A revelatory biographical graphic novel chronicling the elusive life and tumultuous times of Maria Lani.
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On April 7, 1928, Maria Lani blew into Paris claiming to be a famous German actress and proceeded to seduce the cultural elite with her undeniable charisma and strangely enticing enigmatic aura. She persuaded fifty artists —Pierre Bonnard, Marc Chagall, André Derain, Henri Matisse, Georges-Henri Rouault, Fernand Léger and Suzanne Valadon among them— to immortalize her in paintings and sculptures, which would appear as an important plot device in a forthcoming film. Unveiled as an exhibition in New York, the art works traveled to Chicago, London, Berlin, Rotterdam, and Paris. But, in 1931, as legend eventually had it, she and her husband Max Abramowicz vanished without a trace, and so did the art. The film was never made.

The Woman With Fifty Faces is about uncovering as much of the truth about Maria Lani as possible. The images that cascade through the book are stunningly beautiful, deeply compassionate, and farcically grotesque, capturing the essence of Lani's life. From Poland's antisemitic pogroms to the vulgar glamour and decadence of 1920s Paris to the Nazi occupation of France in the '40s, the tumultuous Europe Lani traverses becomes nearly as much of a character as Lani herself. Jonathan Lackman spent two decades researching Lani's life and Zachary J. Pinson spent 5,000 hours putting pen to paper. The result is a masterful collaboration about identity and the power and limits of reinvention.

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Praise

"Mr. Pinson's detailed monochromatic illustrations pair well with Mr. Lackman's evocative text… Most of the renderings of Lani present a partial view or an obscured face—fitting for an enigma in both art and life." — Wall Street Journal

"Writer Lackman and artist Pinson have transformed Lani's life into a graphic biography. Vivid black-and-white images illustrate the hardships of the Polish Jewry of her birth. They boldly limn the world of 1920s Paris. They give us nightmarish and unforgettable faces. The whole book has the feel of the musical Cabaret, as if illustrated by R. Crumb, or as if Art Spiegelman's Maus were told by Mr. Natural." — Kirkus

"Lackman's elegiac narrative pairs beautifully with Pinson's heavily crosshatched drawings, which twist into grotesquery in scenes of bigotry and bloodshed. This tale of ambition, art, and deception sheds light on a fascinating figure and her era." — Publishers Weekly

"Sometimes graphic biography works to give us an encapsulation of lives familiar to us. Sometimes it broadens our knowledge of its subjects. And sometimes it introduces us to a fascinating story of which we have no prior knowledge." — Broken Frontier

"The B/W images that cascade through "The Woman With Fifty Faces" are stunningly beautiful, deeply compassionate, and farcically grotesque, capturing the essence of Lani's life...The result is a masterful collaboration about identity and the power and limits of reinvention." — Midwest Book Review