André Masson (1896-1987)

This work is sold with a photo-certificate from the Comité André Masson dated Paris le 12 mai 2005.

'Toward 1934 Masson's life grew somewhat calmer - probably through the influence of rose Maklés, who was to become his wife by the end of the year....The semi-isolation Masson had imposed upon himself during the period he had lived in St-Jean-de-Grasse was translated into a desire to exile himself physically from France- to attempt a new beginning. With rose he made a walking trip through Andalusia. After a brief return to France he went back to Spain, where he remained until December of 1936. Masson was, as he says, fascinated, astonished, gripped by Spain, and, although his intention had been not to become involved with its politics, he could not resist the moral claim of the Republican cause; he produced many savagely anti-clerical, anti fascist paintings and satirical drawings. .... The work of Masson's Spanish period is often brilliantly coloured and marked by a veering away from mythological themes, and displays a kind of theatrical character in which the artist is much more spectator than actor....The bullfight became a central motif in this year [1935] - often presenting the anthropomorphic insect as Don Quixote who himself plays the role of the matador. ... With the exception of the Insect series, the paintings done at Montserrat, and a few landscapes ...most of the work from 1934 to 1936 alludes allegorically or specifically to the turbulent Spanish political scene' (C. Lanchner, 'André Masson: Origins and Development' in W. Rubin (ed.), André Masson, New York, 1976, pp. 138-140)