Universal Beijing Resort bans freelance photography services inside park

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People visit Universal Beijing Resort in Beijing on Dec 20, 2022. [Photo/IC]

Universal Beijing Resort is banning and denying the access of unauthorized professional photographers who offer tourists at the resort photo-shoot service.

Recently, several freelance photographers who offer services to tourists inside Beijing Universal park posted on Xiaohongshu, an Instagram-like app, that the park is removing the private photo-shoot service offered by professional photographers inside park.

“Starting from April 2, Universal park is taking action to prevent photographers from offering photo-shoot services inside the park, especially in the area of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. And the specific action to prevent photo-shoot services is still unknown,” a photographer nicknamed She Ying Shi Xiao Yue posted on Xiaohongshu.

Many expressed their support over the park’s decision. “It is an amusement park, not a photo-shoot studio,” commented a Xiaohongshu user nicknamed Mu Zi De Li.

Some shared their visiting experience in the park saying that it seemed some visitors and their photographers were growing roots in some scenic spots inside the park, which affected their visiting experience and caused chaos, especially during peak hours.

“To be honest, it was very disturbing to see visitors posing in front of their photographers in the park, especially in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, whose passage is rather narrow and their posing activities just blocked other visitors,” a netizen Xiao Tai commented.

Some were against such ban, claiming that photo-shoot services were convenient to some tourists, especially when they were not good at taking photos.

“It was convenient to hire a photographer inside the park,” said a netizen Yi Zhi Chong Tian Tu Zi.

“I usually started at 10 am and worked for 6 or 7 hours at most a day. The price varies and the standard package is 200 yuan ($29) per hour, which is about over 30,000 yuan a month,” a freelance photographer told the China News Service, adding that reservations for the next week were full. Photographers like him usually have bought the park’s annual pass to enter the park everyday.

However, the ban caught freelance photographers like him unprepared. Several photographers posted online that they were barred from taking photos as they were familiar faces to workers of the park.

The ban was for the copyright and, most importantly, to protect the interests of visitors, especially with the peak season soon arriving and many visitors having already complained online about the photo-shoot services disturbing regular visiting and the photography of regular visitors, a worker from the park told Beijing Youth Daily.

When asked why freelance photo-shoot services were banned, a customer service representative with Universal Beijing Resort told the China News Service that photo-shoot services offered by freelancers have always been forbidden inside the park.

According to the park rules: photography, videotaping, audio recording or live streaming of any kind are strictly prohibited, except for personal and non-commercial purposes.

Visitors can take photos either with their cameras or phones, the customer service representative added.

As for the photography needs of some visitors, the park offers authorized photography services that cost 388 yuan, which takes photos for customers in various hot spots throughout the park.

However, when asked how to distinguish a freelance photographer from a tourist, the customer service representative was not clear about the criteria.

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Announcing the Winners of Smithsonian Magazine’s 20th Annual Photo Contest | Arts & Culture

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What a photograph subtly suggests or even conceals is sometimes just as important as what’s clearly on display. Skilled photographers know a bit of mystery can make an image that much more compelling–a contrast to what’s often overshared in pictures and video on social media. In today’s society, images often leave little to the imagination, but in his “Wild Mountain Hares Fighting” submission, the Grand Prize winner of our 20th Annual Photo Contest, Arnfinn Johansen, captures a moment that leaves one wondering.

That could be said for all of this year’s winners: the obscured faces of mask-wearing girlfriends out on the town, a pair of rhinoceroses either running away or charging, a singular subject sitting in solitude in the darkness of dawn, and the shadowy silhouettes of figures hidden in plain sight. These are just some of the top scenes that offer just enough to stir emotions, pull viewers in and raise poignant questions, leaving it up to the beholders to interpret the art for themselves.

The diversity of this year’s entries is fitting for the 20th anniversary of this annual competition, which has grown to include more than 32,690 images submitted by nearly 7,000 photographers from 190 countries and territories.

To explore more, check out all of this year’s Photo Contest finalists.

Grand Prize

Wild Mountain Hares Fighting

Wild Mountain Hares Fighting. Photographed in Rorosvidda Mountains, Norway, April 2021

Arnfinn Johansen

Among the peaks of a range in Norway, nocturnal mountain hares violently compete for the opportunity to procreate. It’s mating season, a fight for life. Arnfinn Johansen, 57, who has been practicing nature photography since 1980, recalled that there were five or six hares present during the bout. “They fought each other two and two. Then, the others stayed away watching.” Johansen was also a patient observer, spending eight or nine hours in a nearby cabin shooting through the darkness. Previously, Johansen worked strictly in black and white, and he preferred this photograph without color. “It simplifies and reduces distractions,” he says.

American Experience

Woman waiting to vote in Atlanta

First to Vote. Photographed in Atlanta, November 2022

Rory Doyle

On assignment for an Amsterdam newspaper to document the November 2022 midterm elections in the United States, Rory Doyle, 39, headed out before sunrise and came across this lone citizen, who was quietly determined to exercise her fundamental right to vote. She arrived at her polling place even before it opened. “The narrative of the lack of care or the lack of participation gets more attention than people who are willing to literally bring a chair and
a book before the sun is up,” Doyle says.

Aerial/Drone

The Big Top Tent at Fringe by the Sea

The Big Top Tent at Fringe by the Sea. Photographed in North Berwick, Scotland, August 2021

Andrew Smith

If you come across a big tent, it’s natural to wonder what’s happening inside. Andrew Smith, 42, who has been photographing with drones since 2017, wondered what was on top of this colorful canopy in his hometown. Positioning his camera to point directly down on the tent, he was delighted and surprised by the symmetry and vibrant colors, says Smith, who appreciates photos that cause an instant reaction. “This was one of those moments for me. I think both the photographer and the viewer recognize it when they experience it. I don’t think it can be qualified or deconstructed. I think you just need to feel it.”

People

Girls sucking lollipops

Lollipop. Photographed in Tokyo, October 2022

Jonny Dub

“Who are these gnarly girls?” That’s one question Jonny Dub, 42, would expect viewers to ask when they see the ski-mask-covered, pink-hued candy consumers he encountered in Tokyo’s Shibuya district last Halloween. Dub, who learned the basics of the art as a teen while assisting his father, an advertising photographer, says this picture, snapped before the women realized he was photographing them, was the most authentic of the bunch. He likes that this scene allows people to imagine a story of their own, one that “leaves the viewer wanting to know more about the characters and fills them with a sense of intrigue.”

Artistic Images

Woman with fanciful hairdo and rainbow neck

Tower of Babel. Photographed in Elburn, Illinois, June 2022

Tracy Whiteside

Tracy Whiteside, 63, a former musical theater teacher, knows how to bring drama to works on and off the stage. In her home studio, using just Styrofoam balls, a cone, hairpins, lots of spray, a blond wig, makeup and a pink tablecloth, she created this fanciful portrait of her grandchildren’s nanny. Whiteside prefers profiles with little expression, which she finds more artistic than a smile. Still, says Whiteside, who has 20 years of photography experience, “I just want people to appreciate the fun in it.”

Natural World

Charging Rhinos

Chasing Rhinos. Photographed in Assam, India, July 2021

Prabir Kumar Das

It was like a scene from Jurassic Park—but with raging rhinoceroses instead of a Tyrannosaurus. Prabir Kumar Das, 46, and his driver were on safari in a vehicle at Kaziranga National Park in India observing and photographing wildlife. “Two rhinos, chasing one another, entered into the frame,” he recalls. “They both were coming toward our car dangerously.” The driver threw the car into reverse to get away. Das, a chemistry teacher, is willing to take risks for his photography hobby, which has become his passion. He now focuses on wildlife and prefers Kaziranga National Park for “its natural beauty along with its exceptional ambience.”

Travel

Dancing Silhouettes

Dancing Silhouettes. Photographed in Chitwan, Nepal, October 2022

Annemarie Jung

Annemarie Jung, 51, who lives in Luxembourg, traveled to Nepal during festival season on a last-minute trip before starting a new job in the finance industry last fall. Her newly developed enthusiasm for photography was a surprise. “I considered myself the least creative person on earth,” she says. For this winning photograph, Jung and her guide arrived too late to the festival to see the Nepalese dancers perform. However, they provided an encore for the duo, whose photography session drew a crowd of interested villagers and revelers. “They all gathered around us and wanted to see the pictures we were taking. It was lovely,” says Jung, who didn’t mind lying down in the grass to get the best shot.

Readers’ Choice

Crater in western China

Ice and Fire. Photographed in Muji Village, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China, June 2022

Yuepeng Bao

You don’t happen upon China’s Muji Crater by chance, as photographer Yuepeng Bao, 32, can attest. The journey was quite challenging. “It took us three hours to drive on a poorly maintained mountain road, and we had to pass through two border checkpoints,” says Bao, who suffered from altitude sickness, headaches and swelling to reach this destination. Taking the trek with family members made it more enjoyable for Bao, whose photography hobby helps “alleviate stress from work [as an urban planner] and daily life.” The resulting image of the colorful natural wonder against the backdrop of snow-capped mountains and blue skies made the trip worthwhile, says Bao, adding, “It’s crucial that we demonstrate respect and take measures to preserve” these natural landscapes.

Cover image of the Smithsonian Magazine April/May 2023 issue

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See 15 Amazing Wildlife Images From the Sony World Photography Awards | Smart News

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From a playful-looking stoat to a mantis shrimp guarding its eggs, the animal subjects in the 2023 Sony World Photography Awards are captivating. This year’s winning photographers captured creatures in Svalbard, Norway; Bangladesh; Brazil and the depths of the Indo-Pacific.

On Tuesday, the World Photography Organization announced the shortlist and winners in the open competition, which allowed submissions from people of all ages and experience levels. Of the 415,000 total entries, which also included images in the youth and professional categories, the open awards received 200,000.

The contest accepted photos that fit under ten wide umbrellas: architecture, creative, landscape, lifestyle, motion, natural world and wildlife, object, portraiture, street photography and travel. From all of these subjects, one winner will be crowned on April 13.

“Finding original and different viewpoints photographically is challenging—but ever more rewarding,” Mike Trow, chair of the jury that judged the entries, said in a statement when the contest’s professional winners were announced. “They covered the profound and ongoing discussions around narrative truth and agency in art, as well as wider environmental, political and societal viewpoints.”

Here are the stunning animal and nature photos commended in the open competition’s natural world and wildlife category. (Standout pictures from all the categories can be seen here.) After viewing these awe-inspiring images, cast a vote for the Reader’s Choice award in Smithsonian magazine’s own annual photo contest.

“Mighty Pair” by Dinorah Graue Obscura, Winner

two birds of prey in black and white on a branch

Two crested caracaras sit on a branch in nearly identical poses.

© Dinorah Graue Obscura, Mexico, Winner, Open Competition, Natural World & Wildlife, 2023 Sony World Photography Awards

Mexican photographer Dinorah Graue Obscura was taking pictures of crested caracaras flying in Texas when she found two of them sitting together on a branch. Here, these carrion-feeding birds in the falcon family were sitting very still and looking in the same direction, as if posing for the camera.

“I think that a good picture does not need color, it just needs to capture the desired moment in time,” writes the photographer in a statement. But in the case of this image, the subjects also made it stand out. “I was amazed by their powerful personalities,” she writes.

“Stoat’s game” by Jose Manuel Grandio

white stoat jumps with its mouth open in the snow

A stoat leaps in a dance in a snow-covered landscape.

© Jose Manuel Grandio, Spain, Shortlist, Open Competition, Natural World & Wildlife, 2023 Sony World Photography Awards

This snow-white stoat in midair is demonstrating a mysterious behavior. Such twisting jumps are fairly common for the ferret-like creatures, but scientists aren’t exactly sure why. Some theorize it’s an involuntary response to infection by parasites, while others suggest it’s part of hunting.

“Sometimes, the dances are performed in front of a rabbit or large bird in an apparent attempt to confuse or distract potential prey,” Spanish photographer Jose Manuel Grandio writes in a statement. “But on other occasions—as here—there is no prey animal in sight.”

“Pandora” by Marcio Esteves Cabral

white ball-like flowers appear to glow under a starry sky

Wildflowers in a field under a sky bright with stars.

© Marcio Esteves Cabral, Brazil, Shortlist, Open Competition, Natural World & Wildlife, 2023 Sony World Photography Awards

To capture these Paepalanthus wildflowers that form balls of tiny blooms, Marcio Esteves Cabral used a lantern to illuminate them. In the background, the Milky Way lights up the sky.

The flowers are “firework-like,” the Brazilian photographer writes in a statement. “It took several attempts, as I needed to capture the flowers without any wind to avoid motion blur during the long exposure.”

“The Captivating Eyes” by Protap Shekhor Mohanto

small owl with yellow eyes peeks out from a hole in a tree

A young owl’s piercing yellow eyes stare into the camera.

© Protap Shekhor Mohanto, Bangladesh, Shortlist, Open Competition, Natural World & Wildlife, Sony World Photography Awards 2023

At the National Botanical Garden of Bangladesh, Protap Shekhor Mohanto concealed himself in order to capture this image of a young owl.

“During the day, these amazing birds tend to hide in nests made in the holes of tree trunks, but they sometimes peep out to observe their surroundings with their captivating yellow eyes,” the photographer from Bangladesh writes in a statement.

“Home Alone” by Pietro Formis

bucket with red and orange frilled creatures on it surrounds a spotlighted brown fish

A fish inside a discarded waste basket.

© Pietro Formis, Italy, Shortlist, Open Competition, Natural World & Wildlife, 2023 Sony World Photography Awards

Italian photographer Pietro Formis found beauty in a piece of trash in the ocean. And this fish, a brown comber, found a place to hide.

The walls of the waste basket are lined with crinoids, plant-like marine animals that have been around since the Paleozoic. They make “beautiful decorations for the wall of this house,” Formis writes in a statement.

“Kingdom of the Parakeet” by Subrata Dey

hundreds of green parakeets obscure the sky

The sky above a rice paddy is filled with parrots.

© Subrata Dey, Bangladesh, Shortlist, Open Competition, Natural World & Wildlife, 2023 Sony World Photography Awards

Thousands of parakeets swarm above a field of rice in the agricultural area of Gumai Bill in Bangladesh. This highly productive field attracts droves of the seed-eating parrots when it is ripe. As Bangladeshi photographer Subrata Dey writes in a statement, “this area could be called a ‘parrot sanctuary.’”

“Puffin at Sunset” by James Hunter

http://www.bing.com/news/puffin on a hillside

A puffin in soft light surrounded by faint raindrops.

© James Hunter, United States, Shortlist, Open Competition, Natural World & Wildlife, 2023 Sony World Photography Awards

As daylight faded, American photographer James Hunter put the sun at his back, hoping to capture a village in the Faroe Islands bathed in a soft golden glow. Then, a duo of puffins showed up.

“As it started to rain, I lay down and photographed this one in the spectacular light,” Hunter writes in a statement.

“Untitled” by Tibor Prisznyák

vegetation in an orange glow with three silhouettes of deer

Three deer in an orange glow.

© Tibor Prisznyák, Hungary, Shortlist, Open Competition, Natural World & Wildlife, 2023 Sony World Photography Awards

Hungarian photographer Tibor Prisznyák snapped this orange-tinted shot of deer in the morning light. A stag with antlers appears through the haze in the center of the image.

“Proud” by Patrick Ems

black and white shot of a goat and a mountain

A goat in front of the Aiguille du Grépon peak in France.

© Patrick Ems, Switzerland, Shortlist, Open Competition, Natural World & Wildlife, 2023 Sony World Photography Awards

To Swiss photographer Patrick Ems, this goat looked to be standing proud and “enjoying the last rays of sunlight,” as he writes in a statement. The animal is standing in front of the peak of an 11,424-foot-tall French mountain known informally as “The Grepon.”

“Frozen Feet” by Alex Pansier

mountains of ice with a penguin on the upper right

A small penguin on an icy landscape.

© Alex Pansier, Netherlands, Shortlist, Open Competition, Natural World & Wildlife, 2023 Sony World Photography Awards

A chinstrap penguin walks amid icy slopes, immortalized by Dutch photographer Alex Pansier.

“Pretty in Pink” by Charly Clérisse

pink bumpy seahorse amid pink bumpy coral

A Bargibant’s Pygmy Seahorse

© Charly Clérisse, France, Shortlist, Open Competition, Natural World & Wildlife, 2023 Sony World Photography Awards

Perfect to blend in with its surroundings, this Bargibant’s pygmy seahorse is covered in small red bumps. The tiny species grows to no more than an inch long and lives in fan corals.

French photographer Charly Clérisse captured its likeness in the Indo-Pacific in Tulamben, Bali. In a statement, Clérisse writes that the seahorse was a “very shy subject.”

“The River Crossing” by Arnfinn Johansen

wildebeest walk down a mountain and leap into a river

Wildebeest descend a dusty slope and cross a river.

© Arnfinn Johansen, Norway, Shortlist, Open Competition, Natural World & Wildlife, 2023 Sony World Photography Awards

In July 2022, Norse photographer Arnfinn Johansen snapped this image of wildebeest crossing the Mara River, a waterway in Tanzania and Kenya. They moved forward even though the water was infested with crocodiles, the photographer writes in a statement.

“Eye on the Prize” by Vince Burton

white owl with talons outstretched, encircled by the tops of grain

A barn owl flies over grain.

© Vince Burton, United Kingdom, Shortlist, Open Competition, Natural World & Wildlife, 2023 Sony World Photography Awards

United Kingdom-based photographer Vince Burton captured this photo from below a barn owl swooping down on its prey.

“My precious” by Andrea Michelutti

colorful shrimp with purple eyes stretches its arms over a ball of red eggs

A mantis shrimp sits atop a bundle of its red eggs.

© Andrea Michelutti, Italy, Shortlist, Open Competition, Natural World & Wildlife, 2023 Sony World Photography Awards

This harlequin mantis shrimp (also called a peacock mantis shrimp) was photographed with its eggs in the Lembeh Strait of Indonesia. Italian photographer Andrea Michelutti took this image underwater, using a snoot, or a device that narrows the camera’s flash down to a point. The shrimp is a multicolored species known for its powerful punch.

“This mantis shrimp embraces and protects its treasure: thousands of eggs,” Michelutti writes in a statement. “It takes a few minutes to obtain this visual contact with both eyes, considering they can be moved independently in all directions.”

“Climate Change” by Mark Fitzsimmons

a polar bear surrounded by rocks

A polar bear stands on a rocky ridge.

© Mark Fitzsimmons, Australia, Shortlist, Open Competition, Natural World & Wildlife, 2023 Sony World Photography Awards

In Nordenskjøld Land National Park in the Svalbard archipelago, Norway, a polar bear walks along a rocky landscape.

“A decade ago there was a glacier,” Australian photographer Mark Fitzsimmons writes in a statement. “Despite relatively healthy numbers in the Svalbard region of the Arctic, polar bears face many issues, including increased human/wildlife conflict, warmer summers and receding glaciers.”

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The Strange Surrealist Magic of Dora Maar | History

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Few artists boast a style and subject matter so singular that three separate specialists would use the same word to describe them: “strange.” Yet that’s exactly what happened when Smithsonian magazine asked a trio of scholars about Dora Maar, a 20th-century French photographer and painter whose oeuvre in many ways defies explanation. Almost all of her artworks capture a certain uncanniness in their surroundings, bringing to light the strange in the mundane.

Dora Maar, Père Ubu​​​​​​​, 1936

Dora Maar, Père Ubu, 1936

© 2022 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

One of Maar’s most famous works—the 1936 photograph Père Ubu—is a perfect example of this phenomenon. It’s the kind of art that requires repeat viewings, all of which yield something new. There’s something inscrutable about the subject’s scaly body, its one slightly open eye, its barely outstretched claws and its ear flaps clouded by shadows. The viewer is left to question whether the figure is alien or something found in nature; they want to know more, but at the same time, they’re slightly disgusted, says Andrea Nelson, an associate curator at the National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington, D.C. Donors gifted a print of the Surrealist image to the museum in 2021.

“It’s compelling but repellent at the same time,” Nelson says. “You don’t quite know what it is, and you’re trying to figure it out. It’s surprising, it’s mysterious, it’s completely bizarre and it’s grotesque. It still maintains that power.”


The same could be said of Maar herself. Born Henrietta Théodora Markovitch in Paris in 1907, the artist split her childhood between Argentina and France. From a young age, she was determined to be an artist, studying everything from decorative arts to painting to photography and attending prominent Paris schools like the Académie Julian and the École Technique de Photographie et de Cinématographie (Technical School for Photography and Cinematography). At one point, Maar even trained with French Cubist painter André Lhote.

As her abilities grew, Maar began a career as a commercial photographer and later a painter, winning renown in her own right. Today, however, most mentions of the artist reference her mainly in relation to her most famous lover: Pablo Picasso, who featured her in the 1937 portrait series Weeping Woman. Her “career and accomplishments were overshadowed during her lifetime by the details of her affair” with Picasso, notes Encyclopedia Britannica.

Weeping Woman portrait of Maar by Pablo Picasso

Weeping Woman portrait of Maar by Pablo Picasso, on view at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, in 2006

Photo by William West / AFP via Getty Images

Maar’s own work was both influenced by and had a real influence on Surrealism, a cultural movement that rejected rationalism in favor of art and literature informed by dreams and the unconscious mind. In fact, Père Ubu is “one of the most iconic artworks of the movement,” Nelson says. But it doesn’t really resemble prominent Surrealist works, nor does it look like Maar’s other art. The artist’s photographs tend to be either beautiful in an almost supernatural way or heartbreakingly realistic, capturing the realities of poverty. As the Morgan Library and Museum points out, Père Ubu stands out from the rest of Maar’s work precisely because of its “repellent qualities.”

Even when the portrait was displayed at the “London International Surrealist Exhibition” in 1936, it stood out from the stylized world of Maar’s fellow Surrealists.

Ubu … would have acted as a small, sharp puncture in the exhibition’s exuberant display of the Surrealist imaginary, asserting its connection with the world beyond the gallery,” writes photographic historian Ian Walker in the catalog for a 2019 Maar retrospective co-organized by Paris’ Centre Pompidou, London’s Tate Modern and Los Angeles’ J. Paul Getty Museum. “For these images were based in the documentary nature of photography while also exploiting the medium’s Surrealist potential.”

Selection of photographs by Dora Maar

Selection of photographs by Dora Maar

Courtesy of Artcurial

What adds meaning to the snapshot is its title, which references Alfred Jarry’s 1896 Absurdist play, Ubu Roi. The drama’s main character, Père Ubu, is a greedy figure who does whatever it takes—including killing members of the Polish royal family—to achieve his goals. But Maar’s Père Ubu is hard to reconcile with that description. Is this an innocent creature or one primed to commit harm? With a “sagging belly and bulbous nose” that mirror the distasteful appearance of the play’s title character, the portrait conveys the “vulgarity and slothfulness” of its namesake, according to Walker.

Jarry’s creation is “savage and malicious, truly threatening as well as ridiculous,” the historian adds. “Maar’s Ubu lacks that overt savagery, but in its place is an ominous stillness, as we are pitilessly observed by the creature’s black, depthless eye, like that of a shark or reptile, while its claws … might also be about to metamorphose into Ubu’s sinister ‘nearole-incisors.’”

The photograph raises a more pressing surface-level question, too: What exactly does it depict? The subject is hypothesized to be an armadillo fetus, but definitive proof is hard to come by, as Maar would never confirm its identity.

Interestingly, the catalog for a Paris Surrealist exhibition where the image was displayed classifies it as an “interpreted found object.”

“It is evidently the thing that is depicted in the photograph that is the [‘object’]: a neutral term that serves to disguise whatever was its original nature,” Walker writes. “It is also significant that it is described not simply as ‘found’ but also ‘interpreted’—an acknowledgment perhaps that Maar’s photograph not only documents the thing but also re-presents and transforms it.”

Installation view of "Dora Maar" at Tate Modern, 2019, featuring Père Ubu ​​​​​​​at left

Installation view of “Dora Maar” at Tate Modern, 2019, featuring Père Ubu at left

Tate Modern / Andrew Dunkley

Emma Lewis, a former assistant curator at Tate Modern, offers a more concrete answer, citing a visitor to the major Maar retrospective, which she co-curated. The individual was so interested in the photo that they asked a senior veterinarian from the London Zoo about the creature. The vet identified the subject as an infant or fetal armadillo based on its claws and underdeveloped osteoderms, or bony deposits. Exactly where the artist would have encountered this animal is unknown.


From Ubu’s otherworldly likeness to 29 rue d’Astorg, in which a glamorously dressed, nearly headless figure sits in a cavernous room, to a snapshot of a model with a cutout star covering her head, Maar’s art evokes a sense of uneasiness, strangeness even, amid beauty.

Yet the word “strange” carries a certain connotation that doesn’t fully reflect the scope of Maar’s work. Rather than being whimsical or fanciful, the artist’s photographs are tinged with darkness, Lewis says, a Gothic quality often characterized by stylistic experimentation.

“She contributed to making the everyday strange,” the curator adds.

Dora Maar, Mendiant London, 1934

Dora Maar, Mendiant London, 1934

Courtesy of Artcurial

Dora Maar, Couple sur la fontaine de Trafalgar Square, London, 1934

Dora Maar, Couple sur la fontaine de Trafalgar Square, London, 1934

Courtesy of Artcurial

Maar’s commercial work helped her craft this unusual style. In 1931, she opened a photography studio with set designer Pierre Kéfer, working on commission for fashion houses like Chanel and designers such as Elsa Schiaparelli and Jeanne Lanvin. She often employed a collage technique, overlaying images “from her own work, including both street and landscape photography,” instead of using newspapers or magazines, per Tate Modern.

“These commissions had good budgets a lot of the time. They had good circulation, and they reached interesting audiences,” Lewis says. “Every image that we see by Maar is either about her pushing what she can do with staging, light and composition or her taking the components of the image and cutting and pasting and reworking that within her studio.”

A key example of Maar’s collage technique is a 1935 photo titled The Years Lie in Wait for You. In it, a woman clasps the bottom half of her face with her manicured hands, which are visible but almost hidden behind a superimposed image of a spiderweb. Thought to be a face cream advertisement, the work was never published, notes Lewis in Photography, A Feminist History: Gender Rights and Gender Roles on Both Sides of the Camera.

Installation view of "Dora Maar" at Tate Modern, 2019, featuring The Years Lie in Wait for You ​​​​​​​(1935)

Installation view of “Dora Maar” at Tate Modern, 2019, featuring The Years Lie in Wait for You (1935)

Tate Modern / Andrew Dunkley

Maar enjoyed great commercial success with her studio, adding an experimental lens to many of her commissions. She could, “at roughly the same time, produce high-end fashion photographs, artful advertising pictures, flattering studio portraits, figure studies, soft-core pornography, … gritty street scenes, documentary shots, politically inflected images, rigorous formal compositions, and the complex, disturbing, and beautifully crafted Surrealist photomontages that are her most memorable creations,” wrote art critic Richard Kalina for Art in America in 2020.

Though the vision of independent womanhood conveyed by 1920s and ’30s advertisements was “largely an alluring commercial fiction … Maar and her friends actually lived such lives,” Kalina added. “And they put their exceptional autonomy to use” by documenting social inequality and advocating for political reform. Maar was a left-wing political activist involved with revolutionary groups, and her politics were “inextricable from her work as an artist,” Lewis says.


Today, Maar’s work is often referenced only or primarily in connection with Picasso, whom she met in the mid-1930s, when she was in her late 20s and the famed Cubist painter was in his mid-50s.

“So often the first sentence you read about [muses] is that they were the muse of Pablo Picasso” or a similarly prominent man, says Nelson. “But in the case of Dora Maar, she was a really successful and interesting photographer for years and years before she … even met Pablo Picasso.”

Installation view of "Dora Maar" at Tate Modern, 2019, featuring some of the artist's collage works

Installation view of “Dora Maar” at Tate Modern, 2019, featuring some of the artist’s collage works

Tate Modern / Andrew Dunkley

Aside from her collage work, Maar was known for using the camera to document reality and capture street life. Through her style and gaze, she was able to transform what she saw into something altogether different.

Many of Maar’s snapshots have never or rarely been seen by the public. The 2019 retrospective, which featured more than 200 works by the artist, highlighted some of these little-known photographs. And earlier this year, Paris auction house Artcurial placed roughly 750 photographs from Maar’s estate, the majority of which had previously been unpublished, up for sale.

Spanning the late 1920s to the end of the 1940s, the images included uncharacteristically informal photos of Picasso, a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of his 1937 painting Guernica and self-portraits of Maar, as well as vignettes from major European cities, like a bookseller in Paris, a series of blind musicians in Barcelona and beggars in London.

Dora Maar, Guernica en cours de réalisation dans l’atelier de la rue des Grands Augustins, Paris, mai-juin 1937​​​​​​​, 1937

Dora Maar, Guernica en cours de réalisation dans l’atelier de la rue des Grands Augustins, Paris, mai-juin 1937

Courtesy of Artcurial

“We have essentially retained from [Maar] to this day the strangeness of some of her compositions or collages, which bring their own score to the Surrealist movement,” says Bruno Jaubert, director of Artcurial’s Impressionist and Modern Art Department. “But it is also, to another extent, her way of capturing reality that goes beyond Surrealist aesthetics.”

While Maar’s work did not experience a major stylistic shift in the collection’s roughly 30-year span, Jaubert says her eye became more trained and refined.

“[The cache] shows a maturity in the look that immediately reveals a scene, a presence without seeking decorative effect,” he notes.


Throughout her life, Maar found herself caught between painting and photography, never able to choose just one. For years, particularly during her relationship with Picasso, she focused on painting, in love with the art form she had first taken up as a teenager. It was only toward the end of her life that she inhabited fully once more the world of photography.

“We don’t know that she ever stopped photographing, per se, but certainly in her later years, she returned to darkroom experimentation,” Lewis says. Maar died in 1997 at age 89.

Dora Maar, Las Ramblas Barcelona, circa 1933

Dora Maar, Las Ramblas Barcelona, circa 1933

Courtesy of Artcurial

Dora Maar, La Sagrada Familia Barcelone, circa 1933

Dora Maar, La Sagrada Familia Barcelone, circa 1933

Courtesy of Artcurial

The artist’s shift from painting to photography and back again wasn’t unusual for the time. As Nelson argued in the 2021 NGA exhibition “The New Woman Behind the Camera,” photography became a way for women to make money and express themselves creatively during the 20th century. Many followed a path like Maar’s, studying art in a traditional setting before pursuing photography in the 1920s and ’30s, as the medium was growing and changing.

For Maar, photography was a way to carve her own path in a business sense. She certainly wasn’t alone in that.

“For some women, photography was a very viable career where you could actually see yourself making your own money, earning your own income and becoming independent,” Nelson says.

When Nelson curated the NGA exhibition, she knew she wanted to include Père Ubu. Yet she had a difficult time determining where to place the photograph. It was such a strong composition, so different from the other pieces in the exhibition’s “Avant-Garde Experiments” room, that it didn’t quite work next to anything else.

Eventually, Nelson came up with a compromise: putting the photograph next to the room’s wall text. There, it wouldn’t overshadow other works but rather help start a conversation. It could only exist as Maar likely intended it to—on its own.

Installation view of "Dora Maar" at Tate Modern, 2019

Installation view of “Dora Maar” at Tate Modern, 2019

Tate Modern / Andrew Dunkley

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