André Masson.Pedestal Table in the Studio (1922)André Masson.Automatic Drawing (1924). Ink on paper, 91⁄4 × 81⁄8" (23.5 × 20.6 cm).Museum of Modern Art, New York.
This sectionneeds expansion with: more details about the artist's life after WWI. You can help byadding to it.(August 2022)
Masson was born inBalagny-sur-Thérain, Oise, but when he was eight his father's work took the family first briefly to Lille and then toBrussels.[3] He began his study of art at the age of eleven at theAcadémie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, under the guidance ofConstant Montald, and later he studied in Paris. He fought for France duringWorld War I and was seriously injured.[4]Masson shared a Paris studio withJoan Miró.[5]
From around 1926 he experimented by throwing sand and glue onto canvas and making oil paintings based around the shapes that formed. By the end of the 1920s, however, he was finding automatic drawing rather restricting, and he left the surrealist movement and turned instead to a more structured style, often producing works with a violent or erotic theme. In 1932 he married his loverPaule Vézelay, a British abstract artist living in Paris, whose work also inspired him. He was living inTossa de Mar, a small fishing village on the Costa Brava, at the outbreak of theSpanish Civil War, which is reflected in a number of his paintings (he associated once more with the surrealists at the end of the 1930s).[7]
Masson drew the cover of the first issue ofGeorges Bataille's review,Acéphale, in 1936, and participated in all its issues until 1939. His brother-in-law, the psychoanalystJacques Lacan, was the last private owner ofGustave Courbet's provocative paintingL'Origine du monde (The Origin of the World); Lacan asked Masson to paint asurrealist variant.
His son,Diego Masson[8] (born 1935), is a conductor, composer, and percussionist, while another son, Luis Masson, is an actor.[citation needed] His daughter, Lily Masson (1920–2019), was a painter.[9]
André Masson, Paris, September 1984. Photo by John Oakes.
André Breton and André Masson:Martinique. Charmeuse de serpents. Paris: Sagittaire, 1947. Reprinted by Jean-Jacques Pauvert, Paris, in 1972.
English edition:Martinique: Snake Charmer. "Surrealist Revolution Series". Austin: University of Texas Press, 2008. ISBN 0-292-71765-2. Translated by David W. Seaman.
Georges Limbour andMichel Leiris.André Masson et son univers. Geneva: Les Trois Collines, 1947 (French). Includes poem "André Masson" by Leiris, and Masson's portrait of Breton and a self-portrait.
English edition:André Masson and His Universe. London: Horizon, 1947.OCLC561660506 a. o. Same edition with supplemented partly translations by Douglas Cooper.
André Masson.Entretiens avec Georges Charbonnier, préface de Georges Limbour. Paris: René Julliard, 1958 (French). Reprinted 1995 by Éditions André Dimanche, Marseille.
André Masson. "Dissonances". In:X magazine, Vol. I, No. III (June 1960). Reprinted in: David Wright (ed.):An Anthology from X. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. ISBN 0-19-212266-5.
Daniel Guérin.Eux et lui: suivi de commentaires, et orné de cinq dessins originaux par André Masson. Monaco: Éditions du Rocher, 1962.OCLC25887616 (French). Reprinted Lille: GKC (Question de genre), 2000.
Hubert Juin.André Masson. Paris: Le musée de poche, 1963 (French).
Carmine Benincasa.André Masson, 1941–1945: Water, Air, Earth, Fire. New York: Marisa del Re Gallery, 1981 (French).
Françoise Levaillant.L'oeuvre d'André Masson: essais sur l'art et les savoirs dans la première moitié du XXe siècle. Paris: Université de Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne, 1986 (French). Ph.D. (doctoral thesis supervisor René Jullian).
Françoise Levaillant (ed.).André Masson: les années surréalistes. Correspondance 1916–1942. Lyon: La Manufacture, 1990 (French).
Florence de Mèredieu.André Masson: les dessins automatiques. Paris: Blusson, 1988.OCLC603947158 (French).
Bernard Noël.André Masson, la chair du regard. Collection L'art et l'écrivain. Paris: Gallimard, 1993. ISBN 2-07-011258-6 (French).
Dawn Adès.André Masson. London: Academy Editions, 2004. ISBN 1-85490-314-4.
Kai Buchholz and Klaus Wolbert (eds.).André Masson. Bilder aus dem Labyrinth der Seele. Exhibition catalogue, Darmstadt/Frankfurt a. M.:Institut Mathildenhöhe, 2003. ISBN 3-925782-43-5 (German).
Armel Guerne.André Masson ou les autres valeurs. Roy (Belgique): Les Amis d'Armel Guerne, 2007.OCLC798378983 (French).
Clark V. Poling.André Masson and the Surrealist Self. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. ISBN 0-300-13562-9.
André Masson. Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint, 1919–1941. Vaumarcus: Éditions ArtAcatos, 2010. Catalogue by Guite Masson, Martin Masson, and Catherine Loewer, preface byBernard Noël, text by Dawn Adès, biography by Camille Morando. ISBN 2-940452-00-8 (French).
Hélène Parant, Fabrice Flahutez, and Camille Morando.La bibliothèque d'André Masson. Une archéologie. Paris:Artvenir, 2011.ISBN2-9539406-0-X (French).
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