Anatomy of My Universe

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Anatomy of My Universe

Artist André Masson (French, 1896-1987)

Publisher Curt Valentin, New York, 1943

Printer Golden Eagle Press, Mount Vernon, NY (S. A. Jacobs)

Author André Masson (French, 1896-1987)

Date1943

DimensionsBook: 13 x 9 7/8 in. (330 x 251mm)
Page: 12 1/2 x 9 1/2 in. (318 x 241mm)
Sheet: 10 1/8 x 8 1/8 in. (25.7 x 20.6 cm);
Image: 7 13/16 x 5 15/16 in. (19.7 x 15 cm)

MediumOriginal print: 1 etching Reproduction: line block reproductions of pen and ink drawings Text: letterpress Paper: white wove paper

ClassificationBooks

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number

1979.95A-B

Not on View

Label TextFollowing the fall of France, André Masson fled to the United States in 1941. In the face of worries about the fate of Europe, he turned to nature: "I began to work in the way I ambitiously call chthonic, belonging to subterranean forces … I didn't abandon Surrealism but I gave it a new meaning." In this 1942 soft-ground etching, he incorporated the imprints of leaves and fabrics, cryptic symbols, partly-effaced writing, a labyrinthine form, and a humanoid figure - mysterious signs of nature, myth, and human consciousness. This book reproduces Masson's drawings inspired by his ideas adopted from occultism, alchemy, astrology, Neo-Platonism, the Cabala, Scholasticism, etc. In the prologue, Mason states:"this graphic world is a universe that I create.... Whence come these imaged forms? They come from my impassioned meditation, an attitude that poses an object, even in its first movement when it seems to be completely sunk in the undetermined. But soon, as in the process of dream-induced hallucination,...there appear forms already plastic like dreams and this meditative disposition calls up forgotten sensations, burned dreams. It is their polymorphous play that I orchestrate in their becoming.Published Referencescf. Philips, Elizabeth, The American Livre de Peintre, New York, The Grolier Club, 1993, no. 31Exhibition HistoryBetween the Wars; Sept. 5 2008 through Dec.31 2008 TMA: The Artist As Illustrator, Mar. 21, - June 21,1981