Max Beauchesne

Cubism, Dadaism, and Surrealism

Yves Tanguy

Indefined Divisibility (1942)

Yves Tanguy was a French surrealist artist born in Paris, France in 1900. His paintings were known to be “timeless, dreamlike landscapes with no reference to reality”.

The Furniture of Time (1939)

Before Tanguy began his art career, he was a sailor with the French merchant marine. In 1923 Tanguy started painting after being inspired by Giorgio de Chirico’s work. He joined the Surrealist movement shortly after in 1925 and was part of all their major exhibitions. He moved to the United States in 1939 where he married Kay Sage, an American painter.

Mama, Papa Is Wounded! (1927)
Large Painting Representing a Landscape (1927)

Throughout his career, Tanguy exhibited in solo and surrealist group shows in locations such as Paris, New York, Brussels, London, Rome, and Milan. His first solo show was at the Galerie Surréaliste in Paris in 1927. He participated in all the major surrealist shows with other surrealists such as Jean Arp, Max Ernst, André Masson, Joan Miró, and Pablo Picasso. Tanguy was well-liked by the founder of the movement, André Breton, as he “considered Tanguy to be the artist most faithful to Surrealist ideas”. After his death, the Museum of Modern Art exhibited a retrospective of Tanguy’s work.

I find the feeling of uneasiness in his paintings caused by the unsettling nature of the infinite horizons interesting. The emptiness and unknown of the fog spark my curiosity of what could lie ahead and draws my attention to the paintings.

The Rapidity of Sleep (1945)

Sources

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Yves-Tanguy

https://www.landaufineart.ca/tanguy

https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/yves-tanguy

2 Comments

  1. Max,
    Excellent presentation on Winslow Homer! Great info through research and solid background and insights. Good variety of work in your slides from his watercolours to his oils. Well done.
    10/10
    Jeff

  2. Max,
    Nice work on Tanguy! You have just the right amount of researched information combined with personal thoughts about the artist for such a blog. Your writing is succinct and to the point. Look forward to your final post.
    Jeff

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