Tuesday saw the passing of Dorothea Tanning, an artist who was among the most admired figures of the Surrealist movement.
Born in Galesburg, Illinois, in 1910, Tanning made frequent visits to the Art Institute of Chicago as a child and aspired to become an artist from an early age. Her first encounter with Surrealism took place on a visit to the Museum of Modern Art in 1936, impelling her to seek a master among the leading figures in the European avant-garde. In 1942, she met the German artist Max Ernst at a party in New York. The two fell in love and married in 1946, in a double ceremony with the artist Man Ray and Juliet Browner.
Tanning’s early work was characterized by its playful scenes of figures and objects in unexpected arrangements and combinations. Frequently depicting female symbols and personages, her approach stood in noticeable contrast to the macho culture that saturated Surrealist painting at the time. Her spooky sensibility was typified by her famous painting, “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,” which shows a pair of young girls passing each other in a dark corridor, their cryptic, tangled features complemented by the presence of an enormous sunflower.
Tanning applied her talents to numerous other media. She wrote and illustrated children’s books, dabbled in architecture, and served as costume designer for the ballet under the auspices of George Balanchine. Later in life, she devoted more of her time to writing, publishing a memoir, a novel, and several volumes of poetry.
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