He made her famous, she made him loved.

Pablo Picasso and Henriette Theodora Markovitch, alias Dora Maar were together as a couple for a decade through the 1930s and 40s. The stunningly beautiful French photographer, poet and painter, was most famously known as Picasso’s private muse, model, companion, and intellectual partner.

Their relationship was wild, stormy, and unconventional. Maar greatly suffered from Picasso’s mood swings but her love for him was unconditional. Picasso, who was known for the pain that he caused his lovers, often painted and depicted Maar in grotesque, appalling forms. Maar would often deny Picasso’s ethereal love for her by saying, “All his portraits of me are lies. They’re all Picassos. Not one is Dora Maar.”

(Above text, cut & pasted: http://culturazzi.org/review/art/10-paintings-on-women-immortalised-by-famous-artists)

There's something about this piece that absolutely draws me. Perhaps, it's her beauty, perhaps her colour, perhaps the refreshment of seeing beauty outside convention and the story behind it.