André MassonAnatomie de Mon Univers1988
1988
About the Item
- Creator:André Masson (1896-1987, French)
- Creation Year:1988
- Dimensions:Height: 14.5 in (36.83 cm)Width: 11.75 in (29.85 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Wilton, CT
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU1362213467412
André Masson
Born in 1896 in Balagny-sur- Thérain, a small village in France, André Masson spent most of his youth in Brussels, Belgium working as a pattern maker at an embroidery atelier. Masson began his schooling in 1907 at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. In 1912, he relocated to Paris, where he attended the École des Beaux-Arts. In 1914, the artist was called to military duty for the First World War, where he was severely wounded and sent back to Paris. Much of Masson’s work is influenced by this trauma; his drawings and paintings executed during the 1920s represent battle scenes, blood, death, birds and fish. The strange realities of trench warfare and the immediate contiguity of life and death are drawn upon, and his imagery suggests a confrontation of life at an abnormal level of experience. His signature style deals with violence, evident in terrifying, fragmented figures, which reflect the horrors of the Spanish Civil War and WWII, as well as his troubled psyche in the aftermath of his service in WWI.
After WWI, Masson moved to the South of France, where he met Juan Gris, André Derain, Joan Miró and André Breton. Breton championed the Surrealist Manifesto and Masson joined in the group exhibition of the first Surrealists. An iconoclast, whose abrupt stylistic transitions defy classification, Masson also explored automatism (automatic drawing), a process that sought to express the creative force of the unconscious. These automatic drawings had no preconceived subject or composition. Like a medium channeling a spirit, Masson let his pen travel rapidly across the paper without conscious control. He soon found hints of images, fragmented bodies and objects, emerging from the abstract, lacelike web of pen marks. At times, Masson elaborated on these with conscious changes or additions, but he left the traces of the rapidly drawn ink mostly intact. Masson’s oeuvre explores several techniques of painting, drawing and sculpture and displays rich, colorful abstraction as well as monochrome imagery and automatic linear representations. An early Surrealist and student of Cubism, Masson went on to inspire the New York Abstract Expressionists. Masson developed a technique of automatic painting that retained the element of chance; he dripped glue onto paper to form drawings and then covered it with sand. These ‘sand paintings’ are unquestionably his most iconic style.
When Masson emigrated to the U.S. in 1939, he strongly influenced several American painters with this technique, the most evident example being Jackson Pollack. After his time in America, he returned to Europe and while living in Spain during the mid-1930s, he became enraptured with Spanish themes—bullfights, matadors and Spanish mythology. Masson finally settled down in France (Aix-en-Provence), where he took up a late interest in impressionistic landscape, but he ultimately came to a place where he painted nearly exclusively abstract images. Masson dedicated his life as an artist to encouraging the non-rational purpose in art, to the direct transference of subconscious thought and to the primal forces of conflicts that he experienced in the trenches of World War One. Masson sought to convey in his work a deeper reality of man’s behavior, his own complex personal imagery, and his belief that painting is not a matter of developing style but a part of life itself.
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: Wilton, CT
- Return PolicyThis item cannot be returned.
- Histiore d'OBy Leonor FiniLocated in Wilton, CTPrint from the Fini book Histoire d'O, signed in pencil and numbered 9/15Category
1960s Surrealist Figurative Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Divine Comedy complete set of 6 booksBy Salvador DalíLocated in Wilton, CTcomplete set of 100 plates from the Divine Comedy Perfect condition. Illustration pages only, no text. Justification pages included.Category
Mid-20th Century Surrealist Figurative Prints
MaterialsEngraving
- "The Kiss" from Song of Songs of SolomonBy Salvador DalíLocated in Wilton, CTFrom Song of Songs of Solomon, this is a beautiful print in perfect condition and framed in a conservators frame. It has vivid colors and stands out wonderfully.Category
1970s Surrealist Figurative Prints
MaterialsIntaglio
- Isis soutenant Osiris mutile (Les Rois Mages)By Salvador DalíLocated in Wilton, CTFrom the 1960 collaboration Les Rois Mages, this Dali print is on Japon, numbered XXVIII/C, signed in pencil, also in the stone and with a blind stamp.Category
1960s Surrealist Figurative Prints
MaterialsIntaglio
- The Devouring MotherBy Niki de Saint PhalleLocated in Wilton, CTWith 27 full-page colour illustrations (including title). White orig. hardcover with black cover title (somewhat rubbed and soiled, back cover with minimal light...Category
1970s Surrealist Figurative Prints
MaterialsScreen
- JudithBy Dorothea TanningLocated in Wilton, CT12 large scale lithographs, signed and numbered,by Dorthea Tanning. Costume designs for the opera Judith.Category
1970s Other Art Style Figurative Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Les Venusiennes (II) from Fog Gog Magog Planche 3, Lithograph by Roberto MattaBy Roberto MattaLocated in Long Island City, NYArtist: Roberto Matta, Chilean (1911 - 2002) Title: Les Venusiennes (II) - Fog Ma Gog Planche 3 Year: 1971 Medium: Lithograph on Arches, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 47/100...Category
1970s Surrealist Figurative Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Is It Lawful to Pay Taxes to Caesar Biblia Sacra Salvador DaliBy Salvador DalíLocated in Paonia, COIs it Lawful to Pay Taxes To Caesar shows Caesar as an imposing seated figure taking up three quarters of the image against a white background with a mounted horseman over Caes...Category
1960s Surrealist Abstract Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Aliyah, Return, O Virgin of Israel Salvador Dali original lithographBy Salvador DalíLocated in Paonia, COSalvador Dali ( 1904 - 1989 ) Aliyah, Return, O Virgin of Israel, Aliyah suite edition 232/ 250 published Shorewood Press 1968 on Arches paper paper size 25 x 19.63 image size 20....Category
1960s Surrealist Figurative Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Velasquez Le Reddition De Breda by Salvador Dali 1974 lithographBy Salvador DalíLocated in Paonia, COVelasquez Le Reddition De Breda is one of six graphics from the series Changes in Great Masterpieces published by Sidney Lucas, 1974. Mas...Category
1970s Surrealist Figurative Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- CréationBy Marc ChagallLocated in London, GBLithograph, 1980, on Arches paper, signed in pencil, numbered from the edition of 50, published by Maeght Editeur, Paris, image: 94 x 69.9 cm. (37 x 23 ½ in), sheet: 118.8 x 75.6 cm....Category
1980s Surrealist Figurative Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Butterfly suite : Paris - lithograph - Tall size, 1969By (after) Salvador DaliLocated in Paris, FRSalvador DALI (1904-1969) Butterfly suite : Paris, 1969 Lithograph and heliogravure after original designs by Dali Printed signature in the plate bottom right Larger size with text,...Category
1960s Surrealist Figurative Prints
MaterialsPhotogravure, Lithograph