Chilean-born Matta (1911-2002) was a leading figure in Expressionist and Surrealist art. He worked with Salvador Dalí, André Breton and Max Ernst and his work influenced the early Abstract Expressionist painters.
Robilant + Voena’s exhibition, On the Edge of a Dream, brings together 12 paintings he produced between 1943-69.
Early works such as Children’s Fear of Idols (1943) are included from Matta’s Inscapes series (also known as Psychological Morphologies). In the series he incorporated delicate washes of paint to create an intense rendering of space, showcasing techniques and concepts used by Surrealist painters and the process of automatic painting. The series is understood as an expression of the internal psyche as a landscape.
In both the 1940s and ‘50s Matta’s paintings featured machine-like shapes merging in cosmic spaces and during the ‘60s he produced works that addressed Latin American political and social issues.
Matta had nearly 400 solo exhibitions during his lifetime and there is a show of his work planned at the Hermitage in 2018. His works appear in the Tate Modern and MoMA collections.
Around 270 galleries from more than 30 countries stand at this year’s Art Basel Miami Beach, which runs until December 10.
