March 03, 2010

Dorothea Tanning : a surrealism woman

Born in 1910, Dorothea Tanning left his family in 1930 to follow the course of the Academy of Arts in Chicago. She then moved to New York and lived from advertising works. She is strongly impressed by the 1936 exhibition "Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism" and, in 1942, she joined the New York surrealism's group led by André Breton in exile. She met Max Ernst, who is then married to Peggy Guggenheim. She became, in 1946, the fourth wife of the German artist, during a double ceremony which also united Man Ray to the dancer Juliet Browner. In 1953, Ernst and Tanning settled in France. Two years after the death of Max Ernst in 1976, Dorothea Tanning returned in New York.
Her work is anchored in Surrealism but focuses more specifically, in the 50s, on the figure of the woman, of the muse. In 1974 a retrospective is done in Paris, at the Center Pompidou, by Pontus Hulten.

At nearly 100 years, Dorothea Tanning is one of the last living members of the surrealist movement.
(source: dorotheatanning.org)

Currently, the librairie Loliée offers :
  • Tanning (Dorothea) - Sartoris (Ramon). Three Plays. S.l [Washington], The Black Sun Press, 1944, in-4, hardcover. First edition with 3 original drawings by Dorothea Tanning. This copy is dedicated by Tanning to Paul Eluard.