Andre Masson Biography, Artworks
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MASSON, André (1896-1987)
Born at Balagny ( Oise), France. Took a keen interest in painting while still a boy. He first attended the Académie des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, then in 1912 enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Made a trip to Italy in the spring of 1914. After working for a time at Céret, near Perpignan, in 1918, he settled in Paris for good in 1919, where he went through a cubist period, influenced above all by Juan Gris. First oneman show at the Galerie Simon, Paris, 1924, presented by Kahnweiler; there André Breton bought Masson's first symbolic canvas, The Four Elements, which was exhibited alongside his early still lifes and landscapes. Now in close contact with the Surrealists, especially with Antonin Artaud, Joan Miró and Max Ernst, he joined the group and took part in all their exhibitions up to 1929, notably the first collective exhibition of the Surrealists at the Galerie Pierre, Paris, 1925. Illustrated Soleil bas by Georges Limbour ( 1924), Simulacre by Leiris ( 1925) and Justine by the Marquis de Sade ( 1928). Practised automatic drawing and read a number of books which have profoundly influenced his work (Blake, Sade, Kafka, Nietzsche, Chinese poetry and philosophy). Obsessed at this period by the following themes: metamorphoses, dreams, eroticism. Broke with the Surrealists in 1929 and showed no further interest in their activities. Trips to Germany and Holland in the early thirties. Joint exhibition with Miró in 1933 at the Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York. Lived at Tossa, Catalonia, 1934-1936, working in a style of almost paroxysmal expressionism and illustrating several books, among them Sacrifices by Bataille, Don Quixote and La Tauromachie. He returned to France in 1937 and took up with the Surrealists again, participating in the International Surrealist Exhibition in Paris in 1938. His second surrealist period lasted until 1947, when Breton openly condemned his work and he withdrew from the movement. In 1938 he illustrated Glossaire, from serre mes gloses by Leiris and finished his Emblematic View of Toledo, a painting begun in 1933. In 1941 he was with Breton at Martinique, then lived in the United States from 1942 to 1945. Working there in isolation, he produced a large body of graphic work and painted his Indian Springs and Iroquois Landscapes. In 1946 he returned to France, published Bestiaire (12 lithographs and drawings) and did stage sets for Morts sans Sépulture by Jean-Paul Sartre and Hamlet produced by Jean-Louis Barrault. Settled in the South of France in 1947, near Aix-en-Provence, and began his Aix Period, which lasted until 1956, when his art entered a new, richer, freer phase. His lithographs and illustrated books were exhibited in England in 1947 under the auspices of the Arts Council of Great Britain, Les Conquérants, by André Malraux, published by Albert Skira in 1949 with 35 etchings by Masson. Numerous exhibitions of his work from now on: Buchholz Gallery, New York 1949 (landscapes); retrospective at the Kunsthalle, Basel, 1950, with Giacometti (94 works); Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris, 1947, 1948, 1951, 1952; Galerie Blanc, Aix-en-Provence, 1956 (works of his Aix Period); Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris, 1957 (early and recent paintings); large retrospective, Marlborough Gallery, London, 1958; Venice Biennale, 1958; Galleria L'Attico, Rome, 1959; Documenta II, Kassel, 1959.
Bibliography:
Sur André Masson, texts by J. L. Barrault, G. Bataille, A. Breton, R. Desnos, P. Eluard, A. Guerne, P. J. Jouve, M. Landsberg, M. Leiris, G. Limbour, B. Péret, Paris 1940. -- M. Leiris and G. Limbour, André Masson et son univers, Geneva 1947. -- Catalogue, Masson Exhibition, Kunsthalle, Basel 1950. -- J. Lassaigne, L'évolution d'André Masson, in Revue de la Pensée Française, July 1952. -- J. A. Keim, André Masson e il piacere di dipingere, in Le Arti, N° 5-6, May 1954. -- Catalogue, Masson Exhibition (Aix Period, 1947-1956), Galerie Louis Blanc, Aix-en-Provence 1956, -- G. Limbour , Tableaux récents d'André Masson, in XXIe Siécle, N° 6, January 1956. -- A. Jouffroy, Le sentiment du vertige, in Arts, Lettres, Spectacles, N° 619, May 1957. -- Catalogue, Masson Exhibition, Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris 1957. -- A. Jouffroy, André Masson: I'art commence où le réalisme finit, in Arts, Lettres, Spectacles, N° 657, February 1958. -- W. George, Les anticipations d'André Masson, in Prisme des Arts, N° 17, 1958. -- W. Rubin, Presentation of the Masson Retrospective, Marlborough Gallery, London 1958. -- L. Venturi, Presentation of the Masson Exhibition, Galleria L'Attico, Rome 1959.
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