![]() Birthday, 1942 MORE INFO |
![]() Children's Games, 1942 MORE INFO |
![]() A Parisian Afternoon (Hôtel du Pavot), 1942 MORE INFO |
![]() Voltage, 1942 MORE INFO |
![]() Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, 1943 MORE INFO |
![]() Self-Portrait, 1944 MORE INFO |
![]() A Mrs. Radcliffe Called Today, 1944 MORE INFO |
![]() The Truth About Comets, 1945 MORE INFO |
![]() Guardian Angels, 1946 MORE INFO |
![]() Avatar, 1947 MORE INFO |
![]() Maternity, 1947 MORE INFO |
![]() Fatala, 1947 MORE INFO |
![]() Max in a Blue Boat, 1947 MORE INFO |
![]() A Very Happy Picture, 1947 MORE INFO |
![]() On Time Off Time, 1948 MORE INFO |
![]() Palaestra, 1949 MORE INFO |
![]() The Mirror, 1950 MORE INFO |
![]() Musical Chairs, 1951 MORE INFO |
![]() Interior with Sudden Joy, 1951 MORE INFO |
![]() La Rose et le Chien (The Rose and the Dog), 1952 MORE INFO |
![]() The Philosophers, 1952 MORE INFO |
![]() The Guest Room, 1952 MORE INFO |
![]() Dimanche après-midi (Sunday Afternoon), 1953 MORE INFO |
![]() Death and the Maiden, 1953 MORE INFO |
![]() Intérieur (Interior), 1953 MORE INFO |
![]() Portrait de famille (Family Portrait), 1954 MORE INFO |
![]() Tableau vivant (Living Picture), 1954 MORE INFO |
![]() Nue endormie (Sleeping Nude), 1954 MORE INFO |
![]() Le Mal oublié (The Ill Forgotten), 1955 MORE INFO |
![]() Tempête en jaune (Tempest in Yellow), 1956 MORE INFO |
![]() Insomnies (Insomnias), 1957 MORE INFO |
![]() Tamerlan (Tamerlane), 1959 MORE INFO |
![]() Touristes de Prague III (Tourists of Prague III), 1961 MORE INFO |
![]() Chiens de Cythère (Dogs of Cythera), 1963 MORE INFO |
![]() La Chienne et sa muse (The Dog and Her Muse), 1964 MORE INFO |
![]() Deux mots (Two Words), 1963 MORE INFO |
![]() Far From, 1964 MORE INFO |
![]() To the Rescue, 1965 MORE INFO |
![]() Le Soir à Saragosse (Evening in Saragossa), 1965 MORE INFO |
![]() Pelote d'épingles pouvant servir de fétiche (Pincushion to Serve as Fetish), 1965 MORE INFO |
![]() Même les jeunes filles (Even the Young Girls), 1966 MORE INFO |
Étreinte, 1969 MORE INFO |
![]() Canapé en temps de pluie (Rainy-Day Canapé), 1970 MORE INFO |
![]() Don Juan's Breakfast, 1972 MORE INFO |
![]() Hôtel du Pavot, Chambre 202 (Poppy Hotel, Room 202), 1973 MORE INFO |
![]() Pour Gustave l'adoré, 1974 MORE INFO |
![]() Murmurs, 1976 MORE INFO |
![]() Tango Lives, 1977 MORE INFO |
![]() Portrait de famille (Family Portrait), 1977 MORE INFO |
![]() Notes for an Apocalypse, 1978 MORE INFO |
![]() Stanza, 1978 MORE INFO |
![]() Still in the Studio, 1979 MORE INFO |
![]() Heartless, 1980 MORE INFO |
![]() Pounding Strong, 1981 MORE INFO |
![]() Door 84, 1984 MORE INFO |
![]() To Climb a Ladder, 1987 MORE INFO |
![]() Woman Artist, Nude, Standing, 1987 MORE INFO |
![]() Poppies, 1987 MORE INFO |
![]() On Avalon, 1987 MORE INFO |
![]() Convolotus alchemelia (Quiet-willow window), 1998 MORE INFO |
I never felt the need to cultivate my unconscious. Then or now. It is there. Alchemically fused with my conscious self, assuring my individuation. They mesh and work together to make of me whatever it is that I am.
– Dorothea Tanning, 1989
"Surréalisme au féminin?" is on view at the Musée de Montmartre, Paris, until September 10, 2023. The exhibition reflects on the notion of the feminine in Surrealism through the work of some fifty female visual artists, photographers and poets from around the world – among them, the painting A Very Happy Picture (1947).
"Body Matters" is now open at The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, through September 10, 2023. The exhibition reimagines "What Now? (Or Not Yet)," which has been re-installed from the perspective of student curators. While the original show reflected on the theme of transformation, from the evolving nature of museum collections to art's power to help us see the past or shape the future, "Body Matters" addresses the question "How do bodies move through art, space, and time?" Among the contemporary works on view is the painting To Climb a Ladder (1987).
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. The publication has been nominated by the contributers to Hyperallergic as one of "The Best Art Books of 2022," a list of "20 must-reads that informed and broadened their worldviews this year."
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, 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.
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 here, courtesy of the Schamoni Film & Media Archive in Munich.
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.