Cressida's Transformations - art and photography

Mata Hari Dutch spy during World War I   Click here to return

Mata Hari

 The following is an excerpt from Kathleen Notman's book, JOURNEY WITH A COLLECTION OF PORTRAITS

   In the 1950s there was a cosmopolitan community living in Singapore. White Russians from Shanghai, Dutch from Indonesia, displaced people from Europe and elsewhere searching for a place to stay after the upheaval of war. Many had illustrious tales to tell and others said nothing of their former lives. Moreover, some, like an acquaintance of mine, had dubious tales to tell.

She said she had been a spy. I could never be sure whether the stories she told me about her exploits in the war were true. Had she been a modern-day Mata Hari, who unlike Mata Hari, had escaped the ultimate punishment meted out to spies who were caught. Or was she was living in a fantasy world? She was indeed a glamorous, mature woman and like Mata Hari, was attractive to men, but there was no way of knowing if her amazing tales of espionage and intrigue were true. I suspected they were not but it did not alter the fact that one day there would be something of her in my portrait 'MATA HARI'.

   I read several biographies of Mata Hari. Many stories about her are dubious. However, what is fact is that she was Dutch, married to an Englishman and at the time, described as the world's most beautiful woman. She left her husband, went to live in France, and became a courtesan. She became known as the queen of Paris society. She performed erotic dances at private parties and was an expert at using her feminine wiles to win the favours of influential men. Noticed by German intelligence, in 1907, she was recruited as a spy. Through her affairs with several high-ranking Allied officers during the First World War, she gained military information. But she was betrayed and in 1917, the French executed her. Her competence as a spy and her being a double agent is argued to this very day.

   Whatever the truth, Mata Hari was a wonderful subject to portray. I loved every moment of it. It was not difficult to represent Mata Hari's photographic image. I found a photograph of her defiant, self-assured, dramatic face that I emulated in my photographic portrayal of her. I painted her emotions as multitudinous shapes - twists and turns extended from the face in the form of lavish headwear similar to that seen in a photograph of her. The portrait is rather like a game one plays in an amusement park - putting your head through a hole and someone takes a funny photograph of you. The portrait filled with provocative shapes like the movement of her erotic dancing has a hole in it, a hole in which there is the face of a spy.

   From portraying Mata Hari, I believe espionage was a game to her. She never imagined capture and even if she was, execution never entered her mind. Therefore, in my portrait of her, there are no shapes of fear or love of country or altruistic motives. Life was a game and espionage a thrill for a beautiful woman who loved to dance, a woman who used her charm and sex to get the things she desired.

   Her portrait is titled simply, 'MATA HARI' and in 1988, I took it with me to Europe where it belonged.