Quilapayun roberto matta biography
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Interestingly, The Earth is a Man shares its name with an epic poem Matta composed in 1936 to commemorate Frederico Garcia Lorca's violent death.
Oil on canvas - Private Collection, Chicago
1946
Being With (Etre Avec)
As one of Matta's "Social Morphology" paintings, Being With (Etre Avec) represents a direct response to the horrors of the Second World War.
Matta's deep-seated dismay finds expression in the menacing mechanical contraptions and the contorted, violently violated humanoid forms that populate the painting. I don't realise it, my subjects are in life, I want to talk about an event that upsets me.”
Gallery Jardin des Arts No. 151 October 1975.
In February 1975, the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City, in collaboration with the museums of Bogota and Caracas, presented some twenty canvases painted in the last ten years, including for the first time: Le Grand Burundùn, a series of six large paintings of twenty metres in length illustrating the story of Caballazo, already told by the great Colombian poet, Jorge Zamalea, who died in 1969.
“The army was so terrified that it fled.
The imagery and title of the painting (loosely translated as, "Our Earth is a Target") hint at the paranoia and fear associated the atomic age, exacerbated by the Cold War and the Space Race. It was through Lorca that Matta was introduced to Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí. These also suggest some accessible resources for further research, especially ones that can be found and purchased via the internet.
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“I often react like a journalist to current events.
His mature work blended abstraction, figuration, and multi-dimensional spaces into complex, cosmic landscapes. He began adding clay to some of his paintings in the early 1960s, and over the next thirty years experimented extensively with printmaking, tapestry, ceramics, furniture making, and sculpture. The painting was created using the Surrealist practice of automatism.
As a member of the Surrealist movement and an early mentor to several Abstract Expressionists, Matta broke with both groups to pursue a highly personal artistic vision. On the advice of friend Andre Breton, he moved to Paris in 1933 and traveled throughout Europe between 1935 and 1937, meeting Federico Garcia Lorca who introduced him to Dali.
Thanks to Dali, Matta joined the Surrealist movement in 1937 and contributed to the their publications. He began painting in 1938 and that same year he participated in the Paris Exposicion International du Surrealism.
Not long after this project, Matta left behind his privileged upbringing and conservative education to join the Merchant Marines. In the process, he provided early and crucial inspiration for the Abstract Expressionists. Responding to the continuing horrors of the Second World War, Matta expanded his artistic interests beyond his exploration of the subconscious mind.
This action has been attributed not only to Matta's social infraction, but also to his increased interest in exploring social and political issues through his work.
Ostracized by the artistic community in New York, Matta returned to Europe in 1948.
Summary of Roberto Matta
Chilean-born artist Roberto Matta was an international figure whose worldview represented a synthesis of European, American, and Latin American cultures.
His first solo exhibition in the US took place at the Julian Levy Gallery in 1940. Between 1943 and 1947 Matta worked at Atelier 17, then located in The New School, as many European and American artists did during the war. He presented the idea of "America" as verb - constantly moving, evolving, and changing.
Matta was the subject of several significant exhibitions in the later half of his career.
He strongly supported Salvador Allende's Socialist government, and the newly elected president even invited Matta to be Chile's cultural attache. Perhaps the zenith of Matta's engagement with Latin American cultural themes was his group of works produced in 1983 titled, El Mediterano y el Verbo Americas. The Surrealists eventually invited Matta to rejoin their group in 1959.
He would return to work there from time to time in the 1950s.
After the war and his break from the Surrealist movement in 1948, Matta moved to Italy, dividing his time between Paris, London, and Roma and Tarquinia. He declined their offer, preferring instead to continue his artistic explorations on his own.
Late Period
Matta traveled widely throughout Europe, Latin America, and Africa during the 1950s and 1960s.