Tanguy’s debt to the still and imaginative landscapes of the Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico is apparent in the perplexing array of imagery that includes a small school of fish and a child flattened by a cart. The plain white tower in the background—a favorite iconographic motif of de Chirico—secures the connection between the two artists.
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Inscription: Signed and dated (lower right): Yves Tanguy 26
private collection (probably Joë Bousquet, Carcassone, until d. 1950; his estate, 1950–61 and/or James Ducellier, Carcassone, by 1961; on consignment to Galerie André François Petit, Paris, by December 1961–March 1962; sold by Galerie Petit in March 1962 to Matisse); Pierre Matisse, New York (1962–d. 1989; stock no. 4666); his widow, Maria-Gaetana Matisse, née von Spreti, New York (1989–d. 2001); Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Foundation (2002; gift to MMA)
New York. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. "Yves Tanguy: A Retrospective," January 21–February 27, 1983, brochure no. 11.
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. "Yves Tanguy und der Surrealismus," December 9, 2000–April 29, 2001, no. 6.
Houston. Menil Collection. "Yves Tanguy and Surrealis," May 31–September 16, 2001, no. 6.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Collection," May 18, 2004–June 26, 2005, no catalogue (checklist no. 50).
Robert Desnos. "Surréalisme." Cahiers d'art 1 (October 1926), p. 212, ill.
Kay Sage et al. Yves Tanguy: Un Recueil de ses oeuvres / A Summary of His Works. New York, 1963, p. 40, no. 20, ill.
Gordon Onslow Ford. Yves Tanguy and Automatism. Inverness, Calif., 1983, ill. frontispiece.
Patrick Waldberg. Tanguy: Peintures. Paris, 1984, p. 31.
Susan Nessen. "Yves Tanguy's Otherworld: Reflections on a Celtic Past and a Surrealist Sensibility." Arts Magazine 62 (January 1988), pp. 24, 28, fig. 6.
Robert Belton. The Beribboned Bomb: The Image of Woman in Male Surrealist Art. Calgary Alberta, 1995, pp. viii, 35–36, fig. 1.
René Le Bihan, and Renée Mabin, and Martica Sawin inYves Tanguy. Quimper, 2001, p. 21, no. 7, ill.
Carol Vogel. "Met Gets Gift of 100 Works Collected by Son of Matisse." New York Times (February 27, 2003), p. B9, calls it "A Decisive Moment".
Sabine Rewald in "Selections from the Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Collection." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 61 (Spring 2004), pp. 16–17, ill.
Sabine Rewald. The American Matisse: The Dealer, His Artists, His Collection. The Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Collection. New York, 2009, pp. 137–38, 166–67, ill. (color).
Yves Tanguy (American (born France), Paris 1900–1955 Woodbury, Connecticut)
1940
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