Tuesday Aug 19, 2025
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
POWERHOUSE Arena
28 Adams Street (Corner of Adams & Water Street across from the Archway)
Brooklyn , NY
11201
About the Book.
A revelatory biographical graphic novel chronicling the elusive life and tumultuous times of Maria Lani.
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.
About the Authors.
Jonathan Lackman first wrote about Maria Lani for Art in America and has written for The New York Times, Harper’s, The New Yorker, Slate, ARTnews, and Wired. He has completed a PhD in art history from NYU and a fiction fellowship at the MacDowell Colony.
Zachary J. Pinson has spent the last two decades weaving in and out of comics, painting, and underground music. His paintings have been shown in galleries in New York, New England and Paris.
About the Moderator.
- Robin Cembalest is a respected journalist, influential Instagrammer, and the former longtime editor of ARTnews, Robin Cembalest trains art professionals how to communicate effectively about themselves, their work, and their projects. She teaches writing, social media, public speaking, and other essential skills across the art industry. An early art-world adapter to social media,Robin has built a specialty in career development for the digital era, helping institutions and individuals to create and implement organic content strategies.
- A mentor to generations of emerging writers, Robin now helps visual artists to express themselves in her workshops at schools, residencies, and local arts councils. She is a faculty member of the School of Visual Arts, teaching workshops at Columbia University’s School of the Arts, Brooklyn College, and many other venues. Widely published in the art and mainstream press, Robin won several awards for investigative reporting, writing key stories on the culture wars, censorship, and museum politics. She is best known today as @rcembalest, handle of her popular Instagram chronicling her travels in the art world.