Roberto Matta

ROBERTO MATTA (Santiago de Chile, 1911 - Civitavecchia, Italy, 2002).
Untitled.
Etching on paper, copy 49/75.
Signed and justified by hand.
Size: 38.5 x 29.5 cm (print); 67 x 50 cm (paper); 81.5 x 65.5 cm (frame).
Roberto Matta was an architect, poet, humanist and painter, whose works of surrealist and metaphysical inspiration illustrate a dreamlike world linked to modern technological civilisation. The son of a large family with a tendency towards the artistic world, greatly influenced by his maternal grandfather, he trained as an architect in Santiago de Chile and with Le Corbusier in Paris between 1934 and 1935, where he became friends with the painter Marcel Duchamp and Pablo Picasso. At the outbreak of World War II he moved to the United States, where he lived in New York from 1939 to 1948. There he met André Breton, Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy and André Masson, and his style had a decisive influence on the formulation of American Abstract Expressionism. Matta devoted himself to works in which he repeated depictions of volcanoes and earthquakes, all of them under the theme of the cosmic creation of nature. Matta's work added new dimensions to contemporary painting, despite his break - for unknown reasons - with the Surrealist movement in 1947. Settling in Rome, he continued to evolve his career during the 1950s. He travelled to South America, portraying and capturing the essence of the native peoples. Although he rejoined the surrealist world in 1959, he experimented with different forms of artistic expression, including video productions such as "Système 88", photography and other means of expression. In 1967 he moved to Tarquinia, Italy, varying his residence in long stays in Paris, London and New York. In 1971 he worked on a revolutionary air art, executing collective murals in the commune of La Granja. He is represented in the world's leading modern art galleries, such as the MoMA and the Metropolitan in New York, the Thyssen-Bornemisza and the Tate Gallery in London. Matta's style led him to become one of the most important artists of the 20th century, receiving high international distinctions including the National Art Prize from the Chilean Government.