1. Roots and Routes of Surrealism: The Unconscious Made Visible - key decade: 1930s
   1. Surrealism emerges after WW1
      1. in the wake of Dadaism (European, 1918 - 1920s)
      2. formally organized under International Surrealist Manifesto, 1924
      3. early influences: Picasso, Duchamp
   2. Exiled by fascism:
      1. André Masson (French, to NY 1940)
      2. Roberto Matta y Echaurren (Chilean, to NY 1939)
      3. Yves Tanguy (French, to NY in 30s)
      4. Max Ernst (German, to France in '20s, then to NY in 1941)
2. Formal Issues in Surrealism
   1. Landscape (Matta, Tanguy) versus Automatism and "all-over" painting (Masson, Miro)
   2. The Cubist Grid
      [Cubism's key years were 1910-1911 for Analytic Cubism, largely monochrome and characterized by a grid that organized the paintings' brushstrokes and lines, then 1913-1920 for Synthetic Cubism characterized by bold lines and colors]
   3. Commonalities for both landscape and all-over surrealism: Sex and psyche
   4. Brief overview of the formal and symbolic aspects of Surrealism as incorporated by the Americans: What Americans didn't embrace were erotic themes (a lingering Puritanism?) or programmatic and clubby tendencies.
      1. source of imagery in unconscious
      2. tendency towards abstraction rather than representation
      3. automatism (drawing or painting generated "automatically" as if by trance)
      4. all-overness (forms distributed equally over the canvas, no "horizon line")
3. "Hidden Surrealists" Frida Kahlo (German-Mexican) and Louise Bourgeois (French-American)
4. Transformers: Formalizing the Intuitive
   1. John Graham (b. Ivan Dabrowsky, Kiev, 1881) to NY 1920
   2. Arshile Gorky (b. Vosdanig Adoian, Armenia, 1904) to NY 1925
   3. [covered next lecture] Hans Hofmann (b. Saxony 1880) to NY 1932

Slide List

Picasso Woman in Slip 1913
Picasso Guernica 1937
Duchamp Nude Descending Staircase #2 1912
Duchamp Mariee (Bride) 1912
Ernst Elephant Celebes '21
Ernst Gathering of Friends '22
Ernst (exile painting) Europe After the Rain 1942
Masson Automatic Drawing '26 (also '24)
Masson (exile painting) Meditation on an Oak Leaf 1942
Masson Iroquois Landscape 1943
Matta inscape (Psychological morphology) 39
Matta The Earth is a Man 1942
Matta Listen to the Living 1941
Tanguy At the Risk of the Sun 1947 (and details)
Tanguy Through birds, through fire, but not through glass 1943
Miro Beautiful Bird Revealing the Unknown... 1941
Pollock No. 1 1948
Kahlo Frida and Diego Rivera 1931
Kahlo Henry Ford Hospital 1932
Kahlo My nurse and I 1937
Bourgeois Pillar 1949-50
Bourgeois Blind Leading the Blind 1949
Bourgeois Figures 1947-'50s
Graham Iron Horse 1927
Graham Self-Portrait as a Harlequin 1944
Gorky The Artist and His Mother 1926-36
Gorky Organization 1936
Gorky Garden in Sochi 1940-41
Gorky Water of the Flowery Mill 1944
Gorky Self-Portrait 1931
Gorky Enigmatic Combat 1937
Gorky Liver is the Cock's Comb 1944
Gorky Detail of Water of the Flowery Mill 1944

View:

Marcel Duchamp, Bride, 1912
Pablo Picasso, Woman with a slip seated in an armchair, 1913
Andre Masson, Automatic Drawing, 1924

Even before Surrealism's "official" birth in 1924, such post-cubist works as these pointed toward a new movement with the following emphases:

• the source of imagery lies in the subconscious
• representation is less effective than (partial) abstraction
• "automatism" can be used to release imagery from the subconscious, prompt associations,and generate new forms
• "all-over" composition
• a merging of genres (painting & drawing)

View:

Max Ernst, Europe after the rain, 1940-42
Yves Tanguy, Through birds, through fire, but not through glass, 1943
Matta, Listen to the Living, 1941

This form of surrealism presented a "realistic" portrayal of a dream landscape.

View:

Andre Masson, Iroquois Landscape, 1943
Joan Miro, The Beautiful Bird Reveals the Unknown to a Pair of Lovers, 1941

More fruitful to the NY School painters was the very different surrealism of Masson, who came to NY in 1940, based on the Cubist grid (as was the important work of the 1940s "constellation series" of Joan Miro.)

View:

Frida Kahlo, My nurse and I, 1937
Louise Bourgeois, Pillar, 1949-50

Transformers: "Hidden" surrealists-how does gender enter the practice and reception of art?

View:

John Graham, Self Portrait as Harlequin, 1944

...representing the artist as mystic seer, outcast, bohemian, "sacred fool".

View:

Arshile Gorky, Self-Portrait, 1931
Arshile Gorky, Enigmatic Combat, 1937
Arshile Gorky, Liver is the Cock's Comb, 1944
Arshile Gorky, Detail of Water of the Flowery Mill, 1944

...Disciple of Picasso and European modernism, yet crafted a style within Surrealism that stood as a crucial precursor to Abstract Expressionism: his "signature style".