Explosive Spirits
Même les jeunes filles (Even the Young Girls), 1966
by Dorothea Tanning
By this time I had been finding real pleasure in the tumultuous movement of bodies combined with more assertive juxtapositions of color, hotter color. I think it was late springtime; and I was in my beautiful new studio in the rue de Lille. Outside, people were doffing their coats and mufflers, the boulevards were lazy with strollers and even the young girls were like wildflowers, all bursting our in color and explosive spirits. Painting them, I felt like a choreographer.
–from Dorothea Tanning: Birthday and Beyond. Exhibition brochure
[DorotheaTanning.org]
Part of Dorothea Tanning
At Tate Modern, February to June 2019
Tanning wanted to depict ‘unknown but knowable states’: to suggest there was more to life than meets the eye. She first encountered surrealism in New York in the 1930s. In the 1940s, her powerful self-portrait Birthday 1942 attracted the attention of fellow artist Max Ernst – they married in 1946. Her work from this time combines the familiar with the strange, exploring desire and sexuality.From the 1950s, now working in Paris, Tanning’s paintings became more abstract, and in the 1960s she started making pioneering sculptures out of fabric. A highlight of the exhibition is the room-sized installation Chambre 202, Hotel du Pavot 1970-3. This sensual and eerie work features bodies growing out the walls of an imaginary hotel room. In later life, Tanning dedicated more of her time to writing. Her last collection of poems, Coming to That, was published at the age of 101.
[Tate Modern]
Explosive Spirits
Même les jeunes filles (Even the Young Girls), 1966
by Dorothea Tanning
By this time I had been finding real pleasure in the tumultuous movement of bodies combined with more assertive juxtapositions of color, hotter color. I think it was late springtime; and I was in my beautiful new studio in the rue de Lille. Outside, people were doffing their coats and mufflers, the boulevards were lazy with strollers and even the young girls were like wildflowers, all bursting our in color and explosive spirits. Painting them, I felt like a choreographer.
–from Dorothea Tanning: Birthday and Beyond. Exhibition brochure
[DorotheaTanning.org]
Part of Dorothea Tanning
At Tate Modern, February to June 2019
Tanning wanted to depict ‘unknown but knowable states’: to suggest there was more to life than meets the eye. She first encountered surrealism in New York in the 1930s. In the 1940s, her powerful self-portrait Birthday 1942 attracted the attention of fellow artist Max Ernst – they married in 1946. Her work from this time combines the familiar with the strange, exploring desire and sexuality.From the 1950s, now working in Paris, Tanning’s paintings became more abstract, and in the 1960s she started making pioneering sculptures out of fabric. A highlight of the exhibition is the room-sized installation Chambre 202, Hotel du Pavot 1970-3. This sensual and eerie work features bodies growing out the walls of an imaginary hotel room. In later life, Tanning dedicated more of her time to writing. Her last collection of poems, Coming to That, was published at the age of 101.
[Tate Modern]