Surrealism

Chilean-born French artist, whose early paintings depict dreamlike landscapes occupied by mysterious organic shapes derived from animal forms, as well as plant life and minerals. In later works, organic, symbolic, and mechanical forms interact, sometimes violently, illustrating Matta's belief that all forces of the universe are interconnected.

Born in Santiago, Chile on November 11, 1911, Matta trained as an architect at the Catholic University in Santiago from 1929 to 1931. From 1934 to 1936 he worked for the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier in Paris, France. During this period, he traveled to Madrid, Spain, where he met artists and writers influenced by surrealism, a movement that emphasized the role of chance and the subconscious mind in the creative process.At the end of 1934 Matta visited Spain, where he met the poet and playwright Federico García Lorca, who through a letter, introduced young Roberto to Salvador Dalí. Dali in turn encouraged Matta to show some of his drawings to Andre Breton.
Matta's acquaintance with Dali and Breton strongly influenced his artistic formation and subsequently connected him to the Surrealist movement, which he officially joined in 1937 and exhibited drawings with them at the Galerie Wildenstein in Paris. The following year he began to incorporate chance into his paintings, using such techniques as pouring paint directly onto canvases to create unexpected forms.Early in his career Matta used a form of automatic writing developed by the European Surrealists in the 1920’s. His early paintings were agitated, psychologically motivated structures, and demonstrated their strange relationship to external reality. During the 1940s in New York, Matta's Surrealist visions provided much of the connective tissue linking the Surrealist exiles with the burgeoning School of Abstract Expressionism.
A trip to Mexico in 1941 led to Matta's interest in that country's dramatic scenery and its pre-Columbian art and architecture. Matta also drew inspiration from Native American art, particularly that of Northwest Pacific Coast peoples, he had regular exhibitions at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York. He was in London for a short period in 1936 and worked with Walter Gropius and László Moholy-Nagy. Matta's employment with the architects of the Spanish Republican pavilion at the Paris International Exhibition (1937) exposed him to Picasso's Guernica (1937; Madrid, Prado) which greatly impressed him and influenced him in his work. At this time, he was introduced to the work of Marcel Duchamp, whom he met not long after. He later went to Scandinavia where he met the architect Alvar Aalto and then to Russia where he worked on housing design projects.
The summer of 1938 marks the evolution of Matta's work from drawing to painting. Roberto completed his first inscape oil paintings while in Brittany and working with Gordon Onslow Ford. Forced to leave Europe with the outbreak of war, Matta arrived in New York in the Fall of 1938. In an article by Kathy Zimmerer of Latin American Masters, Beverly Hills, she describes Crucifiction [1938] as: "evolving biomorphic forms that mutate and flow across the surface of the canvas Matta's fluid realm of space cushions their journey. His luminous palette of deep crimson, yellow, blue and black, defines and outlines the organic forms as they undergo metamorphoses."
Crucifiction is representative of a non-figurative period of Matta's work where he developed his palette and use of color to create energized forms and space. Consistent with his later works and with Surrealist theories of practice, Matta began his exploration of the visionary landscape of the subconscious. Matta looked to his friend and mentor Yves Tanguy whose works recall the hellscapes and allegories of 15th and 16th century Dutch artists such as Bosch or Bruegel. In addition, both Matta and Tanguy create a universe that is simultaneously firey and chilly that is often connected to their own social consciousness of the ongoing war in Europe. Canady in "Mainstreams of Modern Art", describes Matta's composition versus Tanguy's as have a "more diagrammatic composition [possibly a result of his architectural training] where a kind of astral geometry organizes the holocaust."
In addition to Tanguy's strong influence, there are parallels between Picasso's Guernica and Matta's Crucifixion. Both works of art motivated by their respective spiritual and social consciousness. In Guernica, Picasso emphasizes the "spiritual hideousness of which mankind is generally capable". Matta focuses on the spiritual affect of the machinations of war. The visual landscape he creates connects us to each other, implying that when we declare war on others, we are really waging war with ourselves. These ideas are embodied in fluid forms and in their fluidity, texture, and contrast. Matta's style and willing exploration of the surrealist philosophy of automatic composition heavily influenced the development of the Abstract Expressionist school and their exploration of Action painting.
From 1939 to 1948 he lived in New York City, where he helped introduce the notion of chance to a group of artists who later founded the abstract expressionist movement. Matta's eerie depictions of inner space highly influenced pivotal Abstract Expressionist painters such as Arshile Gorky and Robert Motherwell.
Roberto Matta first exhibited in the Julian Levy Gallery, New York in 1940. The 1940s signified the re-entry of the human figure in Matta's compositions creating a compositional dialogue of Man versus the Machine. The forms he created were organic and existed in symbiotic relationships with machinesA trip to Mexico in 1941 led to Matta's interest in that country's dramatic scenery and its pre-Columbian art and architecture. Matta also drew inspiration from Native American art, particularly that of Northwest Pacific Coast peoples,between 1941 and 1948 he had regular exhibitions at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York.
In these years, Matta met A. Gorky and the American Surrealists and this combined with his discovery of early Mexican culture paved the way for his large scale pictures. Many of Matta’s works of this time were inspired by a mystical belief in the essential unity of all cosmic events. He began to create a pictorial mythology for our own technological age. Matta was fascinated by the precision and speed of automated processes.


In 1948 Matta returned to France, eventually taking French citizenship. He continued to travel, however, returning often to Chile and spending time in Africa and elsewhere in Europe and Latin America.
Lived in Rome from 1950-54. In 1956 he painted a mural for the UNESCO building in Paris. In 1962 he won the Marzotto prize.
Roberto visited Cuba in 1960's to work with art students. 1962 awarded the Marzotto Prize for "La Question Djamilla", inspired by the Spanish Civil War. His work of the 1960s tended to have distinct political and spiritual intentions. Much of his work consisted themes related to events occurring such places as Vietnam, Santo Domingo, and Alabama. An exhibition of 1968 at the Iolas Gallery in New York displayed much of this work.
The 1960s marked not only a change in his themes, but in his style. He found influence in contemporary culture while remaining close to his Surrealist roots. His work can generally be split into two areas: cosmic and apocalyptic paintings. Elle s'y Gare, is an example of the cosmic arena and what Andre Breton called "absolute automatism". The idea of automatism was a key element of the Surrealist movement, which emphasized the suppression of conscious control over a composition in order to give free reign to the unconscious imagery and associations. Matta used automatism in a manner that allowed one form to give rise to another until unification was achieved or until further el ...

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