The Woman with Fifty Faces

A revelatory biographical graphic novel chronicling the elusive life and tumultuous times of Maria Lani.

New York Public Library Best Comics for Adults 2025

Most Anticipated Graphics Novels For Summer 2025 - Comics Beat

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.

Black-and-white illustrations throughout

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.