"1924: Otros surrealismos" is open at Fundación MAPFRE in Madrid through May 11, 2025.  The exhibition is the third iteration of a major two-year celebration of the Surrealist movement's centennial, with each partnering museum focusing on the context of their own collections.  The show premiered at The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, in Spring 2024, followed by Musée National d'Art Contemporain, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; after Madrid it will travel to Hamburger Kunsthalle and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  Among the works on view is the painting Birthday (1942).

"Fantastic Visions: 100 Years of Surrealism from the National Galleries of Scotland" is presented at the Gyeongju Arts Center Alcheon Art Museum Gallery in South Korea through May 11, 2025.  Previously seen at the Museum of Art Pudong in Shanghai, the exhibition draws 100 major works by more than 50 artists from the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland.  Among the works on view are the suite of lithographs Les 7 Spectral Perils (1950), the painting Tableau vivant (Living Picture) (1954), and the sculpture Primitive Seating (1982).

"The Surrealist Collage: Where Dreams and Reality Meet" is open at Di Donna Galleries, New York through June 27, 2025. Organized in collaboration with Surrealism expert Timothy Baum, the exhibition features an incomparable selection of works by artists and poets central to the development of both the movement and the medium.  Among the works on view are the collages Untitled (Study for Troisième péril  from Les 7 périls spectraux) (1949) and Budapest was Great (1988).

"Dress Rehearsal: The Art of Theatrical Design" is on view at the Legion of Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Legion of Honor through May 11, 2025.  This exhibition celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Legion of Honor by showcasing a selection of the Museum’s extensive collection of costume and set designs from ballet’s roots in 15th-century Italy up to the present day.  Among the works included is a set design for an unrealized ballet, c. 1950.

"31 Women: An Exhibition by Peggy Guggenheim" is on view at MAC/CCB – Museu de Arte Contemporânea e Centro de Arquitetura in Lisbon through June 15, 2025.   The show commemorates the landmark 1043 exhibition at Guggenheim's New York gallery Art of This Century  by presenting a selection of works by the artists who participated, now represented in The 31 Women Collection, New York, including the painting Moeurs Espagnoles (1943).

"The Gorgeous Nothings: Flowers at Chatsworth" at Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, England, is open through October 5, 2025.  The exhibition features both historical and contemporary works of art depicting flowers in all their forms in dialogue with the botanical history of the Chatsworth estate itself. Drawn from Devonshire Collections, new artist commissions, and institutional loans, the show includes the painting Some Roses and Their Phantoms (1952).

"Endless Sunday: Maurizio Cattelan & The Centre Pompidou Collection" is on view at Centre Pompidou-Metz through February 2, 2027.  Celebrating the site's 15th anniversary, the exhibition places pieces from the collection of the Musée National d’Art Moderne in dialogue with the work of Maurizio Cattelan.  With an organizational structure based on the alphabet and references to poetry, film, and literature, the show features painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, installation, video, and film, and includes the sculpture De quel amour (By What Love) (1969).

"Animal!? Une exposition de chefs-d'œuvre" will be open at Fonds Hélène & Édouard Leclerc Pour la Culture, Landerneau, France, from June 14 through November 2, 2025.   The exhibition explores the concept of "animal" – one of the oldest subjects in art – from a cross-disciplinary and transhistorical perspective, examining how animals are portrayed, how they function as symbols, how they are understood by different cultures and artists, and how their representation sheds light on humanity’s own views of itself at different points in time. Featuring works from over 130 artists, the show includes the 1967 collage Untitled (The Artist as a Dog).

"The Subterranean Sky: Surrealism in the Moderna Museet Collection" is on view at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm through January 11, 2026.  The exhibition marks the centennary of Surrealism as a revolutionary literary and artistic movement, rather than a particular style, and one that aimed to transcend cultural and social limitations and see the individual’s subconscious as a key to another, better world beyond the confines of logic and reason.  With a view to the ongoing evolution of Surrealism, the show draws nearly 200 works from  the museum's permanent collection, including the sculpture Don Juan's Breakfast (1972) and the painting Insomnias (1957).

"From Max Ernst to Dorothea Tanning: Networks of Surrealism" will be on view at the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, from October 17, 2025 through March 1, 2026.  The exhibition highlights a two-year research project investigating the provenances of works from the Ulla and Heiner Pietzsch Collection, which now belongs to the Neue Nationalgalerie.  The historical journeys of these paintings and sculptures are examined to reveal the complex international networks of artists, art dealers, and collectors involved in the Surrealist movement, illustrating their friendships, collecting passions, and stories of personal loss, persecution, and new beginnings during politically challenging times.  Among the works in the Pietzsch Collection is the painting Voltage (1942).

JOAN Publishing has re-released Fish Out of Water by Claire-Louise Bennett (first published in 2020 by Juxta Press, Milan, as part of their Words for Portraits series), with the new poem Self-Portrait with Wings by Chloe Aridjis.  Bennett wrote Fish Out of Water in response to seeing Dorothea Tanning's painting Self-Portrait (1944) and a sense of affinity with the artist; Aridjis's piece was written in response to Bennett's text and inspired by Tanning's painting Birthday (1942).

Amy Lyford has published Exquisite Dreams: The Art and Life Dorothea Tanning (Reaktion Books, 2023). In this new monograph, Lyford focuses on key examples of Tanning's work in various media from her early Surrealist imagery through her late-career paintings. By discussing them in relation to concurrent topics of 20th-century art, society, and popular culture, and highlighting the artist's own ideas about ways to view her art, including a satirical, fantasy-based, documentary-style film about her paintings, Lyford examines Tanning's singular approach to creating a rich visual experience for the viewer.

Anna Watz has edited a new collection of essays, A History of the Surrealist Novel (Cambridge University Press, 2023).  Her essay "The Mother Figure in the Surrealist Novel" and Catriona McAra's "Feminist-Surrealism in the Contemporary Novel" examine Tanning's novel Chasm: A Weekend, while Katharine Conley's essay "Autobiography" discusses Tanning's memoir Birthday in the context of Surrealist writings. These are among twenty scholarly essays that consider many texts previously left out of critical accounts of the surrealist movement -- texts written by men and women in French, English, Spanish, German, Greek, and Japanese, from its emergence in the 1920s and 1930s, through the post-war and postmodern periods, and up to the present moment.

Kasmin Gallery has published the exhibition catalogue Dorothea Tanning: Doesn’t the Paint Say It All?  Both the show and the book take their title from Tanning’s own essay entitled "To Paint," which is included in the publication. This poetic and impassioned text, first published in 1986, describes the artist's creative process and the nature of the medium itself.   The catalogue also explores the artist's unique surrealist practice and the tension between abstraction and figuration in her work through reflections on Tanning’s paintings by three art historians and scholars of surrealism: Mary Ann Caws, Katharine Conley, and Victoria Carruthers.  Hyperallergic nominated the publication as one of "The Best Art Books of 2022."   

Susan L. Power contemplates the motif of doors in her essay "Portes et miroirs dans le monde surconscient de Dorothea Tanning" in the exhibition catalogue SurréAlice: Lewis Carroll et les Surréalistes (Vol. 1 of 2, Strasbourg: Editions des Musées de Strasbourg, 2022, pp. 75-83). The publication explores the Surealists' interest in Carroll's work as a precursor and inspiration to their own.

Victoria Carruthers has published Dorothea Tanning: Transformations (Lund Humphries, 2020). 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 her enduring thematic preoccupations. The book is extensively illustrated and features previously unpublished material from interviews that the author conducted with Tanning between 2000 and 2009. Carruthers discusses the book in an interview found here.

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)