The Place Ménerbes

The village of Ménerbes holds the official classification as a one of “the prettiest villages of France.” It is part of the regional park of the Luberon, a protected game and wildlife area covering the mountains of the Luberon range and located within Provence, or southern France. Dating back to the Paleolithic age, the village sits on a narrow spine of a hilltop. Nostradamus claimed it looked like a ship in an ocean of vineyards. In the Roman period the village was known as Minerva, after the goddess of crafts, poetry and wisdom as well as the inventor of music.

The Maison Dora Maar is located in an 18th-century mansion once owned by General Baron Robert (1772-1831), who distinguished himself during Napoleon’s campaigns in Spain. In 1944, it was acquired by surrealist artist and photographer Dora Maar, Picasso’s partner and muse from the late 1930s to the early 1940s. After her break with Picasso, Dora Maar retired each fall to Ménerbes where she produced an important body of work. Following her death in 1997, the American patron of the arts, Nancy Brown Negley, bought and renovated the house to create a residence for writers, artists and scholars.

Dora Maar her Story

Maar was the ideal surrealist woman: artistic, rebellious, intelligent, beautiful, sophisticated, and a little bit crazy. Before Picasso, Theodora Markovich took a scalpel to her name, instinctively knowing the importance of reinventing herself. She was determined, unafraid, and soon earned the nickname “La cabocharde” (the stubborn one). By age 27, two years before she met Picasso, Maar was a successful commercial photographer, financially independent, in a country where, as a woman, she did not have the right to vote.