Art has always been the raft onto which we climb to save our sanity. I don't see a different purpose for it now.
                 – Dorothea Tanning, 2002

Notes for an Apocalypse, 1978
Oil on canvas, 50 x 62 in.
The Museum of Modern Art, NY

Dorothea Tanning: Insomia – a short film made in 1978 by the German director Peter Schamoni – offers the opportunity to hear the artist's observations about her life and work and to see her in her home and studio in Seillans, France.  The film can be viewed on Vimeo, courtesy of the Schamoni Film & Media Archive in Munich. 

Graduation

He told us, with the years, you will come
to love the world.
And we sat there with our souls in our laps,
and comforted them.

                 – Dorothea Tanning, 2004
 

Alison Jacques Gallery in London presents an online exhibition entitled "Journeys," a series of videos that focus in depth on individual pieces. Chapter One of the series, "Dorothea Tanning: Mermaids and Metaphors," examines the imagery and inspiration found in the painting Pour Gustave l'adoré (1974) and is available through September 30.

"Fantastic Women: Surreal Worlds from Meret Oppenheim to Frida Kahlo," is open at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark through November 8.  The exhibition presents 250 works by 34 international female artists that reveal the underrecognized breadth and depth of their contri­bu­tion to Surre­alism, including Still in the Studio (1979).

The Menil Collection has extended its exhibition "Photography and the Surreal Imagination" through November 29.  Drawn from both the Menil's holdings and nearby Houston collections, this exhibition considers the tension between documentation and invention and the legacy of Surrealism in modern and contemporary photography.  It features the collage Still Calling Still Hoping (1988), which has recently entered The Menil Collection and includes a photocopy of the artist's own hand.

"Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser" at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, will explore Lewis Carroll's classic text Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland from its origins through 157 years of adaptations and reinventions.  This immersive and theatrical show is now scheduled to open August 6 - January 10, 2021, and will include the painting Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (1943).

"Beyond Realism: Dada and Surrealism" celebrates highlights from the collection of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh. Though the Gallery is termporarily closed, the installation is scheduled through October 25. It includes over 40 works that explore one or both of the two principal appraoches of Surrealist art: the first form that relies upon unpremeditated or chance effects, and the second that offers apparently irrational images in a realistic style. The exhibition includes the Gallery's newly acquired painting Tableau Vivant (Living Picture) (1954).

“Dorothea Tanning: Printmaker” at Farleys House & Gallery, the historic home of Lee Miller and Roland Penrose in Muddles Green, East Sussex, has been postponed until dates yet to be determined. The exhibition will focus on the artist's graphic works, presented in a setting she knew well from numerous visits to see her friends the Penroses. Among the works will be the etching Nue Couchée (Reclining Nude) (1965).

Victoria Carruthers has published Dorothea Tanning: Transformations, released by Lund Humphries.  A definitive study of the artist's life and career, this monograph provides a framework within which to consider the range and depth of Tanning's work and thematic preoccupations.  The book is extensively illustrated and features previously unpublished material from interviews which the author conducted with the artist between 2000 and 2009.  The author discusses the book in an interview found here.

Claire-Louise Bennett has written Fish Out of Water, published as one of Juxta Press's Words for Portraits series of essays and short stories  by English- and Italian-language authors based a portrait of their choice. Drawing inspiration from the painting Self-Portrait (1944), the book is a meditation on the affinity the author finds with the artist in her life and work.  The author can be heard speaking about the book in an interview What the Hell/Heaven Are We Doing? – Claire-Louise Bennett. 

Max Ernst – D-paintings – Zeitreise der Liebe, an exhibition catalogue published by the Max Ernst Museum Brühl, celebrates a set of paintings created by Ernst from the time he first met Dorothea Tanning in 1942 until his death in 1976.  Every year Ernst gave Tanning a work for her birthday, almost always hiding the letter D for Dorothea.  Dr. Jürgen Pech examines all 36 "D-paintings" together with important contemporaneous works by Tanning and numerous photographs, letters, and other documents in a fully illustrated double biography that portrays their extraordinary love story.

De kloof – een weekend, a Dutch language version of Dorothea Tanning's novel Chasm: A Weekend, has been publiished by Uitgeverij Orlando, Amsterdam.   

The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid has published a fully illustrated catalogue in conjunction with the exhibition "Dorothea Tanning: Behind the Door, Another Invisible Door." The catalogue includes essays by exhibition curator Alyce Mahon, who gives an overview of the artist's career, and Tate curator Ann Coxon, who explores Tanning's work in light of the legacies of Surrealism and contemporary art practice. The catalogue is published in Spanish and English.

We are looking for information about a number of paintings in the effort to fully document Dorothea Tanning's work for a catalogue raisonné. If you have seen any of these paintings, please contact us.

Concerning Wishes (1942)

Le Petit Marquis (1947)

Angel in Mauve and Orange (Study for Anges gardiens) (1947)

Les Infatigables (The Indefatigables) (1965)