Roberto MATTA
Born in 1911 in Santiago (Chile). Died in 2002 in Civitavecchia (Italy).
Painter, architect, sculptor and poet, he moved to France in 1993 to work in the studio of Le Corbusier. On a trip to Spain, he bonded with Garcia Lorca; in Scandinavia, with Alvaar Alto; and in London, with Moore, Penrose and Magritte.
At Salvador Dali’s suggestion, he went to see André Breton, “They qualified me as ‘surrealist’ and I didn’t know what that meant!”
In 1939, his newly-formed friendship with Tanguy marked an important stage in his work, “psychological morphologies”.
To escape the War, he left for New York to join Duchamp and invited Pollock to his studio. In October 1948, he was excluded from the surrealist group and returned to Chile. There he took part in all of the so-called revolutionary causes before settling permanently in Italy for the rest of his life.
Caption:
Totem , Séville – 1990
Pendentif – Gilded silver inspired by the Aztecs
18 x 3.3 cm
Prototype for a unique piece in gold in the collection of Federica Matta
Coll. Diane Venet
