Dora Maar au Chat by Pablo Picasso

Dora Maar au Chat (Dora Maar with Cat) is a 1941 painting by Pablo Picasso. It depicts Dora Maar, the painter's Croatian mistress, seated on a chair with a small cat perched on her shoulders. This painting is world-famous and is now one of the world's most expensive paintings.^[1] Image File history File linksMetadata Dora_Maar_Au_Chat. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Dora_Maar_Au_Chat. ... Picasso redirects here. ... Picasso redirects here. ... Henriette Theodora Markovitch alias Dora Maar (November 22, 1907 – July 16, 1997) was a French photographer and painter of Croatian descent, best known for being a lover and muse of Pablo Picasso. ... This is a list of the highest prices paid for paintings. ...

In the painting, Dora Maar sits on a chair with a cat on her shoulder. Picasso liked to use large patches of oil paints and contrasting colours to create the outstanding and special effect of this painting. It also shows the true style of life at that time. For instance, the way Dora Maar dressed and her blue, sharp fingers that looked like cat claws truly reflected the artistic style that Picasso expressed in this painting. This cubist painting also shows that Dora Maar is a "double sided" woman - it shows her wisdom and that she liked to cry. Maar did not like cats, and Picasso's inclusion of one in the portrait was to show that he was in control of this woman. The "cat claws" on Maar show that the relationship between her and Picasso reached its climax. In addition to this, the Second World War was going on which reflected the hard lives that both of them were suffering in Paris.^[2] Woman with a guitar by Georges Braque, 1913 Cubism was an avant-garde art movement that revolutionised European painting and sculpture in the early 20th century. ... Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ... This article is about the capital of France. ...

History

The canvas (50 ½ by 37 ½ inches / 128.3cm by 95.3cm) was one of many portraits of Dora Maar painted by Pablo Picasso over their nearly decade-long relationship. Picasso fell in love with the 29-year old Maar at the age of 55 and soon began living with her. This painting was done during the year 1941, when the Nazis were occupying France. In the 1940s, the painting was obtained by Chicago collectors Leigh and Mary Block. They sold the painting in 1963.^[3] After that, the painting was never shown until the 21^st century. The Nazi party used a right-facing swastika as their symbol and the red and black colors were said to represent Blut und Boden (blood and soil). ... For other uses, see Chicago (disambiguation). ... The Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art is an art museum located on the campus of the Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. ... 20XX redirects here. ...

During 2005 and 2006, the Dora Maar au Chat, then owned by the Gidwitz family of Chicago, was shown worldwide as part of Sotheby's exhibitions in London, Hong Kong and New York. It came up for sale in an auction of Impressionist/Modern works held at Sotheby's on May 3, 2006 in New York and making it the second-highest price ever paid for a painting at auction. An anonymous Russian[1] bidder present at the New York auction won the work with a final bid of US$95,216,000, well exceeding the pre-auction US$50 million estimates.^[4] Gerald S. Gidwitz (July 16, 1906—July 11, 2006) was a co-founder of Helene Curtis Industries. ... Sothebys (NYSE: BID) is the worlds second oldest international auction house in continuous operation. ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... New York, New York and NYC redirect here. ... An auctioneer and her assistants scan the crowd for bidders An auction is a process of buying and selling goods by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the winning bidder. ... See also Impressionist (entertainment): A girl with a watering can by Renoir, 1876 Impressionism was a 19th century art movement, which began as a private association of Paris-based artists who exhibited publicly in 1874. ... is the 123rd day of the year (124th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States. ...

The identity of the bidder, who spent more than US$100 million in total and purchased an 1883 Monet seascape and a 1978 Chagall in addition to the Picasso, was a topic of much speculation. Apparently a novice bidder, though possibly acting as an agent for a more well-known collector, the anonymous buyer may have been unknown at the start of the auction even to Sotheby's officials.^[5] As of mid-2007, the ownership of the Dora Maar au Chat is still unknown to the general public, although rumors have focused on the Georgian mining magnate Bidzina (Boris) Ivanishvili, who sold his Moscow bank a week before the auction for $550 m ^{[6] [7]}. He resides at a large house built into a rock bluff in his native Republic of Georgia.[2] This article is about Impressionist painter. ... Marc Chagall as photographed in 1941 by Carl Van Vechten. ... Georgia (Georgian: საქართველო Sakartvelo), known from 1991 to 1995 as the Republic of Georgia, is a country to the east of the Black Sea in the southern Caucasus. ...

Descriptions of painting

Dora Maar au Chat presents the artist's most mysterious and challenging mistress regally posed three-quarter length in a large wooden chair with a small black cat perched behind her in both an amusing and menacing attitude. The faceted planes of her body and richly layered surface of brushstrokes impart a monumental and sculptural quality to this portrait. The painting is also remarkable for its brilliance of colour and the complex and dense patterning of the model's dress. The powerful figure is set in a dramatic, yet simple setting composed of a vertiginously inclined plane of wooden floorboards and shallow interior space that is arranged in a manner reminiscent of Picasso’s earliest manipulations of space in a cubist manner.

Dora Maar au Chat is one of Picasso’s most valued depictions of his lover and artistic companion. Their partnership had been one of intellectual exchange and intense passion -- Dora was an artist, spoke Picasso’s native Spanish, and shared his political concerns. She even assisted with the execution of the monumental Guernica and produced the only photo-documentary of the work in progress. She was an intellectual force – a characteristic that both stimulated and challenged Picasso and her influence on him resulted in some of his most powerful and daring portraits of his 75-year career. Among the best of them are the oils completed during the late 1930s and early 1940s, when Picasso’s art resonated with the drama and emotional upheaval of the era and which Dora came to personify. The luminous Dora Maar au Chat was painted in 1941, at the beginning of the Second World War in France . Guernica is a painting by Pablo Picasso, depicting the Nazi German bombing of Guernica, Spain, by twenty-eight bombers, on April 26, 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. ... Mona Lisa, Oil on wood panel painting by Leonardo da Vinci. ...

Maar was one of the most influential figures in Picasso’s life during their relationship and she also became his primary model. By the time he painted the present picture he had incorporated Dora Maar’s image into countless versions of this motif. During the occupation of Paris by the Nazis, and as tension mounted in their relationship, the artist would express his frustration by furiously abstracting her image, often portraying her in tears. While the present portrait might seem a departure from Picasso's more hostile depictions of this model, it may be one of his most brilliant and biting provocations of his Weeping Woman. Picasso once likened Maar’s allure and temperament to that of an “Afghan cat”, and the cat in this picture is laden with significance. In the history of art, the pairing of cats and women was an allusion to feminine wiles and sexual aggression, as exemplified in Manet’s notorious Olympia. It is also interesting to consider that the artist has paid particular attention to the sharp, talon-like nails on the long fingers of his model. In life Maar’s well-manicured hands were one of her most beautiful and distinctive features, and here they have taken on another, more violent characteristic. This article is about the capital of France. ... Édouard Manet - 19th century French painter Mobile_ad-hoc_network - A self configuring wireless network This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Olympia is an oil on canvas painting by Edouard Manet. ... Long, manicured nails are a fashion statement. ...

In addition to being a rare, three-quarter length portrait of Dora Maar, the present work is also a generous and painterly composition with an extraordinary attention to detail. The artist used an extraordinarily vibrant palette in his rendering of the angles of the chair and the patterning of Maar’s dress. The most embellished and symbolic element of the sitter’s wardrobe in this picture is her hat, Maar’s most famous accessory and signifier of her involvement in the Surrealist movement. Ceremoniously placed atop her head like a crown, it is festooned with colourful plumes and outlined with a band of vibrant red. Larger than life, an impression enhanced by her vibrant body that cannot be confined by the boundaries of the chair, Maar looms in this picture like a pagan goddess seated on her throne. Max Ernst. ...

References

External links

• Sotheby's: About the painting and its features
• Sotheby's: Full story of the auction on 3rd May 2006, New York

v • d • e Pablo Picasso Periods Blue (1901–1904) · Rose (1904–1906) · African (1907–1909) · Cubism (1910–1919) Lists of works 1889-1900 · 1901-1910 · 1911-1920 · 1921-1930 · 1931-1940 · 1941-1950 · 1951-1960 · 1961-1970 · 1971-1973 Artworks Chicago Picasso · Dora Maar au Chat · Femme aux Bras Croisés · Garçon à la pipe · Guernica · Jacqueline · Le Rêve · Les Demoiselles d'Avignon · Les Noces de Pierrette · Maya with Doll · Nude on a black armchair · The Old Guitarist · Reading the Letter · Seated circus performer and boy · Sylvette · The Three Dancers · Three Musicians · The Weeping Woman · Woman in Hat and Fur Collar · Portrait of Suzanne Bloch Partners Françoise Gilot · Olga Khokhlova · Geneviève Laporte · Dora Maar · Fernande Olivier · Marie-Thérèse Walter · Jacqueline Roque Family Paloma Picasso · José Ruiz y Blasco Colleagues George Braques · Max Jacob Museums Picasso museums · Château Grimaldi · Museu Picasso · Musée Picasso See also Surviving Picasso Wikimedia  Picasso at Wiktionary ·  Picasso at Wikibooks ·  Picasso at Wikiquote ·  Picasso at Wikisource ·  Picasso at Commons ·  Picasso at Wikinews