Yves Tanguy

Step into the otherworldly landscapes of Yves Tanguy, a self-taught Surrealist who painted with the precision of a watchmaker and the imagination of a fever dream. A former merchant marine, Tanguy traded sea voyages for mental ones after a chance encounter with a Giorgio de Chirico painting. He then joined the Surrealist inner circle, becoming a fast friend of André Breton. His canvases are vast, silent worlds populated by smooth, biomorphic forms that defy easy explanation. Are they alien flora, fossilized creatures, or something dredged from the deepest trenches of the subconscious? Tanguy himself remained tight-lipped about their meaning. Rumor has it he was a man of peculiar habits. One such story claims he wore a beloved, worn-out cap as a creative talisman, replacing it with an identical one the moment it wore out to keep his artistic mojo flowing. Childlike and unpretentious, he also painted a pair of earrings for Peggy Guggenheim, though she smudged one before it was dry.