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Dorothea Tanning: Birthday and Beyond
"'Birthday'
announces an artist who emerged into the public eye with a fully formulated
vision and exquisitely flawless technique," says Ann Temkin, The Muriel
and Philip Berman Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Philadelphia
Museum of Art, of Dorothea
Tanning's celebrated self-portrait. Painted in 1942, when Tanning
was 32-years old, "Birthday" was acquired from the artist in 1999,
with funds contributed by Charles K. Williams II. The painting is a central
icon of the surrealist era, as well as one of the great self-portraits of
the 20th century. To celebrate this major acquisition, the Museum will present
a salute to the artist, Dorothea Tanning: Birthday and Beyond, from
November 24, 2000, to January 7, 2001. (left: Birthday, 1942,
oil on canvas, 40.25 x 25.5 inches, Purchased with funds contributed by
Charles K. Williams II)
An Illinois native, Tanning studied at The
Art Institute of Chicago. At the time she painted "Birthday,"
Tanning was living in New York City and working as a freelance illustrator.
Fantastic Art. Dada and Surrealism, the groundbreaking 1936 exhibition
at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, catalyzed her artistic approach,
and it was the Surrealist émigré artist Max Ernst (1891-1976)
who suggested this painting's title, "Birthday." While scouting
works for gallery-owner Peggy Guggenheim, Ernst encountered the painting
at Tanning's Greenwich Village studio. Captivated by the model as much as
her painting, Ernst later married Tanning in a double wedding with Man Ray
and Juliet Browner in Beverly Hills, followed by a reception at the home
of art collectors (and later Philadelphia Museum of Art benefactors) Louise
and Walter Arensberg. (left: Traffic Sign, 1970, fabric, synthetic
fur, wool, metal and cardboard, 66 1/4 x 13 7/8 x 13 7/8 inches, Collection
of the artist)
An astonishing likeness that pairs verisimilitude with imagination, "Birthday" presents an unsmiling Tanning in exotic dress, perched on a steeply: tilting floor that leads through an infinite recession of doors. Her purple, ruffled jacket reveals bare skin, and tops a long skirt embellished with limb-like tendrils. She is accompanied by a fantastic, furry creature -- perhaps an ally in the adventures that wait beyond this hallucinatory space.
Birthday and Beyond
was chosen by the artist in collaboration with Ms. Temkin and Assistant
Curator Michael Taylor. A selection of paintings, sculpture, and works on
paper -- some 18 works in all -- will explore the presence of the body in
Tanning's work, and examine the astonishing variety of ways in which she
approached the theme of 
metamorphosis.
Among the works joining "Birthday" are "Notes for an Apocalypse"
(1978), a large-scale canvas in which a tablecloth becomes a nightmare,
and the unsettling fabric-sculpture "Rainy-Day-Canapé"
(1970). a sofa metamorphosing into a group of writhing bodies. Other works,
such as "Insomnias" (1957) present energized, illuminated fields
of crystalline figures. (left: Heartless, 1980, oil on canvas,
57 1/4 x 44 1/2 inches, Collection of the artist; right: Some Roses and
Their Phantoms, 1952, oil on canvas, 29 7/8 x 40 1/4 inches, Collection
Antony Penrose, Chiddingly, England)
Birthday and Beyond will showcase quintessential work by Tanning drawn from five fertile decades in France and the United States. While celebrating the acquisition of "Birthday," it will also reveal Tanning as an artist who, at the age of 90, has invented a realm still to be discovered by American audiences.
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