伊夫．唐吉 (1900-1955)

It is the present intention of the Yves Tanguy Committee to include this work in the revised catalogue raisonné, under preparation by the Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation.

Sans titre (Taille de guêpe) ('Untitled (Narrow Waist)') is an exquisite gouache painting made by Yves Tanguy during his years in America. Painted in 1945, it belongs to the period in which Tanguy first moved, with his wife, the American artist Kay Sage, into a large house in Woodbury, Connecticut. Tanguy was advised in this move by the artist Alexander Calder, a fellow resident of Connecticut in nearby Roxbury and someone with whom Tanguy worked closely and saw often during the wartime period. Tanguy and Calder undoubtedly influenced one another at this time and, interestingly, Calder went on record as saying to Tanguy that he should ‘put more red in his painting’ (Calder, quoted in Tanguy/Calder. Between Surrealism and Abstraction, exh. cat., New York, 2010, p. 65). With its distinctive, narrow, spiky, stone-like forms, colourfully climbing against a what appears to be a cloudy sky, the strong vermillions and scarlets on display in this work appear to suggest that Tanguy took Calder at his word.