Artwork
Untitled
Untitled is a gouache drawing by Yves Tanguy. It dates from 1942 and is held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art.
About this work
Overview
Created in 1942, this untitled work by Yves Tanguy consists of cut and pasted paper elements combined with gouache and pencil on a paper support. It is part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. The composition presents an ambiguous, dreamlike scene populated by elongated, amorphous figures that appear to hover against a muted gray backdrop.
Subject & Meaning
The drawing features tall, distorted silhouettes with elongated limbs and flattened heads, evoking a sense of weightlessness and instability.
The drawing features tall, distorted silhouettes with elongated limbs and flattened heads, evoking a sense of weightlessness and instability. Their forms do not correspond to recognizable objects, suggesting an interior, subconscious landscape rather than a literal narrative. The faint horizon line in the background hints at a vague spatial reference, reinforcing the work’s ambiguous, otherworldly atmosphere.
Technique & Style
Tanguy employed a mixed-media approach, assembling cut paper fragments that he then painted with opaque gouache, a matte water-based medium, and refined details with pencil. The resulting surface combines the tactile quality of collage with the flat, saturated color fields typical of his surrealist visual language. The soft gray ground and subtle tonal shifts emphasize the floating quality of the forms.
History & Provenance
The piece was produced during the early 1940s, a period when Tanguy was active in the New York surrealist circle. It entered the Museum of Modern Art’s holdings at an unspecified date and remains part of the institution’s permanent collection, where it is catalogued as an untitled drawing.
Artist & collection
Artist
Raymond Georges Yves Tanguy (5 January 1900 – 15 January 1955), known as just Yves Tanguy (; French: ), was a French Surrealist painter, known for his abstract landscapes.
