Curators have recently been contending with the overlooked women artists of the 20th century. Many female photographers have had their contributions reduced to footnotes while their male counterparts became larger-than-life figures. Maar had long been viewed two-dimensionally: as the flattened, fractured “Weeping Woman” of Picasso’s oeuvre, and the equally planar depiction as his muse.

Yet Maar enjoyed a fruitful photography career before switching to painting. In the 1930s, Maar exhibited in six major Surrealist exhibitions in Tenerife, Spain; La Louvière, Belgium; London; New York; Tokyo; and Amsterdam, and she was the only photographer to show in all six. Her most influential work, Portrait of Ubu (1936)—an uncanny image of an armadillo fetus—hung in three of the shows. “Works like Portrait of Ubu would have a profound effect on how the Surrealists viewed photography,” Jones said.