Emerging from the shadows, a strange scaly creature with floppy ears hunches forward. Holding its claws up close to its stubby snout, one beady eye gazes out sleepily. The tightly cropped image Père Ubu (1936) – now believed to be an armadillo fetus submerged in formaldehyde – is among the most renowned Surrealist photographs of the 20th century. While the modestly sized monochromatic image, shot by French artist Dora Maar (1907–1997) hardly seems revolutionary today, it shocked audiences in 1936 when it was shown at the ‘International Surrealist Exhibition’ at the New Burlington Galleries in London. Photographic historian Ian Walker says it would have acted like ‘a small, sharp puncture’ in the otherwise exuberant display of more stylized images of the time. Maar’s mysterious subject (she never disclosed what it was) rattled viewers, defying explanation and categorization.
Maar is among several pioneering artists credited with pushing the boundaries of photography whose work will be on view at Art Basel next month. These are figures who have brazenly defied the conventions of the medium either through their choice of subject matter, manipulation of photographic material, or transformation of the process itself.
While photography was originally seen as an image recorder and a replicator of reality, Surrealists like Maar used the medium to give a voice to the uncanny, grotesque, and unexpected, inspiring a new way of perceiving the world. Maar began as a studio photographer shooting images for fashion houses and magazines before becoming entrenched in Surrealist circles. Her career has long been overshadowed by her association with Pablo Picasso (who considered her a muse), but today her contribution to photography is finally coming to light.
Beyond experimenting with photo collages and pairing unexpected images, Maar also took photographs exposing social inequality, turning her lens on underrepresented individuals like disabled war veterans and working-class laborers. Her work touched a nerve, capturing as it did, a world filled with a sense of displacement and alienation.