December 11, 2020
When French author and journalist Brigitte Benkemoun’s husband lost his old Hermès pocket agenda, and the store indicated it no longer carried address books in that style, he obtained a similar one via eBay.
When it arrived, it still had the previous owner’s address book inside and what an address book. It was filled with the names, addresses, and phone numbers of the major figures of French artistic and intellectual life circa 1950, but without any clear indication of who had originally owned the little volume.
The fascinating story of how Benkemoun was able to identify the owner then use the book’s contents to paint a picture of the owner’s life and times is the subject of “Finding Dora Maar: An Artist, An Address Book, A Life,” which was translated into English earlier this year and recently published by Getty Publications.