Andre Masson was classed as one of the most important trendsetters of Abstract Expressionism, and placed great value, himself, on never completely losing sight of the representational. He always tried to follow his own vision with his work and not let himself be driven by coincidental events when choosing his motifs.
(...) Continue readingAndre Masson – Early studies in Brussels, the move to Paris
Andre Masson was born on 4 January 1896 in the small French parish of Balagny-sur-Thérain; eight years later the family moved to Brussels where he was already accepted at the age of eleven into the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts et l'Ecole des Arts. His most important teacher was the Symbolist Constant Montald, and through the work of the Belgian master James Ensor he encountered modern painting for the first. In 1912-1913 he returned to France and intensified his studies at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts under Paul Baudoin. With the outbreak of the First World War, Masson volunteered for military service.
War injury, prison sentence and first successes
A chest injury received in 1917 enforced an extended stay in hospital. Andre Masson subsequently spoke out against the war and was arrested as an agitator. In 1918/19 he joined together with Maurice Loutreuil in Martigues and practiced as a landscape painter. From 1921 he lived in the Rue Blomet in Paris and became friends with his new neighbour, the Spanish artist Joan Miró. Masson’s commercial success was aided by the art dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, who acquired many of his works.
The inspiration of the unconscious
In the early 1920s, Andre Masson made many fruitful contacts with recognised artists such as Jean Dubuffet, Georges Limbour, André Malraux, Antonin Artaud, Gertrude Stein and Louis Aragon. He made attempts at erotic etchings and experimented with "écriture automatique", manuscripts which he drew from the unconscious without following any deliberate intention. A result of these methods are the world-famous sand pictures which the artist created out of glue and sand in various colour tones. Masson had his first solo exhibition in 1924 in the Galerie Simon in Paris.
The legacy of war overshadowed Masson’s art
In the same year, Masson met André Breton, whom he had invited to join his group of Surrealists. The collaboration was not without tension, and in particular the increasingly dominant Breton finally induced Masson to leave the group. By this time the Second World War was already raging, and Andre Masson fled from the terror, back to the USA. Nevertheless, the horror of war had a lasting impact on the artist’s work: where death and dying had already been important themes in his oeuvre, the gloomy, fragmented figures of this phase represented a new level. The 1960s saw a definitive break with Surrealism, and Andre Masson turned more towards the representational and created numerous book illustrations, stage designs and even a ceiling painting for the Théatre Odéon in Paris.
In the late 1970s, Andre Masson was increasingly plagued with physical disabilities, finally forcing him into a wheelchair. The associated restrictions enforced him to give up painting. Andre Masson died in Paris on 28 October 1987.
André Masson - Works that have already been sold at Kunsthaus Lempertz:
