Andre Masson

241 Pages·2016·59.73 MB·English

by  Rubin, William, 1927-2006

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Author
Rubin, William, 1927-2006
Date
1976
Publisher
The Museum of Modern Art
ISBN
0870704656, 0870704648
Exhibition URL
www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/2000
The Museum of Modern Art's exhibition history—
from our founding in 1929 to the present—is
available online. It includes exhibition catalogues,
primary documents, installation views, and an
index of participating artists.
MoMA © 2017 The Museum of Modern Art

232 pages 235 illustrations (24 in color) $20.00
ANDMREA SSON
BY
WILLIAM RUBIN
AND
CAROLYN LANCHNER
In the MiD-twenties, on seeing Masson's work, Picasso noted
with humorous resentment that the young painter had
"turned Cubism inside out." Masson had rejected the shel
tered life that he felt was implicit in Cubist painting, and he
had forced the Cubist pictorial syntax to deal with birth,
death, sex, war, and the dark recesses of the mind.
His art confronts the universal lot of man, but it is rooted in
the particulars of twentieth-century experience, of his own
turbulent life. He was gravely wounded in World War I.
During the twenties he took part in the Surrealist venture at
revolutionizing the world. He was in Spain during the Civil
War. World War II meant exile for him, in America, and his
return to France brought not only the pastoral satisfactions of
his homeland and the attractions of its capital, but also
involvement in the Algerian conflict.
In art, Masson's role was crucial in determining the form
that Surrealist painting assumed during its first phase. He
virtually invented automatic drawing as understood by the
Surrealists, and he extended the automatist approach into his
painting. In 1926-27, in a daring series of works executed by
randomly dripping glue on a flat canvas which he then
sprinkled with sand, Masson evolved a technique that both in
its means and its effects anticipated post-World War II
American painting. It is not surprising to find in these works
an adumbration of the kind of painting that is often charac
terized by the word "action," for common to Masson's work
of every period is a sense of energy and movement.
The present book, published in conjunction with a major
retrospective exhibition, is a definitive study of the painter,
tracing his career from its beginnings in Cubism in 1922 to the
present, with particular emphasis on the early Surrealist
period from 1925 to 1928 and the American period from 1941
to 1945. In a concise yet comprehensive essay, Mr. Rubin
analyzes and assesses Masson's signal contribution to twen
tieth-century art. Ms. Lanchner illuminates his iconography,
with its bases in myth, philosophy, and personal experience,
as she surveys the development of his work over five dec
ades. A wide selection of illustrations, including twenty-four
in color, documents the full range of Masson's art. A detailed
chronology and a comprehensive bibliography complete the
volume.
William Rubin, author of numerous books on twentieth-cen
tury art, is Director of the Department of Painting and Sculp
ture at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Carolyn
Lanchner is Research Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the
same institution.

WILLIAM RUBIN
CAROLYN LANCHNER
THE MUSEUM
OF MODERN ART
NEW YORK
Copyright © 1976 by The Museum of Modern Art
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 76-1492
Clothbound ISBN 0-87070-465-6
Paperbound ISBN 0-87070-464-8
Designed by Carl Laanes
Type set by Custom Composition, Inc., York, Pa.
Printed by Rae Publishing Co., Inc., Cedar Grove, N.J.
The Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53 Street
New York, N.Y. 10019
Printed in the United States of America
Cover: Detail from Entanglement. 1941
Frontispiece : Andre Masson. Paris, 1976
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 6
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 9
ANDRE MASSON AND TWENTIETH-CENTURYP AINTING 11
by William Rubin
ANDRE MASSON: ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT 79
by Carolyn Lanchner
REFERENCEIL LUSTRATIONS 207
CHRONOLOGY 211
BIBLIOGRAPHY 225