I'm a genealogist who loves to research, so when I came across Finding Dora Maar: An Artist, an Address Book, a Life by Brigitte Benkemoun, I snapped it up. The premise was right up my alley - a woman purchases an old journal which holds an address book filled with the names of famous painters, poets and creatives of the 1920s and 30s. I was hooked!

What I didn't take into consideration was how little I knew about the Surrealist art scene.

Read Finding Dora Maar: An Artist, an Address Book, a Life by Brigitte Benkemoun changed all that. I spent a goodly portion of my time googling folks like Bataille, Brenton, Cocteau and Ponge, and reacquainting myself with Picasso and Chagall - artists I recognized but knew very little about. I might be unusual, but I could not have gotten through the book without gaining at least a basic understanding and knowledge of the artists, the movement and the time - too much of the storyline was predicated on knowing who was who and how Dora Maar was related.

Art History pre-req aside, Finding Dora Maar: An Artist, an Address Book, a Life was an enjoyable read. The author did a good job of exploring the characters present in the address book, but also doled out insight into Dora Maar as a woman, an artist and a legend. She inserted herself into the story enough to make the search for information personal and real, not just a good premise for a book - which it obviously was.

If you're an art enthusiast, or want to become one, Finding Dora Maar: An Artist, an Address Book, a Life by Brigitte Benkemoun is a book you'll enjoy, and one that will help you understand an arts movement and way of seeing culture that continues to engage audiences around the world. If art isn't your jam, this book might be a tough one to get into and stick with, despite the passion and skill of a good author.

Very very interesting concept and format, unlike anything I’ve seen before. I enjoyed the translation and story.

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

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.

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.