The Secret of Dora Maar's Notebook. The Diary of Pablo Picasso's Mistress

A: Aragon. B: Breton, Brassai, Balthus ... I thoughtfully leafed through these several yellowed pages of an old notebook. K: Cocteau, Sh: Chagall ... E: Éluard ... D: Giacometti ... each time a phone number, often an address. Twenty pages... mentioning the greatest artists of the post-war period. Who could have known them well and closely communicated with these geniuses of the twentieth century? It took me three months to find out that I was holding Dora Maar's notebook. The very one that in 1936 in the Parisian café Deux Magots Paul Éluard introduced to Picasso, with whom she became a friend, model, and muse for 9 years. Picasso often created images of the melancholic Maar; in his work, she forever remained a crying woman. Dora Maar, photographer, artist, who gave herself to Picasso, and then, consumed by passion, a hermit artist, dedicating herself to God. For two years, the author worked on the diary, deciphering the secrets of Picasso's muse, meticulously delving into the essence and trying to understand the place of each genius in the life of his mistress and to approach the secrets of the Weeping Woman. Now this diary is before you. Brigitte Benkemoun - journalist and writer. She is the author of several biographical or autobiographical works: The Little Girl in the Photograph, Albert the Magnificent, and The Secret of Dora Maar's Notebook. The Diary of Pablo Picasso's Mistress, which received the Geneviève Moll Prize for Biography in 2019.