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André
Masson/Works and
biography
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Armor
January-April 1925 |
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Two
Children
1942 |
Bird
Fascinated by a Snake
1942 |
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André Masson was born on January 4, 1896, in
Balagny-sur-Oise, France. He studied at the Académie
Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and the Ecole Nationale
Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Masson settled
in Paris in 1920. Two years later he met D.-H. Kahnweiler,
who served as his principal dealer until 1931. His first
one-man show was held at Kahnweiler’s Galerie
Simon in Paris in 1924. That same year Masson met André
Breton and joined the Surrealist group, with which he
was initially affiliated until 1928. During his first
Surrealist period, Masson made automatic drawings and
paintings and experimented with sand paintings. At this
time be began to explore violent and erotic themes and
was influenced by Analytical Cubism. He illustrated
books and his works were reproduced regularly in the
magazine La Révolution Surréaliste. In
1925 he participated in the first Surrealist exhibition,
at the Galerie Pierre in Paris. Two years later he met
Giacometti and executed his first sculpture.
After breaking with the Surrealists, Masson worked in
various idioms: progressing from violent and erotic
themes interpreted with increasingly abstract forms
to more figurative landscapes to massacre subjects and
finally, when he lived in Spain from 1934 to 1936, Spanish
subjects. In 1933 the artist designed sets and costumes
for the Ballets Russes. Thereafter he frequently designed
for the theater, the opera and the ballet. Masson returned
to Paris in 1936, and the following year reconciled
with the Surrealists. In 1941 he fled German occupied
France for America, where be settled in New Preston,
Connecticut. His first major museum exhibition took
place at The Baltimore Museum of Art in 1941. During
his sojourn in America, Masson showed frequently with
artists in exile, for example at the opening exhibition
of Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of This Century in New
York, and delivered lectures on modern art. In 1943
he made his final break with Breton and with official
Surrealism.
The artist returned to France in 1945. In the succeeding
years be painted landscapes as well as abstract works
and continued to explore the violent and erotic imagery
of his early years. Plaisir de peindre, a volume of
Masson ‘s collected writings, was published in
1950. In 1965, at the request of André Malraux
and Jean-Louis Barrault, he decorated the ceiling of
the Odéon, Théàtre de France, in
Paris. In 1976 The Museum of Modem Art in New York held
a major Masson retrospective. Masson died on October
27, 1987, in Paris.
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