Yves Tanguy

Yves Tanguy (1900-1955) was a French surrealist painter who specialized in strange osseous and vegetal formations placed in a barren, lunarlike landscape or an eerie underwater setting.

Born in Paris on Jan. 5, 1900, to Breton parents, Yves Tanguy spent his childhood vacations in Finistère, an area of Brittany that contained many prehistoric menhirs and dolmens. His memories of this terrain may have gone into the fashioning of his fantastic landscapes. In 1918 he shipped out on cargo boats to Africa and South America. Drafted into the French army in 1920, he served in Tunis. After 1922 he was closely associated in Paris with the surrealist writers Jacques Prévert and Marcel Duhamel.

In 1923, upon seeing a painting of the "metaphysical" Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico, Tanguy decided to become a painter. He met André Breton in 1925, and the following year, some of his work having appeared in the magazine La Révolution surréaliste, Tanguy officially joined the surrealist movement. His works of 1926 are marked by a certain whimsical, naive quality, sometimes showing the influence of De Chirico. In 1927 he matured abruptly. His Mama, Papa Is Wounded! (1927), a title taken from a psychiatric case history, contains in the foreground a great hairy stalk and in the background a green cactuslike element from which emanates a cat's cradle type of filigree binding. There is an illusion of a deep space, yet laws of geometrical perspective do not operate logically. The ambiguous organic elements—some floating, some growing out of the ground—are bathed in a cold light and are situated in an unearthly looking, barren landscape marked by a strong horizon line. In other paintings of the 1920s there is no horizon line: the bonelike and vegetal forms seem to be either airborne or floating at the bottom of the sea, as in The Lovers (1929).

As a result of a trip to Africa in 1930-1931, Tanguy painted a series of rocklike formations, monumentally conceived and harshly lighted. But this was a brief departure, and he went back to his tiny osseous conglomerations, though by the mid-1930s he usually omitted the fixed horizon line and presented a continuous floating space.

In 1939 Tanguy moved to America and settled with his wife, Kay Sage, in a farmhouse in Woodbury, Conn. His colors became richer, and his objects began to loom larger, perhaps partially as the result of a trip to Arizona. Several paintings, such as Indefinite Divisibility (1942) and Slowly toward the North (1942), contain tubular, geometrical constructions (along with the organic elements) which suggest the world of machines. He had a fine collection of guns with telescopic sights, and this interest may partially have accounted for the formal changes in his paintings. His last painting, the ambitious Multiplication of the Arcs (1954), contains a profusion of unidentifiable, shell-like elements set in great clusters. He died in Woodbury on Jan. 15, 1955.

Further Reading

A useful work whose text is short but well illustrated is New York Museum of Modern Art, Yves Tanguy, exhibition and catalog by James Thrall Soby (1955). Recommended for background are Marcel Jean, The History of Surrealist Painting (1959; trans. 1960); Werner Haffmann, Painting in the Twentieth Century (trans., 2 vols., 1961; rev. ed. 1965); J. H. Matthews, An Introduction to Surrealism (1965); William S. Rubin, Dada and Surrealist Art (1968); and Sarane Alexandrian, Surrealist Art (1969; trans. 1970). □

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.

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.

Tanguy, Yves (1900–55). 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 distinctive, 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.

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).