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André Masson
Le Fil d'Ariane (Ariadne's Clew) /// Modern Surrealism Surrelist Andre Masson

1973

About the Item

Artist: André Masson (French, 1896-1987) Title: "Le Fil d'Ariane (Ariadne's Clew)" Portfolio: For Meyer Schapiro *Signed by Masson in pencil lower right Year: 1973 Medium: Original Etching with Aquatint on Rives BFK paper Limited edition: 15/100 Printer: Atelier Crommelynck, Paris, France Publisher: The Committee to Endow a Chair in Honor of Meyer Schapiro at Columbia University, New York, NY Sheet size: 18" x 13.5" Image size: 11.5" x 8.5" Condition: Never framed, has been professionally stored away for decades. In excellent condition Rare Notes: Numbered by Masson in pencil lower left. Comes from the 1974 "For Meyer Schapiro" portfolio of twelve print editions by various artists. The "For Meyer Schapiro" portfolio consisted of four lithographs (one with embossing), three screenprints (one with stamp additions), two lithographs and screenprints (one with embossing), two etching and aquatints, and one duplicated drawing. Various printers were used. In addition to Masson, the following artists also contributed to the portfolio: Stanley William Hayter, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Alexander Liberman, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Motherwell, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Saul Steinberg, Frank Stella, and Andy Warhol. Biography: André Masson (b. Balagny-sur-Thérain 1896 - Paris 1987) was a French artist. He was brought up in Belgium. He began his study of art at the age of eleven in Brussels, at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts under the guidance of Constant Montald, and later he studied in Paris. He fought for France during World War I and was seriously injured. His early works display an interest in cubism. He later became associated with surrealism, and he was one of the most enthusiastic employers of automatic drawing, making a number of automatic works in pen and ink. Masson experimented with altered states of consciousness with artists such as Antonin Artaud, Michel Leiris, Joan Miró, Georges Bataille, Jean Dubuffet, and Georges Malkine, who were neighbors of his studio in Paris. By the end of the 1920s, however, he was finding automatic drawing rather restricting, and he left the surrealist movement and turned instead to a more structured style, often producing works with a violent or erotic theme, and making a number of paintings in reaction to the Spanish Civil War. Under the German occupation of France during World War II, his work was condemned by the Nazis as degenerate. With the assistance of Varian Fry in Marseille, Masson escaped the Nazi regime on a ship to the French island of Martinique from where he went on to the United States. Upon arrival in New York City, U.S. customs officials inspecting Masson's luggage found a cache of his erotic drawings. Denouncing them as pornographic, they ripped them up before the artist's eyes. Living in New Preston, Connecticut his work became an important influence on American abstract expressionists, such as Jackson Pollock. Following the war, he returned to France and settled in Aix-en-Provence where he painted a number of landscapes.
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