmed by Picasso’s shadow and never achieved her own artistic ambitions. Maar was born Theodora Markovitch in Tours, France, and grew up in Argentina, where her father was an architect. On July 16 in Paris.