Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Ville cranienne (Skull City)

André Masson
1896-1987

Ville cranienne (Skull City)

1940
18 7/8 x 24 13/16 inches (48 x 63 cm); in decorative frame: 26 7/8 x 31 7/8 x 1 7/8 inches
Watercolor and pen and black ink on wove paper.
2011.6

Gift of the Modern and Contemporary Collectors Committee.

© André Masson / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Notes
André Masson was a key figure of the Surrealist movement from its beginning in France in the 1920s. His early contribution to the movement consisted of 'automatic' drawings, a spontaneous style of drawing characterized by free-form gestures. In the late thirties Masson adopted a more controlled and figurative mode in subjects often inspired by mythology. "Ville cranienne" is an example of Masson's second phase of Surrealism. In this vivid image, the artist compares the human head to an imaginary city whose complex architecture evokes that of a labyrinth, a visual metaphor for the subconscious.
Classification
Century Drawings