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Collections

Matta (Roberto Sebastián Antonio Matta Echaurren)
Untitled (Sin título)1940

Not on view
Horizontal drawing in graphite and colored pencil on cream paper, with fantastical figures, architectural lines, and bursts of orange, green, and blue across a surreal composition
Artist or Maker
Matta (Roberto Sebastián Antonio Matta Echaurren)
Chile, active France, Italy, Mexico, and the United States, 1911-2002
Title
Untitled (Sin título)
Place Made
United States and Italy
Date Made
1940
Medium
Crayon, graphite, and collage on paper
Dimensions
Sheet: 22 5/8 × 28 3/4 in. (57.47 × 73.03 cm) Image: 22 5/8 × 28 3/4 in. (57.47 × 73.03 cm) Frame: 31 1/8 × 37 1/8 × 1 1/2 in. (79.06 × 94.3 × 3.81 cm) Packed (LE Inventory - Plastic wrapped): 31 1/4 × 37 1/8 × 1 3/4 in. (79.38 × 94.3 × 4.45 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of Mrs. Lillian Alpers
Accession Number
AC1997.44.1
Classification
Drawings
Collecting Area
Prints and Drawings
Curatorial Notes

Although Matta was born in Chile, his career evolved in Paris, New York, and Mexico, among other places. From 1935 to 1937, he worked with the architect Le Corbusier in Paris. He also traveled to Spain, where he met the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca. Through Lorca, Matta met Salvador Dalí and André Breton and joined the surrealist movement in 1937. Fleeing World War II, Matta traveled to New York in 1939, where he met surrealists Luis Buñuel, Wolfgang Paalen, Kurt Seligmann, Yves Tanguy, and others. He served as a bridge between American and European avant-garde artists and has been credited with aiding the development of abstract expressionism. His work of the late 1930s and 1940s is characterized by webs of lines that give his compositions an atmospheric depth. Known as 'inscapes' or 'psychological morphologies', the seemingly ever-changing forms of these works serve as visual analogies for the artist's psyche.

Ilona Katzew, 2008

Selected Bibliography
  • Los Angeles County Museum of Art. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2003.
  • Powell III, Earl A., Robert Winter, and Stephanie Barron. The Robert O. Anderson Building. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1986.
Selected Exhibition History
  • Drawing Surrealism. October 21, 2012 - January 6, 2013
  • Drawing Surrealism. October 21, 2012 - January 6, 2013