Yves Tanguy

Yves Tanguy , 1900-1955, French surrealist painter. At first a merchant seaman, he saw a picture by Chirico in 1923 and instantly decided to take up painting. He created vast imaginary dream landscapes, in which float strange, often amorphous, objects and personages—all meticulously painted. His spontaneous, subconscious imagery remained curiously static throughout his career. Tanguy moved to the United States in 1939. A number of his paintings are in the Museum of Modern Art, New York City.

Bibliography: See study by K. Schmidt, ed. (1982).

Tanguy, Yves (b Paris, 5 Jan. 1900; d Woodbury, Conn., 15 Jan. 1955). French-born painter who became an American citizen in 1948. Whilst working at various odd jobs in Paris he began sketching café 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 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 individual, featuring marine- or lunar-like landscapes whose ghostly plains are scattered with structures that suggest giant weathered bones arranged into fantastic pylons. In 1939 he met the American Surrealist painter Kay Sage in Paris; he followed her to the USA and they married in 1940. After the Second World War he built up an international reputation.