Yves Tanguy (French/American, 1900-1955) Sans Titre

Description:

Yves Tanguy (French/American, 1900-1955)

Sans Titre, 1943
Signed and dated "YVES TANGUY 43" l.r.
Gouache on paper, sheet size 2 7/8 x 13 7/8 in. (7.3 x 35.3 cm),framed.
Condition: Trimmed sheet (probably by the artist) along top margin, glued along several points on the margins verso to backing mat.

Provenance: Estate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (née Braman) Grasso, Essex, Connecticut.

N.B. The work is registered as no. 871-167 by the Yves Tanguy Committee of the Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation, and the work will be included in the forthcoming revised edition of the Yves Tanguy catalogue raisonné.

Paris-born Tanguy immigrated to the United States at the onset of war in 1939 and settled in New England with his American wife, painter Kay Sage. When Tanguy was asked in 1946 about how his American work differed from his European work, he pointed to an intensification of his color palette and 'a feeling of greater space here—more 'room'.' (1) Roland Penrose elaborated on Tanguy's comment, nothing that 'his palette changed in the sense that the earth colors began to give place to more strident reds and blues and the sea mists cleared in the intense sparkling light of New England.' (2) Penrose also noted a change in style from Tanguy's animated biomorphism of the 1930s to more rigid and stark forms. The present work is punctuated with the bold colors noted, as well sharply-outlined, ossified forms which suggest that the viewer is looking at cast-offs instead of living inhabitants of the space.

1) Sweeney, James Johnson. Eleven Europeans in America. The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art, Vol. 13, No. 4/5, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1946. Pg. 23.

2) Penrose, Roland. Yves Tanguy: A Retrospective. New York: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1983. Pg. 13.



Estimate $40,000-60,000

Tape hinged along several points on all four edges verso to mat board with one cut tape hinge to the l.r. corner (unable to examine the reverse due to mounting),trimmed along top edge (probably by the artist),very subtle rippling to sheet, slight bowing to mat board, illegible pencil notations on the frame reverse, possibly framer's marks.

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