233

Yves Tanguy

French, 1900 - 1955

Untitled, 1939

gouache on paper
signed and dated lower right: YVES TANGUY 39
inscribed mount verso: Tanguy
4 x 10 1/2 in. (10.2 x 26.7 cm.), frame: 12 1/2 x 18 1/2 x 3/4 in. (31.8 x 47 x 1.9 cm.)

  • Provenance: The Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, New York, 1940
    The John P. Coolidge Collection (former director of the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, 1948 - 1971)
    The Coolidge Cost Collection (by descent)
  • Exhibited:
    Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

    Yves Tanguy was a French-born Surrealist painter famed for dreamlike, horizonless landscapes populated by biomorphic, bone-smooth forms that feel both mineral and alive. Self-taught after a brief stint in the merchant marine, he joined the Paris Surrealists in the late 1920s, and in 1928 he participated with Jean Arp, Max Ernst, André Masson, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, and others in the famous Surrealist exhibition at the Galerie au Sacre du Printemps, Paris. Tanguy developed a meticulous, enamel-like technique—thin, even layers and tiny, crisp highlights—to stage mute objects casting long, surgical shadows across limitless plains under low skies. Though never figurative, his world hints at geology, fossils, and subconscious diagrams—key to Surrealism's exploration of the mind. Tanguy exhibited widely on both sides of the Atlantic, and his vocabulary influenced later abstractionists and fantastical realists alike. His paintings are held by major museums globally including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Guggenheim Museum, the Menil Collection in Houston, Tate, London, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Whitney Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Philadelphia Art Museum.
  • Condition: This piece has been examined out of the frame and under blacklight, and appears in very fine condition overall. There is very minor darkening of the left and right margin edge from a previous overmat. (See the 3rd photograph in the listing showing the entire sheet.) Paint has been applied to the surface of the overmat to achieve a stippled effect, which can be seen in the listing photograph as areas of varying brightness. Overall, this is an excellent example of Tanguy's surrealist, dreamlike compositions of enigmatic shapes and meticulous gradients.

    A condition report for this lot is available upon request and is provided by Santa Fe Art Auction as a courtesy and convenience for potential buyers.

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November 8, 2025 1:00 PM MST
Santa Fe, NM, US

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