Provenance

Edouard Leon Theodore Mesens

Belgian, 1903 - 1971

Explore selected works

A sky streaked with azure blue stretches over a gray landscape in this surreal, vertical painting. The sky and land meet halfway up the canvas at a series of short, sharp, charcoal-gray peaks, like canine teeth. Small, diffuse, butter-yellow ovals waft above the peaks. Nine fluffy, cotton-ball like shapes cast narrow shadows across the gray-streaked plane. Three amorphous shapes float over the land closer to us. A ginger-brown, drippy form is to our left, a teal-green, bean-shaped object surrounded with fuzzy white tentacles is to our right, and a peacock-blue, L-shaped drip floats in the distance near the horizon. Thinly painted white and gray lines squiggle or sweep onto the canvas from the left edge. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower right, “Yves Tanguy 29.”
Yves Tanguy, The Look of Amber, 1929, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Fund, 1984.75.1

The Look of Amber

Yves Tanguy · 1929 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1984.75.1

This painting contains irregular and jagged black lines across a grey background. Four identical shapes cut from sheet music are positioned against this backdrop, with the black lines crossing over them. The cutouts resemble the shape of birds in flight. The paint has been applied unevenly, and the thick brushstrokes are visible. Around the uneven gray paint is a border of off-white paper.”
René Magritte, The Murderous Sky (Le ciel meurtrier), 1927, brush and black ink with collage of sheet music cut-outs on wove paper, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1995.47.55

The Murderous Sky (Le ciel meurtrier)

René Magritte · 1927 · brush and black ink with collage of sheet music cut-outs on wove paper ·  Accession ID  1995.47.55