Kay Sage & Yves Tanguy: Ring of Iron, Ring of Wool
Courtesy of SKIRA
Kay Sage & Yves Tanguy: Ring of Iron, Ring of Wool (168 pages, 164 color illustrations, $55, published by SKIRA with Helly Nahmad Gallery) explores the work of Kay Sage (born near Albany, NY, 1898–1963) and Yves Tanguy (French-American, born in Paris, 1900–1955), two eminent Surrealist artists who married in 1940 (in 1941 the couple made their home in Woodbury, CT where Tanguy built a stone terrace and transformed a barn into a studio). Inspired by Sage’s 1947 painting Ring of Iron, Ring of Wool, which has been interpreted as a reference to their 7th Wedding Anniversary, the book examines the different ways in which their personal and artistic trajectories gave rise to a reciprocal and dynamic exchange of ideas (the first joint show of their work took place at the Wadsworth Atheneum in 1954, shortly before Tanguy’s unexpected death; there have been two joint shows since). The artwork in the book weaves together a delicate narrative spanning decades, interspersed with a silent dialogue provided by their respective poetic titles: over 60 artworks, many from prestigious museums, institutions, and private collections (including Philadelphia Museum of Art, collection of the Mint Museum, the Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, CT, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, collection of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, and the Nahmad Collection).
KAY SAGE, CONTRABAND, 1961 Collage, wood, and stones on board, 19½ × 14½ in. (49.5 × 36.8 cm), Cavaliero Fine Arts, New York
Each artist encountered the others work before meeting; Sage saw Tanguy’s prophetically titled Je vous attends (I Await You) in 1935 and Tanguy saw Sage’s work for the first time in 1938. Though numerous artist couples come to mind, such as Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera, Max Ernst & Dorothea Tanning, Lee Miller & Man Ray among others, Sage & Tanguy have remained relatively obscure until recently—Sage even more so, her work often overshadowed by Tanguy’s greater fame. In seeing their masterful works together, Tanguy’s evolving & responsive inner world of fantastic landscapes populated by a vast array of biomorphic forms and anthropomorphic personages harmoniously co-exists with Sage’s universe of metaphysically charged dreamscapes featuring barren plains, architectural scaffolding, and latticework structures adorned with brightly-colored cloth.
KAY SAGE, THE WORLD OF WHY, July 12, 1958 Watercolor, brush and black ink, and paper collage on paper, 16¾ × 13 in. (42.5 × 33 cm), Private collection
As one of the few women Surrealists, Sage not only achieved notable success during her career as an artist and poet, but also played a key role in co-founding The Society for the Preservation of European Culture in 1939 (that enabled artists to escape Paris and travel to New York), as well as supporting Tanguy’s work and safeguarding his legacy.
KAY SAGE, UNICORNS CAME DOWN TO THE SEA, 1948 Oil on canvas, 36 1/4 x 28 1/4 in. (92.1 x 71.8 cm), Philadelphia Museum of Art: Bequest of Kay Sage Tanguy, 1964 Courtesy of the Philadelphia museum of Art
Edited by and featuring text by Victoria Noel-Johnson (independent British art historian & curator, specializing in early 20th Century European art), the book also features scholarly contributions from Stephen Robeson Miller (the acknowledged expert on Kay Sage, curator, author, and academic, author of Kay Sage: The Biographical Chronology, his research papers on Sage, including interviews, are located at the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution), and Ara H. Merjian (Professor of Italian Studies; Affiliated Faculty, Institute of Fine Arts, and Department of Art History, New York University; April 2014 - present). And founded in 2000, the Helly Nahmad Gallery is a leading art gallery located in New York. Its extensive collection includes works ranging from the Impressionists to Modern Masters: with artists as diverse as Monet, Sisley, and Pissarro, to Modigliani, Kandinsky and Picasso. The gallery curates two to three major exhibitions a year with works by these artists that have rarely been publicly exhibited.
Courtesy of SKIRA
Artist Bio:
KAY SAGE (1898 – 1963) Kay Sage was born in 1898 near Albany, New York. Her mother and father, a wealthy senator, divorced in 1911, with Sage and her elder sister Anne experiencing a peripatetic childhood with periods spent in San Francisco, New York and Florida, with lengthy trips with her mother to Europe (principally London, Paris, Lucerne and Rapallo) as well as Egypt (1907). She attended the Corcoran School of Art in Washington DC, before moving to Rome in 1920. There, she joined the I Venticinque della Campagna Romana group in 1921, followed by the British Academy of Arts in 1922, and the Scuola Libera del Nudo dell’Accademia di Belle Arti the following year. In 1925, she married Prince Ranieri di San Faustino in Rome. In c. 1930, Sage met the poet Ezra Pound in Rapallo and in c. 1933-34, she began painting again. By 1934, she decided to return to art and left her husband. In 1935, she saw Tanguy’s Je vous attends (I Await You, 1934), which would prove prophetic. In 1936, she exhibited her work for the first time at the Galleria del Milione in Milan. In 1937, Sage moved to Paris where she was inspired by Giorgio de Chirico’s work and came into contact with Surrealism. In 1938, she met Tanguy and they began a relationship, marrying in 1940. Co-founding of The Society for the Preservation of European Culture, she returned to New York in late 1939. In 1940, she had her first solo exhibition at the Pierre Matisse Gallery, the first of 14 solo exhibitions organized during her lifetime. Further to her and Tanguy’s move to Woodbury, Connecticut, in 1941, she remained there for over 20 years. Following Tanguy’s death in 1955, she continued to paint and work in collage and make objets due to her deteriorating eyesight , as well as wrote her memoirs China Eggs (1955), published poetry, and edited Yves Tanguy. A Summary of his Works (published by the Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, 1963). Left distraught by Tanguy’s death and inability to paint, she tragically ended her life in 1963.
KAY SAGE, SOUTH TO SOUTHWESTERLY WINDS TOMORROW, 1957 Oil on canvas, 13 × 16 in. (33 × 40.6 cm), Private collection, courtesy of Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco
YVES TANGUY (1900 – 1955) Classed as “the most surrealist of the Surrealists” by the artistic movement’s leader André Breton, Yves Tanguy was born in Paris in 1900 at the Ministère de la Marine, Place de la Concorde, where his father, a retired sea captain, worked. He spent summers in his family's home in Finistère, Brittany, with the Breton landscape of his youth playing a decisive role in his later surreal dreamscapes. After a brief period working as a merchant marine (including travels to South America, Africa and England), Tanguy was drafted into French military service in 1920, where he met and befriended the poet Jacques Prévert. Released from their duties in 1922, the two spent time in Paris searching for an artistic or literary purpose. In 1923, Tanguy caught sight of Giorgio de Chirico’s Metaphysical work in a window of Paul Guillaume's gallery, a revelation that prompted him to become an artist, even though he possessed no formal training. Moving to 54 rue du Château with Prévert and Maurice Duhamel in 1924, the apartment soon became an important center of Surrealist meeting and activity. In 1925, he met Breton, who became a close friend. The reproduction of his work The Ring of Invisibility in La Révolution Surréaliste (June 1926) officially cemented Tanguy’s association with Surrealism. In 1927, he married Jeanne Ducrocq and was given his first solo exhibition at the Galerie Surréaliste, Paris. He participated in the Exposition du Groupe Surréaliste (Galerie Sacre du Printemps, Paris) the following year. Travels to Africa in 1930, where he admired curious rock formations that proved inspirational. In 1938, Tanguy met the American artist Kay Sage and the two soon began their life together. Due to gathering tensions in Europe, Tanguy joined Sage in New York in late 1939 in order to ‘officially’ attend the opening of his first US solo exhibition at the Pierre Matisse Gallery, the inaugural show of The Society for the Preservation of European Culture. Further to his marriage to Sage in 1940, they moved to Woodbury, Connecticut (1941). In 1946, they bought ‘Town Farm’, a 19th century farmhouse with studio-barn where Tanguy lived and worked. Tanguy, however, remained in close contact with fellow Surrealists, such as a 1951 trip to visit Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning in Sedona, Arizona, as well as his 1954 involvement in Hans Richter’s film 8 x 8 with other Surrealists in New York). He died unexpectedly in 1955.
YVES TANGUY, LES DERNIERS JOURS, 1944 Oil on canvas, 38 1⁄4 x 54 3⁄8 in. (98 x 138 cm), Esther Grether Family Collection Photo Robert Bayer, Bildpunkt AG, CH-4142 Münchenstein
