Born Henriette Théodora Markovic in Tours in 1909 of a Yugoslavian father and a French mother. Studied painting in Paris at the Ecole d Art Decoratif, Academie de Passy, Academie Julien, and with Andre Lhote. She gave up painting for photography during the mid 1930s, joined the Union of Intellectuals Against Fascism and was active in other anti-fascist groups. She became associated with the Surrealists between 1934 and 1937, at first as a model for Man Ray and other surrealists and then as a photographer. She became Picasso's lover and the principal model for many of his so-called weeping women portraits in the late 1930s and early '40s. Her first photography exhibition was at the Galerie de Beaune, Paris, in 1937. She held one-woman exhibitions of painting in Paris at Jeanne Bucher (1943) and Pierre Loeb (1945) galleries. After a period of semi-monastic life devoted to mystical experience, she abandoned photography for painting, showing her works in Paris and London. Exhibitions: Tenerife (1935), London (1936), New York (1937), Tokyo (1937), Amsterdam (1935). She renounced her earlier association with Surrealism and moved to Menerbes (Vaucluse). In 1990, a final exhibition of her works was held in Galerie 1900-2000 in Paris.
