Dorothea Tanning

Born in the small town of Galesburg, Illinois, the life, and art of Dorothea Tanning (1910-2012) perfectly exemplifies the transnational spirit and nomadic practice of Surrealism, though it was all the harder an achievement for a woman. In Dorothea Tanning: A Surrealist World we travel with her across lived places and imagined spaces in Chicago, Arizona, Paris, Seillans, through to her final years in New York. Expertly drawn from extensive archival and curatorial research to map the artist’s life story across a seventy-year career, Alyce Mahon situates Tanning at the very heart of avant-garde discussions on art and philosophical ideas. She explores how this circle of relationships informed Tanning’s work at critical moments of her career and how she navigated the difficulty of being the wife of a male artist already established on the international stage. Mahon demonstrates how Tanning’s work expanded post-war global Surrealism in offering a world of kaleidoscopic, constantly shifting perspectives.