All artworks

Folding notebook with red leather cover, containing portraits of Pablo Picasso and Jacqueline Lamba, 1939

Dora Maar

Exhibited by Galerie Boquet

Material Graphite, oil pastel and oil on card

Dimensions 10 x 7,5 cm (each flap)

Place of Creation France

Status Vetted

About the Work

Created in February 1939, this intimate folding notebook by Dora Maar unfolds like a screen, offering a glimpse into the artist’s graphic work. Known for her surrealist photography, Dora Maar returned to drawing and painting through her connection with Pablo Picasso. Her favored subjects were her partner (depicted here on panel 1) and her friend Jacqueline Lamba, whose likeness appears in no fewer than three portraits (panels 4, 5, and 6).

Jacqueline Lamba is easily recognizable in the portraits by her friend, often depicted with regal majesty, her luxurious blonde hair and delicate features. The third portrait is accompanied by a few poetic verses: 'Les hirondelles sont des abeilles. La clef est dans la chambre. C’est du plomb'

This work has been exhibited in the Museo Lazaro Galdiano (Madrid) for the exhibition 'Dora Maar. Fotografía y dibujos' (6 June - 14 September 2025) and in Artipelag (Stockholm) for the exhibition 'The Muses – Inspiring and Challenging Picasso' (4 October 2025 - 8 February 2026).

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Provenance

- Private collection, France
- Sale Tessier Sarrou, Paris, 19 November 2018, lot 403
- Galerie Boquet, Paris

Literature

- Dora Maar Secrets d’Ateliers, ed. Dilecta, 2023, no. 239, p. 123, ill. p. 3, 82-83 and 126
- Muserna som inspirerade och utmanade Picasso, exhibition catalogue, ed. Artipelag, Stockholm, 2025, p. 152, ill. p. 108-109