cubism & character traits

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.
Descriptions of painting
Dora Maar au Chat presents the artist's most mysterious and challenging love interest 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 color 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.
The luminous Dora Maar au Chat was painted in 1941, at the beginning of the Second World
War in France , and is one of Picasso’s most valued depictions of his love interest 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 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.
Maar was one of the most influential figures in Picasso’s life during their relationship and she
also became his primary model. 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. 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.. 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.
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.
-from Wikipedia