American Surrealist painter Dorothea Tanning, who was also a printmaker, sculptor, writer and set designer, was already pursuing her own dream-like compositions when she was introduced to the work of the European Surrealists at their 1936 exhibition in New York.
She then met and became lifelong companions with Max Ernst. Like Ernst, Tanning moved from the dream state explorations of the Surrealists into that shifting netherland between representational and non-representational art.
Her suggestions of recognizable forms draw you in, then drift into half-recognized shapes abstracted from something undefinable, providing fertile ground for the viewer to project their own interpreted content and meaning.
Tanning was prolific, even into her later years. She died on Wednesday, January 1, 2012, at the age of 101.
Her official website has an extensive collection of her work, though the images are unfortunately somewhat small and not of the highest quality.
I’ve listed some obits and other sources below.
