Dorothea Tanning


Fascinating exhibition at Tate Modern looking at the life and work of Dorothea Tanning.

I was stunned in this show to realise that Tanning lived to be 101 was working for most of that life. She seemed to span different art worlds, from being a detailed surrealist in the 1930s to an expressive contemporary artist as the last work in the show was from 1997.

I loved her interest in doors in her early work and the hyper realistic way she painted them. She even included the edge of a real door in one of her later works from 1984.  I liked the early self-portrait where she opens a door onto a corridor of other doors. I think they represent the hidden and the revealed but the leaflet says there were “portals to the unconscious”. Like Dali she was a fantastic painter.

The pictures were explained well in the commentaries but I would have liked a bit more on some of them as they were complex works. I liked the inclusion of the early graphic work she did for Macey’s and the ballet designs from the 1940s and 50s.

The later works were much looser and more expressive. Although they were fairly abstract I found the effect was of Renaissance paintings being large, colourful pictures flowing with paint. I didn’t quite understand the soft sculptures although I can see that they fit the same aesthetic as the later paintings.

Closes on 9 June 2019

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