The address-book conceit for exploring Dora Maar is both useful and imaginative - evading the strangling hold of the biildungsroman biography - and occasionally too slight and a little frustrating. I feel like Maar ultimately slips through my fingers, and through Benkemoun's. What Benkemoun does do well is expand the view of Maar constructed both by Picasso followers - the mad, weeping woman - and by biographers who have tried to reclaim Maar from Picasso and from history and to see her as an artist in her own right rather than Picasso's victim. While she was that, writers like Mary Ann Caws recreated her without flaw; it is a shock to move from Caws's positive portrait of Maar as leftist, feminist artist to read Benkemoun's dissection of her later anti-semitism and retreat into conservatism. A necessary shock, but one that I wish could be explored more, and which the address-book form blocks - Benkemoun refers often to Maar's father's known anti-semitism, but never really discusses this at any length.

What this is, in the end, is an interesting and necessary revelation of Maar as both more and less than traditional and revisionist biographies have shown her, but it is squarely a portrait of Maar in the year of her address book, 1951, as Benkemoun herself admits. That is fine, but this should be clearer, sooner, and only becomes clear towards the end when Benkemoun finally draws her own boundaries: and the limits of this frame mean that her early period among the Surrealists and her time with Picasso is less than fully served, and her later, hideous retreat also gets shorter shrift than it could.

Benkemoun's investigation of artist Dora Maar centers around the names found in a 1951 address book.  An interesting examination of European artists' lives and social circles in the 20th Century.

An interesting story about Dora Maar, one of Picasso's former mistresses. The book is abotu her, but it also gives a lot of information about what goes on in life around her. A pleasure to read.

This is a fascinating entertaining read avintagec address book bought on line to replace his wife’s Hermès address book turns out to contain a treasure trove of names history.It belonged to Dora Maar an artist photographer and most interesting one of Picasso’s mistresses .A gossipy name dropping book a fun informative read.#netgalley#gettybooks

Finding Dora Maar: An Artist, an Address Book, a Life by Brigitte Benkemoun is a fascinating look at both Dora Maar's life as well as at the European art world of the mid-20th century. 

This is not, strictly speaking, a biography. While there is a lot more information here about her life than was in the exhibition catalogue I recently read (which contained several essays devoted to her work with some life story included) there is a lot less than in a biography of her I also recently read. So this is about Maar, perhaps in the same way you might say the planets revolve "about" the sun. Maar is at the center of this book but not always the focus. Rather than a negative, however, this offers a more nuanced view at her life and the immediate world around her life.

The address book is the structural device but not in an A-to-Z manner. Again, this works very well. It seems to be presented in the order (exact or approximate?) that Benkemoun uncovered the information on the names in the book. So rather than time being what leads us from one incident or person to the next, it almost seems like happenstance. Yet the moving back and forth in time shows many connections and even disconnects that might be missed with a straightforward telling.

Then there is the outer "story," that of receiving the address book and researching the names and connections. Who is still around (just one person, I think), who is around who remembers Maar and/or the people in the book? Benkemoun does the legwork and we learn little tidbits along the way. It also opens some room for speculation on why a name might still be present or might be missing. Even wondering why an entry is entered as it is. This is like a treasure hunt.

If all you've read about Maar is either in relation to Picasso or in something like the recent exhibition catalogue you will learn a lot here (just ignore anyone who says different, people have their own agendas and self-images to keep up, let them). If you've read the biographies of Maar and the art history pieces that incorporate biography then there will be a lot less that is new to you. But I do think that some of the unusual juxtapositions of people and incidents will offer some new insight even if the separate pieces of information aren't new to you.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

I loved everything about this and SO wished it had happened to me.  A chance purchase on eBay leading to one of the most compelling literary mysteries for years.  Early on in this investigation, someone points out, show me who your friends are and I'll tell you who you are.  It's food for thought - even if, like me, your friends aren't a Who's Who listing of the great and the good from the world of art and literature in 20th Century Paris!

I loved that the author didn't approach the names in the address book in alphabetical order, but chose to meander as the clues found her.  As she points out, the Surrealists in the book would have approved. How very OULIPO, etc. It also added a nice little tension to the reading. Instead of thinking, oh, we're in the Bs, it must be de Beauvoir, it made you sit up and look for the clues yourself and wonder where you would have been tempted to turn next had you been the one holding this gem yourself.

I see that others have raised this issue of the translation and I have to agree.  It feels a bit creaky in places but not enough to prevent you revelling in this stroll through the lives of those who (still) mattered to Dora Maar in 1951.

On a purely personal note, I was horrified to learn that Dora Maar was an antisemite. It made me really stop and think whether I would have been able to continue with the project. But I am very glad that the author chose to go on, drawing attention to it as she did. If Mein Kampf can be found on the shelves of the likes of Dora Maar then we all could do with being a bit more vigilant in our own, less glittering circles.

With thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for letting me see an advance copy of this book.

It's DETECTIVE story with history around it . Captivating and very much intresting story. A good story for history lover.

A very interesting look into the search for one of Picasso's former mistresses Dora Maar.  Dora was an artist and photographer who had achieved some acclaim in her own right.  A tour de force, Dora's volatile personality didn't sit well with everyone, however she maintained her presence in the artistic community for several decades.

Although Dora is the main character in this biography, the book contains countless details of other well known artists during her lifetime, painters, writers, photographers etc.  The author spent considerable time and resources investigating all these links that would help her flesh out just exactly who Dora Maar was.  

Not a dry research project but a fascinating look into the private lives of the beautiful people living in France before, during and after WWII.

I was incredibly taken with the premise of this book--the author bought an old address book online and when it arrived, it turned out to be the former possession of artist/photographer Dora Maar. She then uses the nature of an address book as the structural framework for what amounts to a biographical/historical peek into the life of Dora Maar and her various friends, colleagues, acquaintances, lovers, etc.

I enjoyed reading about Maar, although I recently read/reviewed another book about her, an exhibit catalogue for a retrospective of her photography. I did not feel like i learned anything new about Maar in this book, but i'd hoped that perhaps the metanarration about the serendipitous acquisition might add something to the book. And, in the original perhaps it does, but the translation makes the narrative voice of the author come off twee and disingenous in the opening chapters.

I didn't dislike reading it, but i didn't love it as much as I thought i would.

I received an ARC from #NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.