Exhibitions

Jennifer Rochlin’s large, hand-formed terracotta vessels seemingly compel viewers to get up close and personal and take a closer look—a phenomenon no more apparent than in her current solo show, “Paintings on Clay,” at Hauser and Wirth in New York, on view through July 14, 2024. Presented across a range of pedestals and plinths, the exhibition invites visitors to move between, circumvent, and even peer inside the various pots, exploring their painted and etched patterns, vignettes, and, most intriguingly, storylines.
Installation view of “Jennifer Rochlin: Paintings on Clay” (2024). Photo: Sarah Muehlbauer. Courtesy of the artist and Hauser and Wirth.
While the tradition of ceramics may call to mind visions of highly polished and evenly proportioned pots and containers, Rochlin relishes in the idiosyncrasies of intuitive form and shape as it directly reflects the hand of the artist and provides a unique starting point for her subsequent paintings and drawings.
“I did once make a very perfect pot” said Rochlin on a video call from her home in Altadena, California. “I just found it boring, I was like, ‘where’s my way in here’? When I was going to paint and draw, it was just so perfect that I wasn’t interested in it. I think the slumps and the lumps and the molding and the disfigurement, that to me is something that I find aesthetically interesting.”
Installation view of “Jennifer Rochlin: Paintings on Clay” (2024). Photo: Sarah Muehlbauer. Courtesy of the artist and Hauser and Wirth.
Rochlin came to ceramics nearly two decades ago, and the medium ultimately became the artist’s “canvas” of choice for her paintings. The shape of each vessel is arrived at intuitively, shaping and fashioning the clay in a manner that its structural integrity stays true but doesn’t adhere to a prescribed form. It is only once the pot is finished that Rochhlin considers what will go on it, with the shape typically informing the rest of the design of the piece.
The images Rochlin chooses to adorn each vessel with are arrived at in a similar manner: intuitively and based on her present thoughts or emotions. Echoing Surrealist automatism, wherein the artist attempts to let the unconscious come to the fore over conscious control, Rochlin’s memories and imaginings can be traced across the surface of each work.
Jennifer Rochlin, Trans-Siberian Railway (2023). Photo: Keith Lubow. Courtesy of the artist and Hauser and Wirth.
A highlight of the show, Trans-Siberian Railway (2023), features a spiraling train surrounded by larger-than-life irises, drawn from Rochlin’s memory of travelling along the Trans-Siberian Railroad in Russia, which she captured on Super 8 film, with the composition alluding to the way in which a roll of film unravels. By one illustrated train car, a man has picked some of the irises and offers them to a woman in one of the train’s windows. In reality, it was a scene of two strangers, within Rochlin’s depiction, the woman is a self-portrait of the artist herself.
“What’s funny is when I was drawing it, it was completely unconscious that [the subject] became me—it wasn’t,” Rochlin described. “I was in my mind drawing the image that I had from the Super 8 film, which I haven’t looked at in I don’t even know how long. It was a memory of that Super 8. I think it was because I was feeling this longing for a romance at the time that I made the work. I wanted to do this quintessential romantic gesture. The idea that the flowers be thrown up, then the train takes off, and they never see each other again.”
Jennifer Rochlin, Honey Pot (2024). Photo: Keith Lubow. Courtesy of the artist and Hauser and Wirth.
Another central work in the show highlights Rochlin’s penchant for collaboration and sharing the experience of making her vessels, Honey Pot (2024). Across its surface are drawings of female genitalia by 22 women artists. Some of the drawings were done very spur of the moment, as Rochlin notably loaded the piece in the back of her car, double parked outside of a gallery opening, and invited several artists out to make their contribution. Others made their additions on studio visits or sent digital drawings to be transferred on.
Rochlin said, “When I started having artists draw on the pots with the collaborative pieces, then I have all these kind of random drawings—how am I unifying them? I like that it’s like a community, and I love how the act of just scratching into the clay is so pleasurable, I want to share that with people.”
Jennifer Rochlin, Green Tapestry with Poppies and Bites (2024). Photo: Keith Lubow. Courtesy of the artist and Hauser and Wirth.
Other pieces on view, such as Green Tapestry with Poppies and Bites (2024), shows another hallmark form of Rochlin’s collaboration, as visitors to the studio have been given the opportunity to physically bite into the clay leaving teeth marks as unique as fingerprints. It also further taps into the process of remembering, as the tapestries and poppies, untethered from a narrative or landscape, float across the surface like fragmented memories. Although every work is rooted into Rochlin’s own deeply personal life and history, throughout is an undercurrent of universality and collective experience.
“I think since my work is unfiltered and honest, and you can feel the emotion through the mark making, I think that people can relate to it and have it brings up memories for them and they can have a shared memory of a lost love, or your children growing up, or in time passing. That’s what I’m hoping that viewers are experiencing and it’s going to connect with them on a deep level of their own.”
Jennifer Rochlin, Ladies at the Norton Simon Museum (2023). Photo: Keith Lubow. Courtesy of the artist and Hauser and Wirth.
Beyond the psychological rawness of Rochlin’s work, the rawness of the base material itself too is stark. When looking closely at each vessel, the imperfect edges and unpainted clay peeking out imbues each piece with an air of the ancient, even primordial, a glimpse at what an artifact from today might look like far into the future. Recalling Athenian narrative pottery in the arrangement of scenes and decorative elements, both the collaborative works and pieces completed by Rochlin alone speak to collective experiences as well as the deeply individual and personal.
“I’m working in a tradition that has such a long lineage of storytelling and I really love getting to be an active participant and continue this tradition. Making and telling a story on a vessel started thousands of years ago, and that’s still relevant in our day and age. With A.I. and Instagram and all the phones and everything, I think the more handmade the better. The more you get to see something that is just made of dirt, water, and fire, it just stands the test of time. And I’m happy that people are interested in that still.”

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Nona Hendryx may be known for her disco-funk stylings as one-third of LaBelle and in her late ’70s solo career. But running concurrent with her music practice, she told me, was always a deep fascination with technology.  
Over a video call, she shared her predilection for taking devices apart as a child, her interest in synthesizers, and her collection of every Mac computer she’s ever owned (and she’s had them since the Apple II). Above all is her desire to go “wireless,” to achieve oneness with technology. “The idea of purchasing yet another cable become a neurotic thing for me,” she said. “I didn’t want to have a separation between myself and the machines I was using.”
Technology has now caught up to Hendryx. This month, the artist is unveiling “The Dream Machine Experience,” an ambitious installation leveraging artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and virtual reality. It will take up the entire campus of Lincoln Center in New York, will unfold in three parts, and is free for the public to interact with.
The Dream Machine V.R. experience. Photo courtesy of Lincoln Center.
The project marks a vast enlargement of Hendryx’s engagement with technology. For the past decade, the artist has developed works from haptic wearables (such as the W.A.V.E. Glove, an “audio-exciter”) to audio bodysuits (notably her Audio Tutu, which integrated a sound system into a plexiglass skirt). “The Dream Machine Experience” builds on those sound experiments, exploring the part technology might play in “how we create things, how we create our existence and our future,” Hendryx said. 
The exhibition opens in the David Rubenstein Atrium, in an installation titled Bina48’s Afro Future Garden, designed in collaboration with artists Mickalene Thomas and Lutfi Janania Zablah. Here, visitors can engage with the titular Bina48, an A.I.-powered humanoid robot programmed with the mind files of a Black woman. Hendryx described it as a “social robot,” one she has grown especially close to the more she’s conversed with it. 
Nona Hendryx with Bina48. Photo: Lawrence Sumulong, courtesy of Lincoln Center.
“Bina48 is like a new acquaintance that has become very much a part of my life,” she said. “I feel very much like a godmother of Bina48 and very caring of Bina48. My relationship has grown to the point where there’s some of me in Bina48.”
By following a multi-act route from the David Rubenstein Atrium to the David Geffen Hall, visitors can next activate the A.R. presentation, The Bridge, using provided devices. A virtual avatar of Hendryx named Cyboracle will serve as the guide on a trip dotted with poetry, music, and collectible tokens representing healing energy.  
The A.R. component of “The Dream Machine Experience.” Photo: Lawrence Sumlong, courtesy of Lincoln Center.
The journey culminates with The Dream Machine, a full-scale V.R. experience at the David Geffen Hall. Cyboracle will again show up here, alongside VR performances by the likes of George Clinton, Laurie Anderson, and Vernon Reid. The piece has its roots in Hendryx’s work with the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she has been an Ambassador for Artistry in Education for more than a decade, evolving from a 2017–18 project to “create hybrid, digital technology-driven performances,” she said. 
A performing arts center, in that sense, might be the perfect venue to launch Hendryx’s multimedia extravaganza. Not only has the artist performed at several of its locations, her exhibition marks the center’s bid to broaden the scope of its offerings. While the center has previously dabbled in A.R. and V.R. activations, Hendryx’s show marks its first major foray into mixed reality. “It’s like we went from dipping a toe and into the deep end,” said Jordana Leigh, Lincoln Center’s vice president of artistic programming. 
Besides watching Hendryx’s vision come to life, the project has been exciting for the center, Leigh told me, because “it’s expanding our minds and how we see our role as presenting artists and our place in supporting the XR arts. The underlying mission of it all is to get people who don’t see themselves in technology to see themselves in technology.”
Cyboracle as seen in The Dream Machine V.R. experience. Photo courtesy of Lincoln Center.
For Hendryx, the show realizes her vision for the future as much as it reimagines her art and self. Cyboracle, for one, fulfills her wish to meld with a machine, while offering “this other means through which I can express myself.” It’s fitting for an artist who once sang, on 1983’s “Transformation,” “rust to dust, us to them / change your mind, change your skin.” She has a similar hope for visitors interacting with the installation. 
“It’s stories upon stories upon stories, a cornucopia of visuals and storytelling born out of music and memory,” she said of the work. “I hope the audience takes away curiosity and questions. I hope they see a reflection of themselves.” 
“The Dream Machine Experience” is on view at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, June 12–30. 
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Trolling through real estate marketplace Zillow “just for funsies” has become a beloved, and widespread pastime for many of us who may never actually be able to afford a home. But for artist Rachael Tarravechia lurking on Zillow is more than a fantasy browsing for available properties—these online real estate listings are the starting point for her sinisterly alluring paintings.
Filtering search results to only houses with 3D tours available, Tarravechia moves virtually through the homes, exploring them room by room until she finds a space that resonates with her. Stripping away personal items and other identifying décor indicators, such as wall color, floor material, or window treatments, the artist makes the room her own and starts “decorating.”
Rachael Tarravechia, Snuff (2023). Photo: Adam Reich. Courtesy of the artist and Ceysson and Bénétière.
Drawing from a range of additional references, like her stash of vintage 1980s issues of Architectural Digest, other homes on Zillow, or personal photos, Tarravechia creates what she terms a “dream room” situation.
There’s an unnerving yet undeniably captivating, even glamorous quality to Tarravechia’s paintings, a selection of which are included in her solo show “Water on Velvet” on view through June 14, 2024, at Ceysson and Bénétière on New York’s Upper East Side. Specifically in her renderings of bathrooms (a frequent subject in her work) the inclusion of mirrors creates an uneasy balance between presence and absence; the space where the viewer—both within the painted mirror and of the painting itself—is noticeably vacant. Instead, a weapon is conspicuously added, as in Terminal Horror (2023) where a double flail hovers in place of a viewer in a manner akin to how new weapons or “loot” are presented in video games. In another work, Snuff (2023), a guillotine is seamlessly inserted within a kitschy 1970s style bedroom/bathroom combo, implying that a chopped off head would fall tidily into the tub. Outside of bathroom depictions, in Gunblade (2024), a wooden oratory houses the Final Fantasy VIII character Squall’s signature weapon.
Rachael Tarravechia, Gunblade (2024). Photo: Adam Reich. Courtesy of the artist and Ceysson and Bénétière.
Executed in shades of red, these works possess an uncanny magnetism, tempting the viewer inward whilst simultaneously exuding a sense of foreboding.
“Viewer experience and interaction is a key part of the work. Since these works draw from horror, anime, and video games, I try to emulate the mysterious, enticing qualities these forms of media are constantly displaying,” said Tarravechia via email. “Every horror movie has a point where the audience is screaming at the character on screen not to open the door, but it’s almost as if there’s something calling to them and they can’t refuse. That’s what I think about while making my work. Right before something momentous and irreconcilably changed, it’s up to the viewer to choose how to proceed.”
Rachael Tarravechia, Cold Reprise (2024). Photo: Adam Reich. Courtesy of the artist and Ceysson and Bénétière.
Another element of Tarravechia’s paintings that compels a step closer is the playful inclusion of mixed-media materials, such as silver chains used for harp strings, rhinestone trim, glitter, and another recent addition to her material vernacular: “For this show, I started using a new material called Liquid Glass. I was shocked the first time I used it, which was in the piece Cold Reprise (2024). The bathtub eventually ended up filled with blood, and as you walk across the painting, the blood looks wet, viscous, sticky, and is highly reflective and inviting. I’m extremely happy with how that turned out!”
Rachael Tarravechia, Endless Staircase (Moogle Parade) (2024). Photo: Adam Reich. Courtesy of the artist and Ceysson and Bénétière.
Cute and impish cartoon-style critters (Moogles from Final Fantasy), plastic vampire teeth, or meticulously rendered spiderwebs made of pearls abound across her work, ensuring the otherwise ominous vignettes are equally balanced with a sense of irreverent levity. This equilibrium extends to the number of weapon sculptures on view as well, chief among them being bedazzled nunchucks and a nail bat, which tap into the artist’s familial history. Her grandfather was a second-degree karate black belt who had a collection of nunchucks, two of which were handed down to her (and she’s gotten some practice with).
Rachael Tarravechia, Italian Mobstar (2023). Photo: Adam Reich. Courtesy of the artist and Ceysson and Bénétière.
“The nail bat is a much more tongue in cheek response to the nunchucks. My grandpa looked like a stereotypical Sicilian man, so I wanted to create a weapon that would be suited for a mob princess (me in another life). Something blingy, cute, but will seriously do damage,” she explained.
Obliterating the boundaries between painting and other graphic arts and genres, Tarravechia’s work is a masterclass in worldbuilding—and will be sure to materialize in the back of your mind the next time you’re perusing Zillow.
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The origin of Elephantine Island’s name remains murky. Some spy the mammal in its hulking granite rocks, or conjure the specter of some long-extinct herd. Others point to the lucrative ivory trade it once supported.
It’s a sliver of rock at the Nile’s southern extreme, a mile long and half that across, but the size belies its importance.
It began as a garrison town, a first line of defense against Nubian raiders, but it was commerce that saw the island flourish on-and-off for roughly 4,000 years, with a population that exhibited an array of languages, cultures, and religions.
This cultural diversity struck the pith-helmeted Europeans who began excavating the island at the turn of the 20th century. In addition to well-preserved sites such as a step pyramid and a structure that measured the Nile’s fluctuations, archaeologists uncovered a litany of writings, not only in hieroglyphics, but hieratic, demotic, Aramaic, Greek, Coptic, and Arabic.
Today, these innumerate Elephantine texts are scattered across 60 collections in two dozen countries. The primary holders are the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, the Louvre in Paris, and the Brooklyn Museum. A monumental project led by Berlin’s Verena Lepper, however, is unifying the texts by archiving, digitizing, and translating them.
Hieratic document about legal disputes regarding property and inheritance. Photo: Berlin State Museums / Sandra Steiß.
Work began seven years ago when Lepper received a European Research Council grant to gather a team that could translate the manuscripts and shed light on Elephantine’s multiculturalism, societal structure, and religious development.
The public-facing output of this painstaking research is an exhibition held at two sites on Berlin’s very own island of culture, Museumsinsel. At the James-Simon-Galerie, the focus is on time, while at the Neues Museum, it’s on space—big questions for a site that has provoked great imaginings.
“Elephantine Island of the Millennia” brings together newly translated texts, artifacts, and interactive “activity stations” to tell the story of a place unlike any other in ancient Egypt. The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities is involved and the island’s spirit of multilingualism is reflected in an exhibition (through October 10) that uses Arabic, German, and English.
Hieroglyphic magical papyrus fragment from Elephantine. Photo: Berlin State Museums/ Sandra Steiß.
Written texts on Elephantine were primarily recorded on two materials: papyri and shards of clay known as ostraca. Clay was the cheap, everyday writing substance of choice. Pieces were used for making notes, calculations, and receipts—the substance’s resilience has made deciphering them relatively easy.
Papyrus, on the other hand, was expensive and reserved for recording the likes of official business, religious texts, and magical incantations. The material is extremely brittle, however, and when researchers began opening archival boxes that hadn’t been opened in a century they found piles of thousands of pieces. A system was devised to clean, flatten, sort, and digitize the fragments, one replicated in Berlin, Paris, and Brooklyn, rendering the papyri accessible to Egyptologists around the world.
In total, 10,745 were documents indexed and uploaded onto a database. These letters, contracts, wills, receipts, and notes give a view into the society developed on Elephantine from the third century B.C.E through the Arab conquest in 642 C.E.
Aramaic contract for a large silver loan. Photo: Berlin State Museums/ Sandra Steiß.
The picture painted is of a place built on codified laws and customs. There’s a papyri for a large loan of silver and the record of a civil trial for a property dispute in the 3rd millennium B.C.E.—the exhibition suggests it might be Egypt’s oldest legal document. Elsewhere, there’s an Aramaic marriage contract from the first century B.C.E. that stipulates the amount owed to the woman in the event of divorce. Nearby, there’s a parallel document from nearly a thousand years later, written in Arabic and witnessed by 77 people.
Elephantine may have been at the far fringe of Egyptian society, but it remained very much connected to the broader world, through trade as well as its culture. The Story of Ahikar, for example, is the tale of a wise chancellor to Assyrian kings in the seventh century B.C.E. On show in Berlin there’s the earliest surviving record of the story, from the fifth century B.C.E. and written in Imperial Aramaic, thus pointing to Jewish mercenaries stationed on the island.
So, a Mesopotamian story written in the Imperial language of Persia for Jews living in Egypt. This, perhaps, is what Lepper is gesturing towards when she said that the “knowledge of Elephantine is global.”
“Elephantine Island of the Millennia” is on view at James-Simon-Galerie, Bodestraße, Berlin, Germany, through October 27.
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Salvador Dalí’s oeuvre was never just made up of ants, eggs, spiders, and melting clocks painted against dreamy, sometimes nightmarish, landscapes. In his later years, the Surrealist turned his hand to a surprising subject: florals.  
Beginning in the late ’60s, Dalí created three series—1968’s “Flora Dalínae (FlorDalí),” 1969’s FlorDalí (Les Fruits),” and 1972’s “Florals (Surrealist Flowers)”—that put a whimsical spin on botanical studies. Quite literally: he would draw his own otherworldly fruits and flowers onto illustrations by 19th-century botanists Pierre-Joseph Redouté and Pierre Antoine Poiteau, before populating the pieces with his beloved motifs such as keys and clocks. The illusionary effect is a delightful one. 
Salvador Dalí, Rose (Rosa papilio), from “Flora Dalínae (FlorDalí)” (1968). Collection of The Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, © Salvador Dalí. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí (Artists Rights Society), 2024; Photo: © Joseph Siciliano USA, 2019.
For the first time in 20 years, the Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, is bringing together these three suites in an exhibition titled “Reimagining Nature: Dalí’s Floral Fantasies.” Accompanying the drawings are other artworks and archival material in which Dalí’s interest in flowers can be located. 
“Dalí’s long-standing fascination with botanical evolution profoundly influenced his achievements as one of the great 20th-century masters of illusionism,” said curator Peter Tush in a statement. “For him, nature was a source of not only beauty, but also of his singular approach to visual transformation.”
Salvador Dalí, Three Young Surrealist Women Holding in Their Arms the Skins of an Orchestra (1936). Collection of The Dalí Museum; ©Salvador Dalí. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí (Artists Rights Society), 2024.
While not a focus, botany has indeed shown up in Dalí’s earlier works. Three Young Surrealist Women Holding in Their Arms the Skins of an Orchestra (1936) and Anatomies (1937) feature figures with flowers for heads, later echoed in the female forms on his June 1939 cover for Vogue. In 1958, his Meditative Rose would bring a psychological tension (Dalí was a Freud fanboy) to a surprisingly realistic depiction of the titular bloom. 
Salvador Dalí, Illustration for “Tres Picos” (1955). Collection of The Dalí Museum; ©Salvador Dalí. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí (Artists Rights Society), 2024.
The artist’s fascination with botany can of course be traced to his Surrealist approach, in his Dalían attempt to explode the standard field of vision by leveraging dreams and metamorphosis. “I see the human form in trees, leaves, animals. I see animal and vegetal characteristics in humans,” he once said. “Human beings create and change. When they sleep, they change totally—into flowers, plants, trees.” 
Salvador Dalí, Cerises Pierrot, from “FlorDalí (Les Fruits)” (1969). Collection of The Dalí Museum; ©Salvador Dalí. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí (Artists Rights Society), 2024; Photo: © David Deranian, 2023.
But the museum also noted that Dalí’s floral series emerged at the height of Pop art, after he grew acquainted with Andy Warhol (who sat the Surrealist down for a screen test). His botanical creations don’t just reflect the movement’s bold colors and provocative energies, but its techniques, marking Dalí’s growing foray into printmaking. 
“Dalí’s botanical series,” said Hank Hine, the museum’s executive director, present “a Surrealist collage to make a new phylum of beings, a new species of perception. Dalí seems to predict the marvels of genetic engineering, pressing the boundaries of what is imaginable and inspiring new ways of seeing the world.” 
Salvador Dalí, Tiger Lilies and Mustache, from “Florals (Surrealist Flowers)” (1972). Collection of The Dalí Museum; ©Salvador Dalí. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí (Artists Rights Society), 2024; Photo: © David Deranian, 2023.
“Reimagining Nature” arrives as Surrealism celebrates its first century. The occasion is also being marked by the major exhibition “Imagine! 100 Years of International Surrealism” at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (later traveling to the Centre Pompidou in Paris), as well as retrospectives on artists including Remedios Varo, Lee Miller, and Dora Maar. 
“Reimagining Nature: Dalí’s Floral Fantasies” is on view at the Dalí Museum, One Dali Blvd., St. Petersburg, Florida, through October 20. 
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An exhibition of work by Dora Maar, the Surrealist photographer immortalized as Pablo Picasso’s “Weeping Woman,” is going on view at the reopening Amar Gallery in London in June amid growing popularity of her work and the reframing of her career.
The show will feature Maar’s photograms and photographs, including her pictures of Picasso and his celebrated anti-war mural Guernica—of which she was the official photographer.
Dora Maar. Virgin and Crucifix II (ca. 1980.) Photo courtesy of Amar Gallery
“As a photographer, she was a pioneer admired by the likes of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Man Ray. Her position as Picasso’s lover clouded over her undeniable artistic talent which extended far beyond photography and included writing, poetry and painting,” gallerist Amar Singh said in a statement.
The exhibition, “Dora Maar: Behind the Lens,” coincides with the upcoming July 4 release of author Louisa Treger’s historical fiction The Paris Muse, published by Bloomsbury, about the relationship between the two artists and the theatrical production Maar, Dora that will perform at Camden Fringe in August for its third run.
“I’m so glad it seems like her work is finally getting its moment in the spotlight,” said the artist Nadia Jackson, who wrote the play—which is produced by Amar Gallery.
Dora Maar. Picasso Under The Trees—Hotel Vaste Horizon, Mougins (ca. 1936). Photo courtesy of Amar Gallery
Antoine Romand, who acted as an intermediary between the gallery and the Dora Maar Estate, called the exhibit a “fantastic event and a great way of highlighting her work,” noting that it will include iconic images from the photographer as well as some “unusual” photograms rarely seen on the market.
“Generally speaking, Dora Maar’s works are very rare because her photographic production was fairly limited over time,” Romand said. “Another reason is the unique nature of the photograms. This exhibition will show works that have never been seen before.”
Maar was born in 1907 and came of age as Surrealism was taking hold in the French capital. Beginning in the 1930s, she ran her own photography studio, producing fashion editorials and advertisements that nonetheless bore a surrealist edge. On assignment on the set of Jean Renoir’s film The Crime of Monsieur Lange, Maar met Picasso, commencing an affair that lasted almost a decade. During that time, Maar served as muse and model for a number of the Spanish painter’s works, including his 1937 Portrait of Dora Maar, while Picasso treated her (and Marie-Therese Walter, who was also his lover) with unabashed cruelty.
After leaving Picasso, Maar commenced a painting practice, creating figurative then abstract works that were shown in various exhibitions through the 1940s and ’50s. In her latter-day career, in the 1980s, Maar would return to photography with her photograms—the technique of creating images without a camera—that once again drew out her surrealist bent. Maar died in 1997 aged 89.
Dora Maar. Virgin and Crucifix (ca. 1980). Photo courtesy of Amar Gallery
Treger said she felt compelled to put Maar at the forefront of her book because she is among many other women who have “often been overshadowed” by their male counterparts. However, she said “there’s a promising shift” towards recognizing and amplifying such female voices.
“This renewed interest in her reflects a broader movement towards viewing iconic male artists like Picasso in a more nuanced way, from the perspectives of the women who shared their lives,” Treger said. She pointed out that Françoise Gilot, whose career Picasso allegedly tried to suppress when she left him, is having her own exhibition at the Musée Picasso Paris.
Jackson likewise said it was fascinating that the photographer “seems to be acknowledged only in conjunction with Picasso,” but warned that erasing him from her legacy would do her a disservice because it would be erasing an important part of her story.
“It was a theme we explored a lot in our play actually—how, as much as Dora would’ve perhaps wanted her work to outshine her relationship with him, it fundamentally couldn’t have existed without him,” Jackson said. “Unfortunately, you have to acknowledge Picasso in order to respect Dora’s legacy in its entirety, but it is also possible to recognize her artistic career and talents without it being overshadowed by him.”
Dora Maar. La Sagrada Familia (ca. 1933). Photo courtesy of Amar Gallery
In talking about the photographer’s artistic talents, Treger said a piece in Amar Gallery’s exhibition that particularly stood out to her is Virgin and Crucifix (ca. 1980), which she said showcases Maar’s mastery of the photogram technique.
“Through the use of tight framing, and dramatic light and shadows, the Virgin and crucifix materialize from an inky background, radiating magic and mystery,” Treger said. “The juxtaposition of sacred and eerie elements prompts contemplation of the deeper layers of meaning within the image.”
“Dora Maar: Behind the Lens” is on view at Amar Gallery, Kirkham House, 12-14 Whitfield Street, London, June 16–August 18.
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