Roberto Matta
Bio
Matta’s first one-artist exhibition was held at the Julian Levy Gallery, New York in 1940, and since that time, nearly 400 solo exhibitions of his work have been mounted, including a retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1957), which traveled to the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (1957) and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (1958).
Statement
Roberto Matta was a Chilean-born artist known for his unique blending of Surrealism with Abstract Expressionism. Matta’s otherworldly paintings and prints explored the unconscious through methods of Surrealist automatism. The artist described nebulous spaces inhabited by floating organic and architectonic forms. Born on November 11, 1911 in Chile, he graduated in Architecture from the Catholic University of Santiago in 1932 before moving to Paris to work in the studio of Le Corbusier. He travelled to Madrid where he was introduced to the famed Surrealist Salvador Dalí who encouraged him to show his architectural drawings to André Breton and pursue a career in art. Then Matta settled in New York in 1938, began oil painting. He died on November 23, 2002 in Italy at the age of 91. Matta’s works are presently held in the collections of the Tate Gallery in London, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice.
Additional information
COA by Alisee Matta. Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Fondation Maeght, 10 ans d'Art vivant 1955-1965. May-july 1967, no. 158, illustrated. Christie's Paris, France 30 jun 2020, Post War and Contemporary, lot 59, p. 153, illustrated.
2.5 x 4m / 98.4 x 157 in
