Dora Maar at Dorsky

The first U.S. retrospective of Dora Maar's photography, this exhibition shifts focus from her association with Picasso to her accomplishments as an artist. Professionally active in Paris from the late 1920s to the late '30s, Maar was a colleague of Cartier-Bresson and Brassai, friends with Andre Breton, Man Ray and Meret Oppenheim, and acquainted with Cocteau, Lee Miller and Roland Penrose. The photographs in this show were borrowed from private collections end galleries; they fall into three broad categories: commissions for fashion magazines; photographic documents of the streets of Paris, London and Barcelona; and works of a Surrealist nature.

A commissioned photograph of a seated model in evening gown and jacket (1931-36) speaks the language of fashion and allure as does a portrait of Maar's favorite model, Assia, in repose, her cascading blond locks entwined among the curls of a fur throw. A classically posed nude seated before a mirror is patterned overall by the artifice of photomontage, and a print of the bust of a woman in profile has been decorated by hand with an elaborate program of colorful tattoos, her marcelled hair broadly retouched Maar photographs a model's profile under what appears to be a large-brimmed hat, then superimposes a three-quarter profile to cubistic effect. A woman holds the doubled image of her own face like a mask, the background of the print whited out entirely by the artist's hand.

Taken in the midst of worldwide depression, Maar's compassionate images of the street recall those of Cartier-Bresson and Bill Brandt. In Barcelona, 1934, she photographs a man on a stool on a sidewalk, his white eyes sightless, the crook of his cane resting against one thigh, a beggar's bowl in his hand. In London, a disabled soldier displays a handmade tin boat for tips. In Chanteurs Unijambistes (1934), Maar captures a chorus of singing, one-legged men on crutches, caps extended in mid-song; they are accompanied by an accordionist. In this world of beggars and street urchins, a boy's stocking has fallen down, while another boy in espadrilles stands on his head in the sand.

Maar's photographs of Surrealist intent have been altered by collage. She invents Jeux Interdits (1935) in which a boy in short pants looks up from his solitary game beneath the desk of a fin-de-siecle study to find a woman, breasts exposed, dressed in a lorgnette, chemise and pumps riding bareback on a crouching man. Elsewhere, in dreamlike architecture, a child is pasted to the inverted vaults of the orangery at Versailles. Written by hand above the child's head is the title of the image, Silence (1935-36). Among much else is a handsome portrait of Maar, with two doll-like hands, by Man Ray, and a portrait by Maar of Picasso, one arm thrown back, asleep in the sun.

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