+ Expand
Artist or Maker: Dorothea Tanning (b. 1910)
+ Expand
Provenance: Blaise Gauthier, Paris, by whom received from the artist in 1974.
Mrs. Blaise Gauthier, by descent from the above.
Private collection, Paris.
+ Expand
Notes: THE PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE FRENCH COLLECTOR
A fur-lined box containing teeth and a razor-blade, Boîte-objet manages to combine fashion, domesticity-- and threat. The box itself appears to be fun and furry, as though it could contain a child's keepsakes. And yet, on opening, Boîte-objet is disturbing in violence. This is introduced both by the teeth and the blade, and is likewise implied in the fact that these extracted teeth are present in the first place, like strange psychotic trophies. In her sculptures, Dorothea Tanning took soft materials and sewed them into various forms, turning traditionally female crafts and materials into offensive and subversive weapons. This subversive content is accentuated by the fact that Boîte-objet is a clear reference to the vagina dentata, which was itself a source of fascination to Surrealists such as her husband, Max Ernst. It is therefore perhaps all the more significant that Boîte-objet features rabbit skin; not only are rabbits famed for their prodigious mating habits, but this also heightens the tension between life and death, and indeed sex and death, that lends this work its intense visual and visceral power.
The Objet surréaliste had been a central element in the output of many of the artists associated with Surrealism since the 1920s. However, for Tanning, who had formerly focussed on painting (it was in an exhibition that included her own work in New York that she was to meet Ernst during the Second World War), it was only in 1969 that she began creating her sculptures; within a short amount of time she had assembled a significant oeuvre, including an entire room-sized, installation featuring several of her objects in the Musée national d'Art moderne in Paris which was introduced in 1974, the same year that a retrospective of her work was held in the French capital. It is no coincidence that it was that year that Tanning gave the present work to the celebrated French curator Blaise Gauthier, doubtless in recognition of his efforts.
No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.
