Tanguy, Yves

Tanguy, Yves (1900–1955). French-born painter who became an American citizen in 1948. He was born in Paris, the son of a naval officer, and was a schoolfriend of Matisse's son Pierre, who later became his dealer in New York. In 1918 he joined the merchant navy, then did military service before returning to Paris in 1922. Whilst working at various odd jobs he began sketching cafe scenes that were praised by Vlaminck, and in 1923 he decided to take up art seriously after being greatly impressed by the work of de Chirico (he is said to have jumped from the platform of a moving bus, at the risk of serious accident, when he saw one of his pictures in a dealer's window). He had no formal artistic training. In 1925 he met André Breton and joined the Surrealist group. His work developed quickly and by the time of his first one-man exhibition, at the Galerie Surréaliste in 1927, he had already created a distinctive style. Characteristically he painted in a scrupulous technique reminiscent of that of Dalí, but his imagery is highly distinctive, featuring marine- or lunar-like landscapes whose ghostly plains are scattered with structures that suggest giant weathered bones arranged into fantastic pylons (he was fascinated by the kind of strange rock formations he saw in Africa during his merchant navy days). In 1939 Tanguy met the American Surrealist painter Kay Sage in Paris; he followed her to the USA and they married in 1940. The couple lived first in New York and from 1942 at Woodbury, Connecticut. In that year his work was included in the ‘Artists in Exile’ exhibition at Pierre Matisse's gallery—a show that helped to introduce the expatriate Surrealists to an American audience. After the Second World War he built up an international reputation; in 1953 he had one-man exhibitions in Paris, Milan, and Rome. In America his work continued in the style he had established before the war, but his pictures tended to become bigger and more boldly coloured.