Dorothea Tanning :: Biography (1910-2012)

Dorothea Tanning

Dorothea Tanning.

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L I F E

All images © Estate of Dorothea Tanning.

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Max Ernst & Dorothea Tanning, 1948
Robert Bruce Inverarity

BIOGRAPHY

Known as: American painter, printmaker, sculptor & writer

Born: 25 August 1910, Galesburg, Illinois, US

Resided: New York City

Died: January 31, 2012 (aged 101), Manhattan, New York

More than her art, Dorothea Tanning is most famous today for being the fourth wife of one of the gods of Surrealism, Max Ernst. Perhaps it's because of that famous photograph of Tanning and Ernst in Arizona which is unfair on Tanning. Whatever the reason, it's a shame for her work is so worth discovering and stands up for itself in its own right. In short, for me, the work especially her figures from the 1940s, are little short of breathtaking. Birthday painting, the self-portrait she did at 30, is extraordinary.

She studied briefly at the Art Institute of Chicago School in 1930 and then went to New York City where she spent her time studing art in galleries and museums.

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She lived in Paris for nearly 30 years and met Ernst when she was in her early 30s (when he was married to Peggy Guggenheim at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York where many of the Surrealists were exiled during World War II. They married in 1946. Through him she came to know all the leading lights of the Surrealists.

She had her first one-woman exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in 1944.

As well as Surrealism, Impressionism has heavily influenced her work.

She was one of the last living members of the Surrealist movement.

Tanning died on January 31, 2012, at her Manhattan home aged 101.

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Gallery
I M A G E S

All images © Estate of Dorothea Tanning.

Dorothea Tanning
Chambre 202, Hotel du Pavot 1970-3
Art Installation
Source: Tate Etc. Magazine, Issue 45, Spring 2019. Photo c.: Estate of Dorothea Tanning
Dorothea Tanning’s “Chambre 202, Hôtel du Pavot” (1970-73), also known as “Poppy Hotel, Room 202,” is a surrealist installation that immerses viewers in a dreamlike and eerie environment12. This room-sized artwork features anthropomorphic forms emerging from the walls and furniture, creating a sense of unease and otherworldliness. The installation is constructed from materials such as wood, fabric, wool, wallpaper, carpet, and an electric light bulb, measuring 343 x 310 x 470 cm. The bodies growing out of the walls and furniture evoke a sense of entrapment and transformation, themes that are central to Tanning’s work. The piece is part of the collection at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. “Chambre 202, Hôtel du Pavot” is a powerful example of Tanning’s ability to blend the familiar with the fantastical, pushing the boundaries of surrealism to explore the subconscious and the uncanny.

Dorothea Tanning
Maternity 1946-7
Oil on paint on canvas, 142 x 121cm
Source: Tate Etc. Magazine, Issue 45, Spring 2019. Photo c.: Estate of Dorothea Tanning
Dorothea Tanning’s painting “Maternity” (1946-47) is a powerful and surreal depiction of motherhood. The painting features a forlorn woman standing in a desolate, desert-like landscape, holding a fretful baby. At her feet lies a dog with the face of a baby, adding to the unsettling and dreamlike quality of the scene. The woman’s white dress is shredded from the belly downwards, symbolizing the physical and emotional toll of motherhood. An open door in the background leads to an ambiguous object, further enhancing the surreal atmosphere. Tanning, who never had children herself, often explored themes of identity, transformation, and the complexities of female experience in her work. “Maternity” is a striking example of Tanning’s ability to blend personal fears and societal expectations into her art, creating a piece that is both haunting and thought-provoking.

Dorothea Tanning : Transformations
by Victoria Carruthers | 2020
This is the definitive study of US artist Dorothea Tanning (1910-2012), positioning her as one of the most fascinating and significant creative forces to emerge from the 20th century. It provides a framework within which to consider the range and depth of Tanning's work, well beyond the better-known early surrealist works of the 1940s, and makes connections between her life experiences and thematic preoccupations. Extensively illustrated and featuring unpublished material from interviews which the author conducted with the artist between 2000 and 2009, this book will appeal to the general museum-going public as well as academics, students, curators and collectors.

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Between Lives: An Artist and Her World
by Dorothea Tanning | 2001
Dorothea Tanning, one of the twentieth-century's most original and provocative painters, delivers a vivid account of a fascinating life lived as an artist among artists. Tanning reveals not only her life story, but the irresistibly creative mind that propelled her to live it. From the small town of Galesburg, Illinois, to the art hubs of New York and Paris, Tanning traveled the world of Surrealism and went beyond it, with fellow explorers Virgil Thompson, George Balanchine, Alberto Giacometti, Dylan Thomas, Truman Capote, Joan Miro, James Merrill, and Max Ernst, to whom she was married for over thirty years. Their life together forms an important and moving part of her unforgettable story; a story which, spanning almost a century, magically unfolds through Tanning's incandescent prose.

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Coming to That : Poems
by Dorothea Tanning | 2019
Still later, when I was more in touch with
the world, they told me, "You have a future."
I thought that over. Even if I believed them,
what did my little future, whatever that was,
have to do with the real thing, whatever that is?
--from "Waiting"

In this second daring collection, Coming to That, the centenarian painter and poet Dorothea Tanning illuminates our understanding of creativity, the impulse to make, and the longevity of art. Her unique wit and candor radiate through every poem, every line, and her inquisitive mind is everywhere alive and restless. As she writes in one poem, "If Art would only talk it would, at last, reveal / itself for what it is, what we all burn to know."

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Dorothea Tanning: Hail, Delirium! a Catalogue Raisonne of the Artist's Illustrated Books and Prints, 1942-1991
by Roberta Waddell | 1992
Publisher : New York Public Library (1 May 1992)
Language : English
ISBN-10 : 0871044307
ISBN-13 : 978-0871044303
Dimensions : 20.96 x 1.27 x 27.31 cm

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Chasm: A Weekend (Virago Modern Classics) Paperback
by Dorothea Tanning | 2019
In the stark beauty of the desert, a mansion built by a madman rears its impudent architecture like an insult.

The estate is called Windcote, 'its very name a masquerade', and its master, the odious Raoul Meridian, has invited a group of guests to spend a weekend, during the course of which they will find themselves driven by obsessions and confusions unlike any they've experienced before. Untouched by the fevers and failures around her is the indomitable child Destina, who will lead them into the heart of a mysterious canyon, where desire and cruelty forge an implacable truth.

'It seems hardly fair that Dorothea Tanning, in a long, passionately inventive career as a painter, should have acquired as well the other harmony of prose, and that her passionate inventions as a writer should be so lovingly, so wisely resolved' Richard Howard

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La vie partagée Paperback
by Dorothea Tanning | 2002
Dorothea Tanning est un grand peintre surréaliste et la femme de Max Ernst. C'est entre ces deux vies que s'écrit cette autobiographie attachante, pétillante de malice et d'humour, mais aussi traversée de grandes tristesses pudiques. De New York à Paris, en passant par le désert d'Arizona, un jardin en Touraine et une colline en Provence, Dorothea retrace, de " nid " en " nid ", le parcours d'une femme, mais aussi celui du couple qu'elle a formé pendant plus de trente ans avec l'énigmatique peintre allemand. Un livre de rencontres où l'on croise avec une familiarité touchante un nombre incalculable de figures artistiques et intellectuelles : Breton, Giacometti, Balanchine, Duchamp, Miro, Matta, Cunningham, John Cage, Dylan Thomas, Truman Capote... ; un témoignage affectueux et lucide sur la France où elle a longtemps vécu, mais aussi une réflexion sans amertume sur le statut de la femme : comment réussit-on à concilier passion amoureuse et amour de l'art ? Et puis, comment apprend-on à vivre à nouveau quand disparaît celui qui représentait les deux ?

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Dorothea Tanning Paperback
by Alyce Mahon | 2018
While a young student in Chicago, Dorothea Tanning (1910-2012) regularly haunted the corridors of the Art Institute in order to learn `what painting was'. She later moved to New York, and met the art dealer, Julien Levy, who introduced her to surrealist refugees who had fled from occupied Europe, including her future husband Max Ernst. Tanning and Ernst settled first in Sedona, Arizona,where she created enigmatic paintings of life on the inside, looking out (including Tate's own Eine Kleine Nachtmusik from 1943). The couple transferred to Paris in 1956, a move which marked the beginning of Tanning's intense adventure in soft sculpture, featuring fleshy, figure-like protruberances captured in textured fabrics (such as the remarkable installation Chambre 202, Hotel du Pavot or Tate's Nue couchee 1969-70). Tanning returned to the USA after Ernst's death in 1976 and, while continuing to paint, she also began to write poetry and fiction (her published works include two memoirs, Birthday and Between Lives, two collections of poems Coming to That and A Table of Content, and a novel, Chasm). Dorothea Tanning died at her home in New York City on January 31, 2012. She was 101 years old. There is little in print detailing Tanning's entire career, and still less that is well illustrated. This book will be a beautiful introduction to the work of a remarkable and fascinating artist. It will include an overview of the artist's life and career written by Alyce Mahon; Ann Coxon will write on theme of the home and domestic in Tanning's art and examine the overlap with the several contemporary women artists; Idoia Murga Castro will explore the significance of dance and stage in tanning's work, with particular relevance to the drama of the 1940s and 50s; and Mahon will also write on Tanning's sculptural output. The texts and plates are to be punctuated by extracts from Tanning's diaries, selected by the curators and Pamela Johnson, Executive Director of the Dorothea Tanning Foundation in New York.

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Birthday, Hardcover
by Dorothea Tanning | 1987
The author, an artist herself, recounts her life with her husband, Max Ernst, the surrealist painter.