Roberto Matta Chilean (1911-2002) FEU DE TERRE oil on canvas, framed, signed: lower right H30 1/8\" W36 7/8\" *Artist biography: Roberto Antonio Sebastian Matta Echaurren was born in Santiago, Chile on November 11, 1911. He completed his study of architecture and interior design at the Catholic University of Santiago in 1931. He worked in Paris from 1933-34 as a draughtsman in the studio of renowned architect, Le Corbusier. In 1934, he visited Spain and met Federico Garcia Lorca and Pablo Neruda, who introduced him to Salvador Dali. Dali then urged him to show his drawings to Andre Breton. His friendship with Dali and Breton connected him to the Surrealist movement, which he joined officially in 1937. He was in London in 1936 and worked at the Paris International Exhibition in 1937. It was at this exhibition that he saw Picasso\'s GUERNICA, which influenced his work. During his time in Paris, he also met Marcel Duchamp, who further affected his style. In the summer of 1938, Matta moved from drawing to painting. He painted his first oil paintings while in Brittany, working with Gordon Onslow Ford. His early works, the Psycholocial Morphologies and the Inscape series, included organic abstractions. He left Europe with the outbreak of World War II and went to New York. In New York, he influenced younger New York artists in his use of the automatic techniques associated with the Surrealist movement. His first exhibition there was at the Julian Levy Gallery in 1940. During the middle of the 1940s, Matta\'s work became symbolic of man\'s relationships with machines and changed to include mechanical and insect-like shapes in cosmic space. In 1947, he broke from the surrealists\' group and returned to Europe. He had residences in Rome, Paris, and London in the 1950s and 60s, but he mainly settled in Paris in 1954. During the 1960s and 1970s Matta traveled to Cuba, South America, Egypt, and Africa. In 1962 he was awarded the Marzotto Prize for a work, La Question Djamilla, in protest of the French-Algerian war. This is an example of the way in which his work of the 1960s contained political and spiritual commentary relating to political events of the time including Vietnam, Santo Domingo, and Alabama. His exhibition in 1968 at the Lolas Gallery in New York displayed mostly work from this period. The 1960s marked not only a change in his themes, but in his style. He found influences in contemporary culture, while continuing to use the element of automatism, at the core of the Surrealist philosophy, allowing unconscious imagery and associations to take over the composition. However, Matta molded these \"chance\" compositions with a conscious focus by referencing political, social, and spiritual themes. He also used biomorphic figures, for which he has become famous. The biomorphic figures in this painting, Feu de Terre, from 1966-8, are characteristic of this period in Matta\'s career. Since Matta left Chile as a young man, he did not like to be thought of as a Latin American artist. Although known primarily as a painter, Matta also explored the media of sculpture, ceramics and tapestry. Matta\'s one person exhibitions include those at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Nationalgalerie, Berlin, the Kestner-Gesellschaft, Hanover, the Hayward Gallery, London, Musee National d\'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, Museo de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile, and Museo Yokohama, Japan. His work has been included in The Latin-American Collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1943; The Emergent Decade, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1965; Art of Latin America since Independence, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, 1966; Art in Latin America: The Modern Era, 1820-1980, Hayward Gallery, London, 1989; and Crosscurrents of Modernism: Four Latin American Pioneers Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC, 1992. A Matta retrospective was presented at the Centro Cultural Caixa in Barcelona and the Museo Nacional de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid in 1999. *Provenance:
Private collection
Gary Nadar Fine Art exhibition 2002
Private collection, Miami
Sold at Sothebys Nov. 21-22, 1988, Lot No. 221
Galleria d'Arte Sianesi, Milano.
*Note: Accompanied by certificate of authenticity issued by Germana Ferrari Matta at the Archives De L'oeuvre de Matta, January 18, 1993. This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonne which is to be published soon.