![Pablo Picasso - Portrait of Dora Maar [1937]](http://farm1.staticflickr.com/598/20459558618_7388ab8a15_o.jpg)
A new woman came into Picasso's life in 1936, a young Yugoslavian photographer, Dora Maar, whose real name was Dora Markovic. She was a friend of the poet Paul Eluard, frequented Surrealist circles, and spoke Spanish. In Portrait of Dora Maar, 1937, Dora Maar is represented majestically seated in an armchair, smiling and resting her head on a long-fingered hand. The face is shown in a combined frontal and profile view, with a red eye and a green eye facing in different directions. For many people, these deformations are the very hallmark of Picasso's art. Yet, despite the distortions, or perhaps even because of them, Picasso achieved a striking resemblance that could be said to be ‘truer than life.’ The deformations primarily serve an expressive purpose: the idea is less to remake reality than to express its possibilities, to capture all the aspects of the sitter.
[Musée National Picasso, Paris - Oil on canvas, 36 1/4 x 25 9/16 inches]