Show of artist whose work “undermines old idea of Surrealism being about the objectification of women” opens in Madrid before travelling to London.
In 1942, Dorothea Tanning painted the self-portrait that would catapult her into the Surrealist movement. Birthday shows her in fantastical costume with a winged creature at her feet, the gatekeeper to an infinite recession of open doors. The canvas was named in her New York studio by the émigré German Surrealist Max Ernst, who was scouting for female artists to participate in an exhibition at the gallery of Peggy Guggenheim, his then-wife. Within weeks, Ernst had moved in, and he and Tanning married four years later. (Guggenheim later quipped that she should have restricted the show, titled 31 Women, to 30 artists.) > Read More
Tanning’s self-portrait Birthday (1942) will be the first work visitors see in the exhibitionPhiladelphia Museum of Art, 125th Anniversary Acquisition. Purchased with funds contributed by C. K. Williams, II, 1999-50-1 © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York