About
Every day I work on my thesis on Roberto Matta, I will post something relevant to the day's studies in this space. Anything goes.
“L’onda m’onda”
1999 (99/30)
240 x 315 cm.
Que lo cumplas, viejito.
Banale de Venise
1956
204.5 x 305.5 cm
Geneva
Pollock Painting
1951
Hans Namuth and Paul Falkenberg (directors), Morton Feldman (composer)
Via Ubu.com
Concerto Grosso
1973
203 x 292 cm
Not sure of what this one was painted on. From the texture it looks like pigments over earth and jute like his 1971 Chilean works, but I have no sources to check this on.
“Ahora, salen a la luz 32 trabajos —varios de gran formato—, muchos de los cuales no se han exhibido en años y otros ni siquiera se habían mostrado al público. El recorrido abarca desde las obreras de la primera etapa hasta las que realizó pocos años antes de morir.
Roberto Matta es, sin duda, un nombre clave en la historia del arte del siglo XX y, aunque así figura en todas los manuales, se ha subrayado su etapa de juventud, cuando se relacionó con Dalí, Breton y García Lorca, mientras que su trabajo posterior ha pasado algo más desapercibido, ha explicado Ignacio Ollero.
Y eso a pesar de que el chileno —el primer artista sudamericano que ocupó un papel central en la vanguardia internacional— fue el enlace entre la corriente surrealista y los jóvenes artistas de la Escuela de Nueva York, como Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorky o William Baziotes.”
Je m’arche
1949
193.7 x 139.7 cm
Smart Museum of Art, Univ. of Chicago
Je m’honte
1948-9 (49/3)
195.5 x 142.2 cm
Menil Collection, Houston, TX
Draws directly from Duchamp’s wordplay
Marcel Duchamp - Tu m’
Oil and pencil on canvas with bottle brush, three safety pins, one bolt.
69.8 x 313 cm
New Haven, Yale Univ. Art Gallery.
Gift from the estate of Katherine S. Dreier
Besides the visual influence Duchamp had on Matta and the many philosophical/theorical influences, an influence that cannot be ignored is that of Duchamp’s wordplay.
Thank you, Ubu dot com.
Caption:
Photo of the artists exhibiting in the Artists in Exile show at the Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, March 1942. Left to right, first row: Matta, Ossip Zadkine, Yves Tanguy, Max Ernst, Marc Chagall, Fernand Léger; second row: André Breton, Piet Mondrian, André Masson, Amedée Ozenfant, Jacques Lipchier, Pavel Tchelitchev, Kurt Seligman, Eugene Berman. Photograph by George Platt Lynes.
I love this picture.
Max Ernst - Surrealism and Painting
1942, oil on canvas
195.6 x 233.7 cm
The Menil collection, Houston
It goes without saying that at the time of this painting Ernst was living in New York among the Surrealists in exile, married to Peggy Guggenheim. Notice the colours and informal linework of the painting-within-the-painting.
Max Ernst - Loplop introduces a young girl
1930, oil, plaster and various materials on wood
Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
Ernst’s Loplop was an example of the use of figurative characters in an abstract/informal context. The bird-like figure is the artist’s familiar, in the same way as in Matta the Great Transparents are embodiments of larger concepts.
17. Les Etoiles
Litograph
1945
One of four tarot cards/bookplates for André Breton’s 1945 first printing of Arcane 17
Arcane 17 is the peak of the Matta/Breton collaboration. These simple “tarot cards” contain simplifications many of the visual themes Matta was pursuing in that period.
An article a friend of mine published yesterday, quite coincidentally. An excellent introduction for italian speakers.
