Yves Tanguy

Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York
Lady Cramer (and sold: Sotheby Parke-Bernet, New York, November 7, 1979, lot 772)
Private Collection (acquired at the above sale)
Thence by descent

New York, Pierre Matisse Gallery, Yves Tanguy, 1946

Pierre Matisse, Yves Tanguy, Un Recueil de ses oeuvres, New York, 1963, no. 372, illustrated p. 165
Patrick Waldberg, Yves Tanguy, Kruishoutem, 1977, illustrated p. 234

This work is in very good condition. Executed on black colored wove paper. Edges have been cut. Artist pinholes at upper corners, and associated nicks appear near these corners and there is one other tiny nick at the center of the left hand edge, less than half a centimeter in length. One tiny pinhole in the center of the sheet. Medium is bright and fresh. This work is sold unframed.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Tanguy joined the Surrealist group in 1925, and by 1927 began painting the visionary and imaginative landscapes that established him as a major figure of the movement. Although he received no formal artistic training, his childhood summers spent near Finistère in Brittany, on the western coast of France overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, were to have a profound influence on his distinct style that emerged in 1927. It was during these stays that Tanguy had observed prehistoric rock formations and objects floating on water or washed ashore; these elements, subjectively transformed, would figure prominently in the celebrated dreamscapes of his mature oeuvre.

Painted after the artist’s relocation to the United States, this work exemplifies Tanguy’s unique aesthetic, as well as the enigmatic landscapes and abandoned fields of the alternative, fantastic world that came to characterize his oeuvre. James Thrall Soby remarked upon the particular splendor of the artist’s output of this period: “His color became more complex and varied, with extremes of light and dark replacing the relatively even tonality of his previous pictures. At the same time he made more frequent use of one of his most poetic inventions–the melting of land into sky, one image metamorphosed into another, as in the moving-picture technique known as lap-dissolve. The fixed horizon was now often replaced by a continuous and flowing treatment of space” (James Thrall Soby, Yves Tanguy (exhibition catalogue), Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1955, pp. 17-18).

Tanguy’s intriguing forms are at once amorphous and tangible, mysterious and precise. The present work exemplifies the artist’s ability to make unrecognizable forms resonate with the viewer’s subconscious. These enigmatic elements are distinctly Tanguy’s own creation, yet there is something strangely familiar about them, imbued as they are with an undeniable universality.