Divisibilité indéfinie (Indefinite Divisibility)

Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

Yves Tanguy

French, 1900-1955

Divisibilité indéfinie (Indefinite Divisibility), 1942

oil on canvas

support: 40 x 35 inches (101.6 x 89 cm); framed: 51 1/4 x 46 x 3 1/8 inches (130.18 x 116.84 x 7.94 cm)

Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

Room of Contemporary Art Fund, 1945

RCA1945:2

Currently On View

More Details

Inscriptions

signature, dated / lower right / Yves Tanguy 42

Provenance

Pierre Matisse Gallery;
sold to the Albright Gallery, June 22, 1945

Class

Paintings

Work Type

Oil painting

This information may change due to ongoing research. Glossary of Terms

Without employing direct references to the real world, Yves Tanguy painted surreal landscapes laden with strange, indeterminate forms. Tanguy taught himself how to paint after seeing a work by Giorgio de Chirico through the window of an art gallery. In 1925, he joined the Surrealist group in Paris, and in a relatively short time, he developed a style that remained consistent from 1927 until his death. In Indefinite Divisibility, which Tanguy painted after moving to the United States, a mysterious structure dominates the foreground and casts a dark shadow, a visual motif he borrowed from de Chirico. In this work, space appears infinite, like an endless desert. The atmosphere is dense and oppressive, yet also penetrated by strong, warming light.

Label from Picasso: The Artist and His Models, November 5, 2016–February 19, 2017