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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