Lot Essay
This painting is sold with a certificate of authenticity signed by Germana Ferrari Matta and bears archive number 39/18.
The painting Sans Tître dates from Matta's first year in the United States, where he arrived in the fall of 1939. The war in Europe had been unleashed and Matta, along with Tanguy, Ernst and other Surrealists, came to America to continue their artistic careers.
As the youngest member of the Surrealist movement in Paris and a friend and disciple of André Breton, Matta brought fresh and explosive ideas with him. Responding to the young artist's enthusiasm and realizing the intriguing quality of his work, art dealer Julien Levy was the first to give Matta a one-man show. In New York, Matta quickly became involved with the artists of the generation, which included Motherwell, Pollock and Baziotes. His enthusiastic embrace of Surreal philosophy and the revolutionary ideas related to translating visual experience into an expanded consciousness were a breakthrough to existing concepts of painting. During this period, Abstract Expressionism was in its formative stages and Matta's drawings and paintings were influential to his American colleagues. Archille Gorky became a close friend and was encouraged by Matta to experiment with looser drawing techniques to replace his heavier oils.
Sans Tître is a small, exquisitely conceived work which represents the images referred to by Matta as Psychological Morphologies. An imaginary landscape, or inscape as he called them, represents the inner workings of the mind rather than a depiction of the physical world. Diaphanous forms float freely, taking shapes in unexpected ways and opening vistas into uncertain distances. Brilliant colors add a feeling of excitement, slipping from yellows to blues to reds, without delineating edges. There is a feeling of unexplored depth and unanswered questions that leaves the viewer with the task of interpreting a new and strange cosmos.
This painting, a gift from Matta to the sculptress Mary Tonetti in whose country house he often stayed, is an eloquent statement of the artist's youthful quest to interpret the human search for the meaning of life and the reason for being.
The painting Sans Tître dates from Matta's first year in the United States, where he arrived in the fall of 1939. The war in Europe had been unleashed and Matta, along with Tanguy, Ernst and other Surrealists, came to America to continue their artistic careers.
As the youngest member of the Surrealist movement in Paris and a friend and disciple of André Breton, Matta brought fresh and explosive ideas with him. Responding to the young artist's enthusiasm and realizing the intriguing quality of his work, art dealer Julien Levy was the first to give Matta a one-man show. In New York, Matta quickly became involved with the artists of the generation, which included Motherwell, Pollock and Baziotes. His enthusiastic embrace of Surreal philosophy and the revolutionary ideas related to translating visual experience into an expanded consciousness were a breakthrough to existing concepts of painting. During this period, Abstract Expressionism was in its formative stages and Matta's drawings and paintings were influential to his American colleagues. Archille Gorky became a close friend and was encouraged by Matta to experiment with looser drawing techniques to replace his heavier oils.
Sans Tître is a small, exquisitely conceived work which represents the images referred to by Matta as Psychological Morphologies. An imaginary landscape, or inscape as he called them, represents the inner workings of the mind rather than a depiction of the physical world. Diaphanous forms float freely, taking shapes in unexpected ways and opening vistas into uncertain distances. Brilliant colors add a feeling of excitement, slipping from yellows to blues to reds, without delineating edges. There is a feeling of unexplored depth and unanswered questions that leaves the viewer with the task of interpreting a new and strange cosmos.
This painting, a gift from Matta to the sculptress Mary Tonetti in whose country house he often stayed, is an eloquent statement of the artist's youthful quest to interpret the human search for the meaning of life and the reason for being.