Passage of a Smile

Artist Yves Tanguy (French, 1900-1955)

Date1935

DimensionsPainting: 25 5/8 × 21 1/4 in. (65.1 × 54 cm)
Frame: 33 1/2 × 29 1/4 × 2 5/8 in. (85.1 × 74.3 × 6.7 cm)

Mediumoil on canvas

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1938.84

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 06

Label TextThe objects and locations in Surrealist compositions like Yves Tanguy’s are often described as dreamscapes—strange yet familiar at the same time. The organic rock- or reef-like forms in this painting might have been inspired by Tanguy’s childhood travels to the seaside in Brittany, France. The desolate setting, though, is as ambiguous as the forms—is it a beach, or is it the ocean floor? Tanguy adds a tangible sense of space to the composition through the careful arrangement and differing sizes of the objects, which lead the eye back through the depths to a low horizon. The parallel rows of forms on the left suggest a path—perhaps the passage through which the fleeting expression of the title can travel.Published ReferencesLevy, J., Surrealism, New York, 1936, p. 151, repr.

Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, European Paintings, Toledo, 1976, p. 157, pl. 297.

Simon, Sidney, "Yves Tanguy: Through Birds, Through Fire, but not Through Glass," Minneapolis Institute of Arts Bulletin, vol. 63, 1976-1977, p. 24, repr. fig. 4.

Henning, Edward B., "A Painting by Joan Miro," Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 66, no. 6, Sept. 1979, p. 239, repr. fig. 7.

Maur, Karin von, Yves Tanguy und der Surrealismus, Stuttgart, 2000, p. 78, abb. 65, (col.).

Le Bihan, Rene, Yves Tanguy, Quimper, 2001, repr. p. 124 (col.).

Exhibition HistoryArt Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), Ontario. 1947.

New York, Acquavella Galleries, Yves Tanguy, 1974, no. 15, repr.

Acquavella Galleries, New York City,NY. 1974.

Cleveland Museum of Art, Spirit of Surrealism, 1979, no. 51, repr. p. 96.