Wolfgang Paalen

Implicit Spaces May 17 – July 12, 2007 “The main concern is not to operate for eternity, but in eternity.” from Wolfgang Paalen´s scrapbook Voyage nord-ouest, Canada/Alaska 1939

Cover Image Wolfgang Paalen, Ciel de pieuvre (Octopus sky) Fumage and oil on canvas 1938 97 x 130 cm (38 1/4 x 51 1/4 in.)

More than half a century ago Wolfgang Paalen in the Bay Area Paalen worked and exhibited for some years together with his wife, Luchita, and their friends Gordon Onslow Ford, Jacqueline Johnson and Lee Mullican in Mill Valley. It was here in 1949 that he published his essay with the strange title Dynaton, in which he contemplated space and time, our changing image of the cosmos caused by the new physics, and what it meant for an artist to draw from a universe of the imaginable and no longer merely from the three known dimensions of the visible world. Jacqueline Johnson later wrote, “Paalen´s voice held the flashing presence of mystery where, as in childhood, it is central to all the threads of reality, of an identity to come, the clue of the concealed.”

In this way, Dynaton was formed as a small artists’ group. Onslow Ford consequently called him “the man of many possibilities.” For Lee he embodied, “the advent of the Lord of Prismatic Situations.” Jacqueline adored him as a, “man with a spark of nuclear presence.” And Luchita, his wife, called him “the most intriguing spirit possible, but the most impossible man to live with.” Each friend acknowledged his visionary genius. What nobody cared to acknowledge, was his melancholy, his manic depression. Luchita divorced him here in San Francisco to then marry his friend Lee Mullican. Paalen returned to Paris, and later moved on to Mexico, where he died in 1959 by his own hand. Dynaton was a short episode in the varied and adventurous life of this cultivated intellectual and simultaneously cheerful and sad artist, who was as unsuitable for everyday life as he was sensitive, who pursued the substance of life through his art. A man without a home or fixed destination, Paalen was born with an obsession with the transcendent and a gift for insight.

The San Francisco Museum of Art (the present-day San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) exhibited Paalen’s work along with the other members of Dynaton in a 1950 group show entitled A New Vision. Our gallery is honored to re-introduce this important artist to a new generation of American admirers through our Annex here in San Francisco.

Raman Frey and Wendi Norris May 2007

 Wolfgang Paalen´s Implicit Spaces by Andreas Neufert

In 1949 the great art critic Harold Rosen- tional Exhibition of Surrealism in the Palais berg observed that the new Abstract des Beaux Arts in Paris, where he installed Expressionist painters were lately inspired one of the firstenvironments beneath “by something they themselves have not Duchamp’s ceiling of empty sacks of yet seen.”1 How could legendary artists coal (Fig.1). It was composed of limp oak such as Motherwell, Pollock and Gorky leaves and a water-filled pond with actual have been inspired by the same premoni- water lilies and reeds. The opening began tion or intuition? The concept invoked by at 10 p.m., and the visitors reached the Rosenberg – a relationship between the intimidating grotto-like, mutated exhibition usual indeterminacy facing the painter and space using only the illumination afforded the power of forms taking their being from by flash lights distributed by Man Ray at the onlooker´s state of mind, as pictorial the entrance. They passed initially through language, was in fact the most urgently a corridor lined with remodelled shop- discussed issue in 1940’s New York. window dummies. Around midnight in the Those millimeters between the visible and crazy gleam of the pale light cones, the invisible turned out to be miles, whole di- visitors witnessed the dancing shimmer mensions leading to an entirely new idea of of a sparsely dressed girl who suddenly space. This space was supposed to reflect arose from the reeds, jumped on a bed, the open, implicit part of matter itself, what abruptly lapsed into hysterical shrieks Aristotle had called kata tó dynaton (what - Dalí’s idea -, and disappeared just as potentially is). Implicitness and contin- quickly. Due to the strange lighting, the Fig.3 Wolfgang Paalen, La Balance, 1937 gency became key terms in the lexicon exhibition’s topics functioned rather as a Franz and Ann von Braun, Munich of post-war painting, and these terms distillate of art, focusing predominantly on were introduced by one man alone, the each work’s reciprocal relationship with the Colle in May of the same year (Fig.3). Bret- painter and theorist Wolfgang Paalen. The on and Duchamp eventually perceived and agitated Paalen had been restlessly driving encouraged these paintings as a mysteri- to set the stage for this artistic upheaval. ous darkness, the understated warnings of He exhibited only two times in New York, a Romantic who appeared to refer to his in 1940 at the Julien Levy Gallery and in feelings as his only objective. But perhaps 1945 at Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of this they did not expect that this vision would Century, but his art magazine DYN would emerge only shortly later as a large-scale turn out to be the most influential messen- project conceived by a highly reflective art- ger of ideas before the war had ended. ist who evidently felt secure enough to give painting and its moral impact a completely It was in Paris in January 1938, where we new foundation. met the Viennese born painter Wolfgang Paalen for the first time, prominently vis- In pre-war Paris these fumages brought Paalen a great amount of recognition. He had exhibitions and friendships with the most illustrious personalities of the time. But he was restless, addicted to constant movement, to new beginnings. Success to him was like a mirror of fake images lead- ing nowhere. Truth lay by the wayside, hid- Fig.2 La Housse, Paalen´s decorated doll, Paris den in presumptions. At length the threat 1938. Photo Man Ray of war and his premonitions of it presented viewer and his own emotional receptivity. a sufficient occasion for him to leave the And when the excited visitors then started Surrealist nucleus in Paris. The inclination to illuminate themselves with their torches, came quickly and then evolved into plans the transformation was complete and each to go to America. His pictures at the time appeared as a work of art him or herself. were nurtured by a child’s incomprehen- sible feelings and he saw reality as a kind Here art functioned as a medium-like of screen or filter, made to coincide more mirror of hallucinations: the doll Paalen or less with his inner images; he wanted to decorated and Man Ray documented in experience their value as a world-creating photographs (Fig.2), with her silk scarf, force and to express this process in his Fig.1 Paalen in his Environment for the Surrealist the bat above her head, and the eerie leaf art. Paalen would, from that point forward, Exhibition, Paris 1938. Photo Denise Bellon dress covered with mushrooms, resembles exist in the context of a world-maker, not ible in the Surrealist group that gathered the scarcely visible, hovering and gliding as one who absorbs the world or even around the French poet André Breton. totemistic fairy creatures of Paalen’s paint- transforms it. Together with Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray ings. He exhibited these works, painted and Salvador Dalí he was among those with ephemeral traces of candle smoke In May 1939, as the first of the Surrealists responsible for the design of the Interna- and oil, in the Surrealist gallery Renou et in Paris with thoughts of going into exile,

 Paalen set course for the New World. – something outside of linear time – dor- Accompanied by his wife Alice and their mant in the memory of the human race friend Eva Sulzer, he boarded the ship to for millennia before he stumbled across New York not long after the opening of his them. Humanity itself seemed a mere knot solo show at Peggy Guggenheim’s gallery in the huge weave of time. In his painting in London. After encountering several intel- Paysage totémique, ancient footprints lectuals, artists and gallerists and paying appear in an endless snowy desert, from a visit to the Museum of the American whose depths tremendous fairy beings Indian in New York, he again departed, but reveal themselves (Fig.7). Shivery lines in not as planned to Mexico where he had the shape of lightning. Standing before the been invited by the Mexican painter Frida painting we experience them with the eyes Kahlo. As though drawn by an invisible force, he crossed the Canadian mainland by train and reached Vancouver in June. As Hitler and Stalin shook hands over their Fig.6 Alaskan lake. non-aggression pact in Europe, and as a Photo Eva Sulzer, 1939 consequence numerous American artists and intellectuals such as Mark Rothko and to observe the last rays of a culture with Adolph Gottlieb abandoned the Commu- more gleaming strangeness in a nature of nist American Artists’ Congress in public unconquerable wildness,” this in a letter to 2 protest, Paalen undertook an extensive Breton in Paris. Alaska had its cold lakes expedition through the Indian reservations in the twilight of dawn, the woods of the of the north-western coast together with north-western coast, dead trees in grey his two companions. During his forays underwood overgrown with moss with through the “dusk of British Columbia” he crows resting on them. The place was a Fig.8 House front of a Tlingit Shakes chief, collected in Wrangell by Paalen 1939 was overcome, as he said, by “the feel- setting straight from the German Romantic ing of a long march through a seclusion, painter Casper David Friedrich, but with of someone who may have walked there deeper than that of a forest, allowing us Indian reminiscences, natural totem poles an infinite time ago: a moment is paused cutting through the infinite space like the that may only last a split second, and still calls of the buzzards (Fig.4,5,6). All these opens the floodgates to eternity. primal scenes reminded him of those that emerged from his childlike imagination. In Wrangell he made, with the help of And beyond the coast, in the slow trains a local tradesman, one of the most of the Canadian Railway Company he spectacular ethnological discoveries of traveled from Winnipeg, Jasper, across the the time: a larger-than-life mural that had Skeena River to Prince Rupert, and from served as the door-façade of the Tlingit there across the Alexander Archipelago, Shakes-chief’s house depicting the semi- the Kwakiutl Islands, up to Ketchikan and abstract image of a tremendous standing Sitka. With a seaplane he flew through the bear mother, onto whose head and limbs,

Fig.4 Alice Rahon-Paalen, Wrangell (Alaska). Photo Eva Sulzer 1939

Fig.7 Wolfgang Paalen, Paysage totémique 1937, Harold and Gertrud Parker, Tiburon

morning, the break of day, up to Juneau and Wrangell, and everywhere realized his own premonitions – He had already painted these scenes. His pictures and these landscapes seemed to him to have Fig.9 Paalen in Coyacan, Mexico. existed long before he invented and dis- Photo Eva Sulzer 1940 covered them for himself. Childhood or the Fig.5 Totem in British-Columbia. present moment, they were merely projec- faces with half human, half animal features Photo Eva Sulzer 1939 tions of a much older primordial landscape were painted, and who fixed a challeng-

 ingly silent but simultaneously question- same year, Trotzky was killed with an ice Pollock, Adolphe Gottlieb, Barnett New- ing gaze on the viewer (Fig.8). Using her pick in a repeated assassination attempt man and Robert Motherwell saw Paalen’s paws, she raised herself like a threatening ordered by Stalin. Paalen retreated more fumages painted in Paris for the first time, monster, but nonetheless received her and more into his newly built studio in he retreated more and more into solitude visitors with a laughing face, spreading San Angel, where he had installed the in Mexico. “He writes, he paints without her legs and exposing her open womb. monstrously inviting bear on the back intermission, he reads instead of sleeping Paalen was impelled to buy this work of wall of the high studio space. In front of it and still has the feeling of not achieving intriguing ambivalence. He had it sent to hung a huge stuffed whale penis that he anything, he has crisis of terrible misery Mexico ahead of himself, where he then had acquired - eventually concealed from and melancholy, cruel doubts about what the eyes of the ladies - in Wrangell as well he is doing – and what remains to be (Fig.11).3 In this archetypally arranged done,” wrote his anxious wife Alice to female-male installation, the bear mother Breton in New York.6 In the spring of 1942 apparently assumed the part of the oracle- the amazed and surprised New York art sphinx, and seemed to inspire his mind in world witnessed the result of this work every sense. Since his early youth, Paalen – the art journal DYN (derived from the had taken an interest in maternal religions, Greek Dynaton, meaning that which is and when in 1943 in his great essay Totem possible) (Fig.12). In its first issue Paalen Art4 he attempted to shake Sigmund publicly announced to his friend Breton Freud’s entire construct of totemism, the his Farewell to Surrealism.7 In the second horror of incest and father-murder, the issue he scandalized his former advocate bear mother was standing behind Paalen’s again by publishing a Survey on Dialecti- argumentation as the silent partner in his cal Materialism and an article with the dialogue. From his workplace, in front of provocative title The Dialectical Gospel.8 this compellingly alien artwork, he passed The survey consisted of a set of three his ideas with an adventurous wing from questions sent to two dozen outstand- Fig.10 International Surrealist Exhibition 1940, Galeria de Arte Mexicano, Mexico-City totemism to cubism on to the young paint- ing scholars and writers by his editorial ers and sculptors in New York in 1944: department, and the statements of those arrived in September 1939, shortly after “Nothing will ever be more moving than who answered. In a provocative and the outbreak of World War II. Frida Kahlo the intimate conversation between man straightforward way Paalen enquired after and Diego Riviera awaited him at the and animal in the totemic dawn, greater the academic validity of the philosophy of airport and accompanied him to Coyoa- than the theocratic solarization of Egypt, Marx and Engels, about the outcome of can, where he initially settled down in quite (...) more audacious than Greek art, more their science and the universal applicability symbolic proximity to the houses of Frida ardent than the glacial fire of the Byzantine of its logical laws. Half of the addressees Kahlo and the most important authority of mosaics. (...) And the pure Cubist constel- sent a reply, amongst them Albert Einstein, academic socialism, Leon Trotzky (Fig.9). Clement Greenberg, Pierre Mabille and the In 1940 Paalen opened a large Surrealist English Philosopher Bertrand Russel. The exhibition in the new spaces of the Galeria majority answered all of the questions with a decided if sometimes tentatively regretful No. Far from the events in Oxford, only Bertrand Russel dared to express straight- forwardly what everyone may have been thinking: “I think the metaphysics of both Hegel and Marx plain nonsense - Marx´s claim to be ‘science’ is no more justified than Mary Baker Eddy´s.”9 However, the most conspiscous of those who did not answer was, as was to be expected, André Breton.

For a long time now, the table, the tree, the ground under his feet had been to Paalen accumulations of wildly swirling particles allowing him, considered on a Fig.12 Paalen´s DYN 1, Mexico April 1942 microphysical level, to reach deep into and through them. And his paintings reflect a lations will shine always for those who dream world of disintegrating matter with Fig.11 Paalen´s Studio in San Angel (Mexico), leave for an expanse, whose maps are still fibrous figures shooting into great heights ca. 1941. Photo Paalen Estate to be made, whose depths are still to be before the eye and an earth shattering like sounded: the new space.“5 ice in front of the viewer. Paalen’s great de Arte Mexicano, which he had organized fumages from 1938, like Taches solaires together with the Peruvian poet César After his first solo show at New York’s (Cat. #11), demonstrate the shock of a Moro and Breton, who remained in Paris Julien Levy Gallery, on which occasion the sudden awakening, and they are studies for the moment (Fig.10). In August of the American artists William Baziotes, Jackson of various kinds of twilight, of a pre-world,

 the presumption being that matter consists from his remote exile in Mexico. His aim 1943, and communicated almost weekly of light grown heavy and that objects was to initiate nothing less than a tabula with him in letters between 1942 and are, in reality, swollen shadows filling the rasa, a complete revision of Modernism, to 1945, ardently publicized his ideas in New room like liquid gas. They are reflections end the searing paralysis controlling artists York until 1948, very quickly forgetting how of the surface of the daydreaming eye, as at the end of the 1930’s. Via his journal much he owed the Austrian during his very if the eye itself would look with a powerful published in Mexico between 1942 and successful period in the 1950’s.11 The fact macrolens onto solid matter itself, out of 1944 with a total of 5 issues he temporar- that Paalen’s ideas are accepted today which all phenomena appear. These fum- ily became the most influential art theorist by almost every historian as influential, if ages evoke a filmy play of smoke-traces, during the war and in his work as editor not fundamental to the nimbus of theories of lines, painted with the back of the brush had the opportunity to fully develop his dominating the climate in New York dur- into the wet blue, green and red amorphic intellectual abilities. In seven large essays ing the 1940’s, merely emphasizes their forms, as if painting were nothing more and countless smaller articles and reviews poignancy, resoluteness and clarity, and than a resonance of inner apparitions and he discussed in detail all the current hot this late recognition remains in retrospect the light would come from behind them topics that also concerned the young art- an impressive document of the vast effect to warn us that all we witness is also ists in New York, and in response received of these ideas on the creative atmosphere concealing the unrealized, the thinkable, their full attention. With the exception of of an entire era. But as a person he seems the possible. Totem Art, all essays were later repub- nevertheless a paintre maudit, a willingly lished under the title Form and Sense by forgotten issue. Who was he, what drove In spite of all these obvious intentions in Robert Motherwell in New York. him? his work, he wanted at this point to get to the bottom of the obstinacy inherent In pre-war Paris artists like Paalen, acting in materialist concepts of being, because together with writers, buyers and sellers he knew that new principles of thought of primitive art, advisors and organizers of would also generate a new form of art, exhibitions and as amateur philosophers, an art that no longer forced the individual were especially respected and welcome into the service of a sublime idea. But this (Fig.14). And so Breton took a great inter- whole debate went decidedly too far for est in the young Paalen not only because Breton. Breton continued to express faith of his aristocratic air, but also because of in Hegel and Marx to whom all possibili- his unusual and impressive verbal skills ties were immediately manifest and were with which he could objectify the violent therefore in the end nothing more than countable elements of nature, and in the preface of Breton’s art magazine VVV it Fig.14 Paalen in his apartment in Paris, ca. 1932. Photo Paalen Archive Berlin

This was the first issue of the series of writings titled Problems of Contemporary Art in which the first papers of the later Ab- stract Expressionists were also published, similar to the groundbreaking Possibili- ties, published shortly thereafter (Fig.13). Paalen’s short sojourns in New York and the two solo exhibitions with Julien Levy in 1940 and Peggy Guggenheim in 1945 made him known as a painter in artists’ circles, however his predominant absence from the New York art scene and the wide reception of DYN and Form and Sense fostered his image as a kind of intellectual secret agent primarily exerting indirect influence on events through his intensely discussed ideas. Furthermore, his separa- tion from Breton over the delicate debate Fig.15 Wolfgang Paalen with his father Gustav in Berlin, late twenties. Photo Paalen Estate Fig.13 Paalen´s Form and Sense, New York 1945 on principles concerning Marxism made it easier for the young American artists to was categorically argued: We reject the lie avoid acknowledging Paalen. The knowl- inner convulsions of his crystalline mind. of an open Surrealism, in which anything is edge was dawning to this Ur-American With a predisposition towards manic possible.”10 generation, that self-determination, the depression Paalen could be overcome by articulation of ideas accredited to each of an exuberant enthusiasm and was able Paalen was an altogether singular char- them, would be crucial for the develop- to create a sudden spirit of elation in the acter. He seemed predestined to take ment of each of their independent careers. circle of his friends just as quickly as he advantage of the atmosphere of change, Robert Motherwell, who spent several could lapse into bottomless sadness or of the limitless possibilities in New York, months with Paalen in Mexico in 1941 and totally crush his respective opponent with

 razor-sharp criticism. He seemed to pos- positions and visual experiences better Paalen’s DYN had already been published sess Kafka’s seismographic sensitivity and than others. So did, in the beginning, by this time, encouraging the busy and Wittgenstein’s philosophic rigorousness, Robert Motherwell. During the loose agile Matta in his plans for an art magazine and in New York, a city fraught with myths, collaboration with DYN, the philosophy of his own. While these plans came to was even at times compared to T.E. Law- graduate Motherwell lobbied in turn for nothing, Matta did hold a workshop lasting rence when it came to his appearance and several American contemporaries, first several weeks in which he tried to teach visionary presence.12 One thing is certain: and foremost for Baziotes, Holtzman and Pollock, Lee Krasner, Motherwell and his views distinguished him from the circle Pollock, whose pictures were published in Baziotes his views on automatism. How- of his contemporaries long before he went DYN 6 in 1944 for the first time ever. Up to ever, the mere demonstration of Surrealist into exile and turned him into a special the mid-forties, Motherwell was primarily techniques was already well known – the case in the story of modernity and its associated with the European Surrealists American artists had all made their own history, a story which still struggles to give and only established a close relationship experiments with similar techniques, and him an adequate place, not least due to with Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman when Matta turned to Paalen’s fumage the fact that it knows too little both of his in 1945. The so-called Guggenheim Circle life and of his work. of the Surrealists, devoted to intense discussion of all Surrealist and counter- Paalen was a man from Central Europe, Surrealist theories, gained an important without a home, but with an eccentric addition with the young Americans, and pedigree consisting of Jewish parvenu Motherwell seemed to have functioned nobility, Viennese and Berlin bohemia and as Paalen´s mouthpiece while Paalen was German romanticism. He was burdened absent in Mexico. During these discus- with one significant real life issue, art, and sions, an old schism between Matta and dealing with this issue seems to have Paalen concerning the concept of space kept him alive. His father, a successful deepened. The Chilean painter Roberto Jewish tradesman and impresario, was Matta joined Breton as his youngest recruit originally amongst the most distinguished in 1937 and, right from the start, seemed men of the declining KK Monarchy and to compete with Paalen, who had played the dazzling but short heyday of Berlin the part of the favored and most promising in the Twenties (Fig.15). His father likely Benjamin before Matta’s arrival. In New suffered impoverishment and escape from York these dynamics came up again and Fig.17 Ad Reinhardt, How to look at a cubist painting?, Cartoon 1952 the Nazis, and finally mental derangement would figure into Surrealism´s most inter- and suicide. At the age of 16, Wolfgang esting new developments, while the art of after demonstrating frottage and decalco- watched as his younger brother Hans the other young Surrealists emanated a mania, Pollock said in a bored tone: “I can Peter shot himself in the library. Literary do that without smoke.”15 Nevertheless, traces of the second youngest brother a close look into the workshop proves to Rainer Gustav are lost, as are those of be extremely revealing, keeping in mind his family, in Berlin in 1942. Paalen met that Motherwell adamantly and effectively his brother only one last time before the defended Paalen’s ideas just shortly after war and later gives a vivid account of the having visited him in Mexico. Following Kantian precision with which during this the art historian Mattison in his study encounter he remembers the ghost ap- on this theme, “Motherwell talked about paritions of their childhood in the parents’ Paalen all of the time, he even brought manor in Silesia.13 Paalen’s own painting in Paalen’s magazine (…).” According was, from the beginning, a polyglot space to him they were unsuccessful because of apparitions, a search for resonances apt Matta still wanted to equip the pictures to take the particular forms and appear- with “precise draftsmanship and perspec- ances of the perceptions of children, and tive” beyond automatism. “Combined with charged by a strange, Romantic-Existen- his attempt to control the artists and his tialist hope. He never overcame the loss of Fig.16 Galeria de Arte Mexicano at Paalen´s opening arcane metaphysical ideas“, too many in 1945 with Les premiers spaciales his brother, and inwardly he was confined conflicts remained, resulting in everyone by the guilt of the survivor. His childhood complacent contentedness, resting close going again their separate ways.16 Ethel traumas, experiences, joys, fears and to the older masters’ laurels. Even in exile Baziotes though recalled in an interview of visions, remained oppressively present little new was produced at first, due also 1990: “Paalen was very much discussed throughout his life. In the 1940’s, he told to a general change of attitude among the in the Forties and it rivalled the discussions his assistant Edward Renouf: “My whole Surrealists. Breton must have been all the of Matta. (..) He was in the air, and he was life is, to find my brother again”14 , and this more disappointed when Matta increas- also doing something revolutionary and search meant something like a recovery of ingly turned to the young Americans, as new.”17 Pollock’s painter friend Fritz Bult- that special ability to see, believed to be did Paalen, after the First Papers of Surre- man even went so far as to say: “It was lost, on which an entire world depended. alism – an exhibition conceived by Marcel Wolfgang Paalen who started it all”. 18 Duchamp in the autumn of 1942, the first Some of his male companions in spiritual collective show bringing together Surreal- Many of the New York artists, including the affairs might have fulfilled this search for ists and artists such as Baziotes, David Surrealists, were at this point familiar with a deep brotherly exchange of ideas, Hare and Motherwell. The third issue of Paalen’s great fumages, and some, among

10 them Baziotes and Pollock, had seen Pollock’s second show. Paalen remained This was always Jackson´s problem with Paalen’s first exhibition with Julian Levy in with his second wife Luchita as a guest reality, both in life and on the canvas: it 1940. To them the change of style must of the Motherwell´s, and hoped to found changed too much too often; it vibrated have been a great surprise. Paintings such his own group with his friend. That winter with too many possibilities to be registered as Les premiers spaciales (Fig.16) were set Baziotes, Motherwell and Rothko all had with clarity and precision.“24 Even more entirely in a new pictorial space, because their first solo shows at Guggenheim´s revealing is the ideological context mani- they concentrated on pictorially immanent gallery. Rothko´s show with figurative-Sur- fest in Pollock’s sudden decision to spread means: Rhythm, light and colour. They realistic pictures had closed shortly before, the canvas on the floor and thereby, as transformed the rhythmical appearance and he was beginning to move conceptu- it were, turn himself into the eye’s body: of the fumage imprints into a neo-Cubist ally toward a phase in which, according by doing this, the last borderline of the rhythm, which Paalen then compared with to his biographer, “both self and painting subject in the picture was obliterated and the fugue and jazz, through a mosaic-like are now fields of possibilities - an effect by actively seeing, the viewer transforms fracture and complementary contrasts. conveyed (..) by the creation of protean, into that anonymous personality, that was He wanted to create the atmosphere of a indeterminate shapes whose multiplicity is central to Paalen’s research during his re- deeply moving, gripping encounter with let be.“20 sumption of Cubism (Fig.18). Maybe it was beings that themselves remained silent. Clement Greenberg who understood this There is no action, no metamorphosis in Paalen’s ideas can today be rediscovered most notably when he said in retrospect: them and nothing happens with them in in statements made by the American art- “I don’t think it is going too far to say that the space. The picture itself is the being, or ists in the first and only issue of the maga- Pollock’s drip technique of 1946-50 really a frozen resonance of it. Precisely because zine Possibilities, published by Motherwell picked up analytical Cubism at the point of this total silence, every topical expecta- and Harold Rosenberg in continuative where Picasso and Braque had left it.”25 tion put to these pictures is reflected as analogy to DYN in the winter of 1947/48 a question. In a cartoon published by Ad in New York. In the foreword the editors The natural consequence of vision forced Reinhardt in the forties, Paalen’s sugges- into a plain of endless linear layers and tion from Form and Sense was repeated: circular movements is the enlargement of “Paintings no longer represent; it is no the canvas to a format in front of which longer the task of art to answer naive the viewer himself is dwarfed. The viewer questions. Today it has become the role of assumes the position of what Paalen had the painting to look at the spectator and visualized in his Cosmogones as the men- ask him: what do you represent?”19 and tal drama of appearance and disappear- thereby conveyed the new direction that ance. But the scope remained the same: painters were expected to follow (Fig.17). to perceive oneself as a large, infinite space, to lose identity in something that Paalen understood his Cosmogones as is, for us, possibly the most foreign entity: a kind of pictorial version of the ancient the cosmic space, which is to be opened choros tragicos, the tragic chorus, in ourselves. Paalen´s voyage through conceived in Nietzsche’s writing on The the world of modern painting is charged Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music. with the arcane existential hope that - like It was the deepest existential foundation his ideal viewers - we all might be able to of reality in which he was interested. The Fig.18 Jackson Pollock dripping 1953. stand naked (in a symbolic sense) in front anonymous person imparts through the Photo Hans Namuth of our own infinity without fear. encounter with the idea of what it means to be. The Cosmogones are supposed to asserted the “greatest trust in pure pos- Andreas Neufert is an art historian, writer present themselves, they are not meant to sibility” and pointed out the necessity to and curator based in Berlin. He published narrate or declare anything, but rather ap- radically widen the concept of art in times an intellectual biography and catalogue pear and disappear like a hallucination in of political depression.21 To Willem de raisonné on Wolfgang Paalen “Im Inneren order to align the viewer towards the event Kooning, the concept of the possible im- des Wals, Vienna (Springer) 1999” and that is essential to him, nobody except plied “a wonderful uncertain atmosphere”. runs a semi-public archive with various the self can know. This empathetic impact 22 In the same issue, Rothko wrote in his activities linked to the intellectual legacy proved to be interesting to the Americans. text The Romantics were prompted: “(..)In of this artist and thinker (www.paalen- They grasped particularly a new matrix of the work of art which has inspired him, the archiv.com) a radical textual implicitness and a strong artist has caught a glimpse of not yet real- moral demand on the viewer. Although it ized possibilities, he has become aware of became common practice after 1947, until the mythological depths only a fraction of then, nobody had placed so much respon- whose rich store has been so far revealed, sibility on the viewer as Paalen did with his and which he dares to think a keener rhetoric and pictorial language. glance might yet embrace in its totality (..).”23 This applied especially to Jackson During these years, Paalen visited New Pollock’s first drip paintings, of which York many times, for instance to install Steven Naifeh said in his Pollock biogra- his exhibition at Peggy Guggenheim’s phy: “What seemed static to most people gallery Art of this Century, which opened meant a veil of perspectives and possibili- on April 17, 1945 immediately following ties for Jackson´s hyperactive imagination. Translated from the German by Eva Wilson

11 Footnotes

1. Harold Rosenberg in a short text to the an undated fragmentary letter of Paalen´s, 1949 exhibition Intrasubjectives at Samuel which miraculously survived the mutual Kootz´ gallery in New York, reprinted in: “gentleman´s agreement” in Motherwell´s Robert Motherwell and Ad Reinhardt estate (Dedalus Foundation New York) (editors), Modern Artists in America, No.1, referring to various corrections in Paalen´s New York (Wittenborn/Schultz) 1951, book Form and Sense, which Motherwell p.174 published as the first in theProblems of Contemporary Art series. 2. Wolfgang Paalen, letter to André Breton, May 1939, Paris Bibliothèque Douzet. 12. In remembrance of a party in New York in 1940, Ethel Baziotes said in an 3. In his diaries of 1939 Paalen speaks interview with Amy Winter in 1990, “I will of an “undefinable object, which I first never forget the way he appeared (..) and thought to be a piece of a chaok. (..) He I feel Paalen and Lawrence are the same (the tradesman) later reveals it as whale kind of men, tremendously unique, with penis, what he couldn´t have said to me very intense and private visions.” in: Amy in presence of the ladies (sic).” Wolfgang Winter, Wolfgang Paalen, DYN and the Paalen, Voyage Nord-Ouest, published American Avantgarde of the 40’s, p.49f. in: Pleine Marge No.20, Paris, December 1994, p.29 13. Wolfgang Paalen, ’Paysage totémique’ (III), DYN 3, 1942, p.27. 4. Wolfgang Paalen, Totem Art, in: DYN 4-5 (Amerindian Number), Mexico 1943, 14. Edward Renouf to Martica Sawin, June p. 7ff. 1987, cited in M. Sawin, Surrealism in Exile (London and Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 5. Wolfgang Paalen, On the Meaning of 1995), p. 253. Cubism Today, DYN 6, Mexico 1944, p. 6. 15. cit.a. Steven Naifeh, Jackson Pollock: 6. Letter from Alice Rahon to André An American Saga, London 1990, p.427 Breton, Mexico 1941, Paris, Bibliothèque Douzet 16. cit.a. Amy Winter, op.cit., p.579

7. Wolfgang Paalen, Farewell au 17. cit.a. Amy Winter, op.cit., p.579 surréalisme, DYN 1, 1942, p.26. 18. cit.a. Steven Naifeh, op.cit., p.534 8. Wolfgang Paalen, Inquiry on Dialectical Materialism, The Dialectical Gospel, in: 19. Wolfgang Paalen, in: Foreword to Form DYN 2, Mexico 1942 and Sense, Problems of Contemporary Art I, New York (Wittenborn & Company) 9. op.cit., p.52 1945, p.6; the cartoon is taken from Ad Reinhardt´s series How to look at a cubist 10. L. Abel, It Is Time to Pick the Iron painting, published in New York in the early Rose, VVV, No.1, New York, June 1942, fifties. p. 2 20. James E.B.Breslin, Mark Rothko: A 11. In a letter to the author dated October Biography, Chicago and London 1993, 16, 1986 Robert Motherwell gives the p.378 impression that he knew Paalen only briefly, that they had a gentleman´s 21. Robert Motherwell and Harold agreement not to look and talk about Rosenberg, Editorial Statement, in: their paintings and to destroy the letters Possibilities I, New York 1947 they had written to each other during the forties. He reported that his German 22. Ann Gibson, cited by Amy Winter, assistant “had destroyed the letters (of op.cit., p.611f. Paalen) without my authorization. Without them my memory of the period is rather 23. Mark Rothko, The Romantics were dim...” In a letter to Gordon Onslow prompted..., in: Possibilities I, New York Ford, dated October 2, 1984 Motherwell 1947, p.84, 91 expresses his “hope your Paalen file contain no letters by me,” and refers to 24. Steven Naifeh, op.cit., p.537 the same agreement. (letters in Paalen Archive Berlin and Lucid Art Foundation 25. Clement Greenberg, cit.a. Steven Inverness). Their close collaboration Naifeh, op.cit., p.535 throughout these years is documented in

12 13 Scene from Dostoyevsky´s novel The Brothers Karamazov black ink on folded paper This is an early, highly expressive work period, when Paalen himself had to fight 25 x 35 cm (9 3/4 x 13 3/4 in) from Paalen’s Berlin period. The last with questions of guilt after witnessing his signed Paalen (lower right) scene of Dostoyevsky’s famous novel brother’s sudden suicide. lower left inscribed: Die unwirkliche inspired this steady pen and ink drawing. Zusammenkunft. Karamassoff beim The mystic Staretz Sossima speaks to Staretz Sossima. Illustrationsentwurf the family about the guilt of the three zu Dostojewskis “Karamassoff” (The brothers in their father Karamazov’s death. unreal meeting with Staretz Sossima, Questions about God’s existence, the Draft for an illustration of Dostojewskijs meaning of sin and the various characters’ “Karamassoff”) dealings with these themes fill almost executed ca. 1922 every page of the novel. Dostoyevsky’s opulent ideas and harsh realism describe Wolfgang Paalen Archiv No. 22.01 the complex emotions and thoughts of his characters, outlined in the present Provenance: drawing by Paalen. Passages in the book Charlotte Weiler, Berlin; Private are often described as the first modern Collection, Germany example of the pulsating space between text and reader. The reader would forget Literature: the author and become absorbed in Andreas Neufert, Wolfgang Paalen, identifying with the characters, the book Im Inneren des Wals, Wien/New York successfully invoking the reader’s own (Springer) 1999, reproduced on page 4 contemplative yearnings. If this drawing marks the beginning of our exhibition, then it also hints at the origin of the modern implicit space in Dostoyevsky’s literature, in which Paalen developed great interest in his youth. The drawing falls into a

Untitled (La offerte II) oil/tempera on cardboard Literature: try to find a new entry point into the 18 x 29 cm (7 x 11 1/2 in) Catalogue, Wolfgang Paalen - Zwischen debate around the pure, absolute form, signed (upper right) Paalen, verso Surrealismus und Abstraktion - Eine predominating in the purist discourses title and dedication à Jean Arp bien Retrospektive Vienna 1993, p. 93 around Mondrian. They show a hazy amicalement, Paalen 1933 (illustrated in color) world of ambiguous forms inviting the eye executed in 1933 Catalogue, Wolfgang Paalen to think about their possible meanings. Retrospectiva, Mexico 1994, p. 90 Paalen remained committed to the reality Paalen Archiv No. 33.02 (illustrated in color) of painting without any symbolisms. Andreas Neufert, Wolfgang Paalen - Im Nevertheless, the work of this period Provenance: Inneren des Wals, Vienna/New York evokes outlandish archaic forms that echo Hans Arp, Paris; Hans Reichel, Munich; (Springer) 1999, p. 58 (illustrated in a primeval world between what is possible Von König collection, Starnberg; Private color), Catalogue Raisonné no. 33.02, and what is real, a reality in which the Collection, Berlin illustrated p. 279 beheld is changed, because and in relation Andreas Neufert, Wolfgang Paalen, The to how it is being seen. Paalen also Exhibition: painter as Thinker and Visionary, Edition reacted verbally and vehemently against Museum Moderner Kunst - Stiftung Galerie Doebele, Dresden 2001, p. 33 the dogmas of non-figurative painting in Ludwig, Vienna 1993 (illustrated in color) the Abstraction-Creation group, which Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Alvar y Catalogue, Felons, curated by Alan had defined itself under the guidance of Carmen T. Carrillo Gil, Mexico City 1994 Phelan, Dublin 2005 (illustrated) Piet Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg in Galerie Döbele, Dresden 2001 Catalogue, Der Surrealismus - ein ever sharper antagonism to Surrealism. Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin 2005 Traum, Ludwigshafen am Rhein 2008 And the ideas Paalen published in 1935, Wilhelm Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen (not printed yet) with an inquiry into the published work of am Rhein 2007/2008 (promised loan) Christian Zervos, resembles similar writings by Willem de Kooning, who derided the Since 1932 Paalen explores a biomorphic, comfort of pure forms in a talk given in the semi-abstract language. The paintings, Museum of Modern Art in 1952. watercolors and drawings of this period,

14 Scene from Dostoyevsky´s novel The Brothers Karamazov AN 22.01

Untitled (La offerte II) AN 33.02 Untitled Untitled watercolor on paper watercolor on paper 23 x 31 cm (9 x 12 in.) 23 x 31 cm (9 x 12 in.) signed Paalen (lower right) signed Paalen (lower right) executed in 1933 executed in 1933

Paalen Archiv No. P33.17 Paalen Archiv No. 33.22

Provenance: Provenance: Geo Dupin, Paris; Private Collection, Geo Dupin, Paris; Private Collection, Germany Germany

Exhibition: Exhibition: Galerie Döbele, Dresden 2001 Galerie Döbele, Dresden 2001 Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin 2005 Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin 2005

Literature: Literature: Andreas Neufert, Wolfgang Paalen, The Andreas Neufert, Wolfgang Paalen, The painter as Thinker and Visionary, Edition painter as Thinker and Visionary, Edition Galerie Döbele, Dresden 2001, p. 37 Galerie Döbele, Dresden 2001, p. 43 (illustrated in color) (illustrated in color) Catalogue, Felons, cur. by Alan Phelan, Catalogue, Felons, cur. by Alan Phelan, Dublin 2005 (illustrated) Dublin 2005 (illustrated)

Untitled pencil on paper In this drawing Paalen dashes off the 23 x 31 cm (9 x 12 in.) philosophical quintessence of the visual signed Paalen (lower right) language that preoccupied him between executed in 1933 1932 and 1934: there is no such a thing as an image without the thinking viewer. In Paalen Archiv No. P33.18 point of fact, the image is only thinkable. The viewer can visualize something highly Provenance: personal by means of its amorphous Geo Dupin, Paris; Private Collection, structure. The eyes of what appear to be Germany faces can tip over to assume those of fish, fish that are nothing more than open Exhibition: loops, should we care to see faces again. Galerie Döbele, Dresden 2001 These shapes point at a possible issue Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin 2005 within the logic of pictorial language, the idea that thought itself is the repository for Literature: all the possibilities of pictorial depictions. Andreas Neufert, Wolfgang Paalen, The The consequence seems simple, but is painter as Thinker and Visionary, Edition serious for the aesthetics of the following Galerie Döbele , Dresden epoch: The possible does not have to be 2001, p. 38 (illustrated in color) justified by the known1. Catalogue, Felons, cur. by Alan Phelan, Dublin 2005 (illustrated) 1. This drawing was made simultaneously with Paalen’s series called Phantoms (Catalogue Raisonné 33.18 - 20), in which Paalen experiments with cork and clay as plastic pictorial means, expanding his growing vocabulary of shapes into three-dimensional space.

16 Untitled AN 33.17

Untitled AN 33.22

Untitled AN 33.18 Paysage totémique oil on cardboard mounted on a board After his return from a voyage to Prague, covered with red textile Bohemia, and Silesia in the summer 1937, 27 x 16 cm (picture); 41 x 28 cm (board) Paalen worked on illustrations for the (10 1/2 x 6 1/4 in. (picture); 16 x 10 3/4 program for Alfred Jarry´s, Ubu Enchaine in in. (board)) the Theâtre de la Comédie Paris and some executed in 1937 drawings for F.X. Fornêret´s, Le Diamant de L’Herbe. In this context, some little oil Paalen Archiv No. 37.02 paintings without fumage were produced, such as the present work Paysage Provenance: totémique. This small painting shows the Private Collection, Paris genesis of the fairy-like figures of Paalen’s developing “soul-scapes” inspired by his Literature: childhood experiences with hallucinations, Andreas Neufert, Wolfgang Paalen - Im present also in Les Etrangers (1937). Inneren des Wals, Vienna/New York (Springer) 1999, Catalogue Raisonné no. 37.02, p. 293 (ill.)

Vol de moustiques (fumage) black and white ink/fumage on paper Fumages are painted expressions of the Already in 1936, Paalen contributed a 28 x 21 cm (10 3/4 x 8 1/2 in.) artist’s imagination initiated and inspired work called simply Drawing, done with signed with initials WP (lower right) by candle smoke. These “smoke-marks” a candle (Dessin, fait avec un bougie) to executed in 1938 also determined Paalen´s most important the International Exhibition of Surrealism works of this period in terms of visual in London´s New Burlington Galleries. Paalen Archiv No. 38.17 language and iconography. How deeply Autonomous fumages, either on paper or this procedure was connected to his spirit on canvas with wet oil grounding, stand Provenance: by the other Surrealists is demonstrated then next to Paalen’s great oil paintings, Isabel Marin de Paalen, Mexico City; in Gordon Onslow Ford’s remembrance of in which fumage initiates the complex Private Collection, Germany his first meeting with Paalen in Café Deux painted structures until the mid 1940’s. In Magots in Paris: He was very much at Paalen´s later work, fumage became more Exhibition: ease, and was always in the thick of the and more a means of its own, employed Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin 2005 conversation, but he appeared to me, in with skill and intention, like painting with spite of his vitality, to be ethereal as if part a brush. Literature: of him were winging about elsewhere. To Catalogue, Felons, cur. by Alan Phelan, visit Paalen´s studio at that time, I have 1. Gordon Onslow Ford, Paalen the Messenger, Dublin 2005 (illustrated) the memory of passing through long dingy in: Hommage to Wolfgang Paalen, Museo de Arte Moderno, México 1967, p. 24. corridors as in a dream. The studio itself seemed misty and the ceiling was far

away. On the easel and against the walls were fumages.1

His habitation was like a mirror of his mind: by use of fumage, Paalen confirmed for himself the myths of his Kafkaesque spirit, which longed to navigate the imponderable pathways of thought itself.

18 Paysage totémique AN 37.02

Vol de moustiques (fumage) AN 37.18 Untitled (fumage-encrage) watercolor, gouache, ink, and In 1938, Paalen experimented with candlesmoke on cardboard another informal automatist technique, 62 x 33 cm (24 1/2 x 13 in.) mechanically produced ink drawings called signed with initials WP and dated ´38 Encrages. Breton wrote about them in (lower right) 1939: “Paalen allows colored ink to flow executed in 1938 on a white paper, exposing it then to quick rotations and other proceedings to Wolfgang Paalen Archiv No. P 38.16 disburse the color. Thus for example he blows from different sides onto it. With this Provenance: technique he spawns gestalts scintillating Eva Sulzer, Mexico City; Galerie Galanis- in all the colors of hummingbirds which are Hentschel, Paris; Geo Dupin, Paris; artfully joined with their nests.”1 Private Collection, San Francisco 1. Some of these ink drawings appeared under Literature: the label Encres automatiques in his one-man show at Galerie Guggenheim-Jeune in London Andreas Neufert, Inneren des Wals, in 1939. Various examples were gifted to Vienna/New York (Springer) 1999, p. 120 important institutions, including one in the (illustrated) Museum of Modern Art, New York. The present work is the only known example combining fumage and encrage. Both techniques are related by the detachment of direct contact between the supporting foundation and the artist’s hand and the fast and unpredictable production of the work with its sudden swaying changes; as distinguished from the gentle ferment-like fumage, the encrage shows dense color structures, melting into tremulous linear shapes, similar to the zoomorphic structures of Paalen’s totemic landscapes.

L´autophage (fulgurites)

oil/fumage on cardboard laid down on Even in such a compact format, by wood overlapping ephemeral planes of 12 x 16.5 cm (4 3/4 x 6 1/2 in.) translucent smoke with a quasi-Cubist executed in 1938 three dimensional space, an image is manifested. The allusion to the sun or a Paalen Archiv No. 38.06 lunar eclipse and cosmic fog in the title does nothing to obscure that the present Provenance: work is dominated by the flickering rhythm Geo Dupin, Paris; Private Collection, of the smokes’ marks. These marks Germany continuously drive the eye back to surface of the composition, emphasizing the lack Exhibition: of three dimensional space, which is the Galerie Guggenheim-Jeune, London which is the hallmark of Analytic Cubism. 1939; Julien Levy Gallery, New York 1940

Literature: Catalogue Guggenheim Jeune, London 1939 (fumages No.2) Catalogue André Breton - El ser no- factico, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Carillo Gil, Mexico City 1996, p. 66 (ill.) Andreas Neufert, Wolfgang Paalen - Im Inneren des Wals, Vienna/New York (Springer) 1999, p. 118 (ill.), Catalogue Raisonné no. 38.06, p. 301 (ill.)

20 Untitled (fumage-encrage) AN 38.16

L´autophage (fulgurites) AN 38.06 Ciel de pieuvre oil/fumage on canvas Bibliothek der Psychoanalyse, trembling umbrella, and an expanding and 97 x 130 cm (38 1/4 x 51 1/4 in.) Psychosozial-Verlag/Haland & Wirth expansive sense of light and color. verso signed with initials, dated and (Gießen) 2007, cover page (illustrated in titled WP 38 Ciel de Pieuvre color) Analogies to Northwestern coastal Na- executed in 1938 Catalogue, Der Surrealismus - ein Traum, tive American art certainly come to mind Ludwigshafen am Rhein 2008 (not yet when viewing these works, but are hard Paalen Archiv No. 38.21 printed) to document by scholarly citations. Still Paalen’s explorations of consciousness Provenance: seem eerily similar to the totemic art of Onslow-Ford Collection, Inverness; this part of the world – art he would later Private Collection, Berlin In 1938 as one of the youngest members seem driven to explore. Paalen’s intention of the Surrealist group in Paris, Paalen was to find an allying expression for the Exhibition: stood at the zenith of his recognition. creative moment of identification with the André Breton wrote the foreword to his totem, this expression playing itself out as Galerie Renou et Colle, Paris 1938 one-man show at Renou et Colle´s gallery a mental drama. There is much indica- Galerie Guggenheim Jeune, London and the English critic Herbert Read noted: tion that Paalen tried to express this with 1939 “The paintings of Wolfgang Paalen are pri- his fumages of 1938 and 39 – that is, the Julien Levy Gallery, New York 1940 mordial: the senses break through the wall forced trance in an archaic ritual that he Museum Moderner Kunst - Stiftung which divides the new-born vision from hoped could be discovered as a dynamic Ludwig, Vienna 1993 reality...Every great artist invents a new process on a cognitive level. The fum- Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Alvar y world: but these new worlds reveal the ages seem to mirror mental procedures Carmen T. Carrillo Gil, Mexico City 1994 pristine experiences of the human race.”1 like electric discharge-patterning, rapidly Galerie Döbele, Dresden 2001 shifting into flashing mental images. Their Wilhelm Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen Not long after, these same paintings would painted somatic shapes originated in am Rhein 2007/2008 (promised loan) also contribute to Paalen´s fame in New changing metaphors for the process of York through his show at Julien Levy´s creation itself, the weightless moving Literature: gallery in 1940. In comparison to his con- polyp in Ciel de pieuvre, the fusion-chains Catalogue, Paalen, Galerie Renou et Colle, temporaries, Paalen’s fumages boasted of sunspots in Taches solaires, or the ionic Paris 1938 (no. 17) a new and shocking dimension. It was no magnetism of lightning in Orages Magné- Catalogue, Paalen, Galerie Guggenheim longer a dream that spoke to or induced tiques. The paintings evoke metaphors, Jeune, London 1939 (no. 16) the painting’s subject. Paalen’s paintings where form and sense are inseparably La Gazeta No. 66 Ano VI, Mexico 1960 came entirely from the power arising from aligned. (illustrated) the shudder of a sudden awakening in Ida Rodriguez Prampolini, El Surrealismo his consciousness. In the blink of an eye, Paalen began his thirty page long, richly y el Arte Fantastico de México, Mexico sudden surprise would give way to mute illustrated essay, Totem Art, in DYN 4-5, (Instituto de Investigaciones Esteticas amazement - but what was emanating with romantic words of religious unifica- UNAM) 1969, No. 42 (illustrated) from Paalen’s great fumages of 1938 was tion, in effect a kind of consecration: Süddeutsche Zeitung Nr. 246, München also a melancholic desire to come as near “On the Northwest Coast of the American 23./24. Oktober 1993, p. 18 (illustrated) as possible to the ineffable essences of continent, between a tempestuous sea Kurier Wien, 24. September 1993, p. 14 humanities most profound imponderables. and a virgin forest, there arose an art with (illustrated) An abridged space opened before the the profile of a bird of prey; masks, he- Catalogue, Wolfgang Paalen - Zwischen eye, the background vanishing into a raldic columns, torchlight dances, myths Surrealismus und Abstraktion - Eine crepuscular blur, shifting from light green of the killer-whale and the thunder-bird Retrospektive, Vienna 1993, p. 135 and to cerulean blue, as if the painter wanted tell us of a great savage life in which man cover page (illustrated in color) to suggest his reverie, his apparitions in and the elements, man and his dream, Catalogue, Wolfgang Paalen as close proximity as possible to the eye beast and man mingled in wars and loves Retrospectiva, Mexico 1994, p. 119 of the viewer. Light issues from behind the without quarter.“ 2 (illustrated in color) painting and scatters horizontally up to the Andreas Neufert, Wolfgang Paalen - Im surface, where it arrives as faint glimmers The figurative allusions with their latently Inneren des Wals, Vienna/New York breaking through the shadows of the male-female attributes in Ciel de pieuvre, (Springer) 1999, p. 131 and cover page traces of actual smoke. The fumage atom- Taches solaires, and Combat des princes detail (illustrated in color), Catalogue izes the light falling onto it from behind Saturniens seem to take up the theme of Raisonné no. 38.21, illustrated p. 304 and, on its way to the eye, envelops the unification of conflict and love in a religious Andreas Neufert, Wolfgang Paalen, The smoke marks with color, forming outward sense. This theme could be seen as painter as Thinker and Visionary, Edition projecting shapes in red, blue, and green. analogous to the history of painting in the Galerie Doebele, Dresden 2001, p. 58 Their interrupted trajectory fades into forties, where titles so often pointed at the (illustrated in color) nothingness, blending them with the same overcoming of the individual’s psychosis Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss, Benjamin firmament. In his best works, like Taches through the cosmic balancing of male and Buchloh, Art since 1900, London (Thames solaires or Ciel de pieuvre, Paalen is an female attributes (e.g. Pollock’s Male and & Hudson), p. 292 (illustrated in color) artist of extraordinary, finely tuned and Female, 1942). Elio Grazioli (ed.), Arte dal 1900, Milano precise lyrical talent. No painter before (Zanichelli) 2006, p. 7 and 292 (illustrated him portrayed the awakening state of con- 1. Herbert Read, Wolfgang Paalen, in: in color) sciousness as faithfully. All the fumages Minotaure, No.12/13, Paris May 1939, p.90 A. W. Bateman; P. Fonagy, Psychotherapie of 1938 and 1939 capture the tension 2. Wolfgang Paalen, Totem Art, in: DYN 4-5, der Borderline-Persönlichkeitsstörung, between the stretcher as an expanded, Mexico 1943, p.7

22 Ciel de pieuvre AN 38.21 Taches solaires oil/fumage on canvas 130 x 99 cm (51 x 39 in.) verso signed with initials, dated and titled WP 38 Taches Solaires executed in 1938

Paalen Archiv No. 38.05

Provenance: Onslow-Ford Collection, Inverness; Private Collection, Munich

Exhibition: Galerie Renou et Colle, Paris 1938 Galerie Guggenheim Jeune, London 1939 Julien Levy Gallery, New York 1940 Museum Moderner Kunst - Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna 1993 Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Alvar y Carmen T. Carrillo Gil, Mexico City 1994 Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid 1999/2000; Musée d´art Moderne et Contemporain, Strasbourg 2000 Staatsgalerie Stuttgart 2000/20001 Galerie Döbele, Dresden 2001

Literature: Catalogue, Paalen, Galerie Renou et Colle, Paris 1938 (no. 16) Minotaure Paris 1938, no. 11, p. 61 (illustrated) Catalogue, Paalen, Galerie Guggenheim Jeune, London 1939 (no. 11) Catalogue, Wolfgang Paalen - Zwischen Surrealismus und Abstraktion - Eine Retrospektive, Vienna 1993, p. 139 (illustrated in color) Catalogue, Wolfgang Paalen Retrospectiva, Mexico 1994, p. 121 (illustrated in color) Andreas Neufert, Wolfgang Paalen - Im Inneren des Wals, Vienna/New York (Springer) 1999, p. 132 (illustrated in color), Catalogue Raisonné no. 38.05, illustrated p. 301 Catalogue, Surrealistas en el exilio y los inicios de la Escuela de Nueva York, Madrid 1999, p. 69 (illustrated in color); Catalogue Strasbourg 2000, p. 68 Catalogue, Ives Tanguy und der Surrealismus, Stuttgart 2000, p. 201 (illustrated in color Andreas Neufert, Wolfgang Paalen, The painter as Thinker and Visionary, Edition Galerie Doebele, Dresden 2001, p. 54 (illustrated in color)

24 Taches solaires AN 38.05 Untitled (fumage) oil/fumage on canvas 46 x 38 cm (18 x 15 in.) executed in 1938

Paalen Archiv No. 38.14

Provenance: Onslow Ford Collection, Inverness; Private Collection, Germany; Private Collection, San Francisco

Exhibition: Museum Moderner Kunst - Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna 1993 Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Alvar y Carmen T. Carrillo Gil, Mexico City 1994

Literature: Catalogue, Wolfgang Paalen - Zwischen Surrealismus und Abstraktion - Eine Retrospektive, Vienna 1993, p. 129 (illustrated in colour) Catalogue, Wolfgang Paalen Retrospectiva, Mexico 1994, p. 113 (illustrated in color) Vuelta, Revista mensuel No.212, Mexico City Julio 1994, (illustrated in color as title page) Andreas Neufert, Wolfgang Paalen - Im Inneren des Wals, Vienna/New York (Springer) 1999, Catalogue Raisonné no. 38.06, p. 302 (ill.)

26 Untitled (fumage) AN 38.14 Untitled (fumage) oil/fumage on canvas One of two known fumages in which 27 x 35 cm (canvas), 21 x 26 cm Paalen reflects on the theme of the (picture) (10 1/2 x 14 in. (canvas); 8 1/2 stagnant storm and how this emotional x 10 1/4 in. (picture)) movement can be transmitted; essentially signed with initials lower right it is a meditation on how the ephemeral executed in 1940 and obscure in nature can catalyze the human imagination. The painter Paalen Archiv No. 40.02 also emphasizes his interest in multiple simultaneous perspectives and the “all- Provenance: over technique” by covering the margins Geo Dupin, Paris; Private Collection, with dark-brown paint: the space of Paris fumage seems to hover in front of the background. Literature: Andreas Neufert, Wolfgang Paalen - Im Inneren des Wals, Vienna/New York (Springer) 1999, Catalogue Raisonné no. 40.02, p. 306 (ill.)

28 Untitled (fumage) AN 40.02 Les cosmogones (stage) oil on canvas The original and initial study for Les 65 x 65 cm (25 1/2 x 25 1/2 in.) cosmogones from 1943, a work Paalen signed with initials and dated WP 43 realized as his largest painting to date in (lower right), verso titled the following year. The open structure of executed in 1943 the trinity, already hinted at in the fumages of 1938 and returning in Les premiers Paalen Archiv No. 43.02 spaciales in the form of a triptych, is asserted here for the first time in one Provenance: painting in an open and spontaneous way Jean Nicole, Paris; Geo Dupin, Paris; and with a palette reminiscent of Analytical Franz von Braun, Germany; Private Cubism. (see also Paalen’s Hamnur Collection, San Francisco Trilogy).

Exhibition: Art of this Century Gallery, New York 1945; Galerie Nierendorf, New York 1946; Galerie du Dragon, Paris 1988

Literature: Gustav Regler, Wolfgang Paalen, New York (Nierendorf Editions), p. 53 (illustrated) Catalogue, Paalen, Galerie du Dragon, Paris 1988, p. 5 (illustrated in color) Andreas Neufert, Wolfgang Paalen - Im Inneren des Wals, Vienna/New York (Springer) 1999, p. 312 (illustrated), Catalogue Raisonné no. 43.02

30 Les cosmogones (stage) AN 43.02 Starscape oil/fumage on canvas One of three known Starscapes, this 33 x 24 cm (13 x 9 1/2 in.) example is quite similar to the small signed with initials (lower right) WP, paintings Gyra, L´or de temps, and verso titled, dated 1945 and inscribed à Nebuleuse in the Guggenheim Museum, Audrey Wood, son ami Wolfgang Paalen New York, which were exhibited in Executed in 1945 Galerie Nierendorf in New York in 1946. In his diaries Paalen once wrote, “The Paalen Archiv No. 45.09 most beautiful star images of thinking (of thoughts),” and so gives us a hint that Provenance: a starscape is meant to be an active Audrey Wood Collection, Mexico City; resonance in our mental landscape. Sotheby´s, New York; Private Collection, Again he means to draw attention to the Germany precarious line between inner and outer worlds, and therefore places the furthest Exhibition: phenomena observable by the human eye Gallery Art of this Century, New York into the hollow of sensory perceptions, the 1945; Galerie Nierendorf, New York nearest point to individual consciousness. 1946, No. 5; Kunstmuseum Bochum Here and There are one, and vesicles, 1997; Kunstverein Gütersloh 1997; floating threads and imploding ephemera S-Galerie Sparkasse Gütersloh 1997; define the borders where they collapse into Galerie Döbele, Dresden 2001 one other.

Literature: Catalogue Sotheby´s New York, 23rd Nov. 1993, Lot 201 (ill. col.) Catalogue, Aspekte imaginativer Kunst im 20. Jhdt, Lunstmuseum Bochum, Kunstverein Gütersloh and S-Galerie Sparkasse Gütersloh 1997, No. 33 Andreas Neufert, Wolfgang Paalen - Im Inneren des Wals, Vienna/New York (Springer) 1999, p. 164 (ill. col), Catalogue Raisonné no. 45.09, p. 316 (ill.) Andreas Neufert, Wolfgang Paalen, The painter as Thinker and Visionary, Edition Galerie Döbele, Dresden 2001, p. 60 (ill. col.)

32 Starscape AN 45.09 Hamnur Trilogy oil on canvas The painting Hamnur Trilogy of 1947 audience directly, without any barrier of 203 x 190 cm (80 x 74 1/2 in) conveys the sublime perspective of the preconceived associations, in order to signed with initials WP and dated ´47 Trinity in communion with the viewer. In serve as material for the viewer’s own (lower right) broad mosaic brush strokes, the pictured personal drama. At the high-tension points executed in 1947 beings float in front of a dark background. in the action of the play, the figures prove The concept of the Trinity acts in all to be visionary time signatures of cosmic Wolfgang Paalen Archiv Nr. 47.02 the paintings of the Cosmogones, meaning: they are to be understood as Messengers, and Selam (Hamnur) the underpinnings of reality because Provenance: series on various levels, projecting the they communicate the idea of what it Geo Dupin, Paris; Private Collection, metaphysical towards the viewer. These means to be alive. As in many ancient Germany; Private Collection, San levels could be distinguished as cognitive mythologies, the objects of meditation Francisco (dialectical) and symbolic-emotional should blend and blur past and future so (sacred). On the symbolic level, Paalen that time manifests its oracular tendency. Exhibition: may have been focused on (implicit) They should represent themselves, not Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City beings, beings existing in between tell anything concrete, but proclaim truth 1967 shared epiphenomena and individually by pointing man towards the essential Galerie Artcurial, Paris 1986 transcendant perceptions, rather than human event – like the Choros Tragicos in Kunstmuseum Bochum 1993 simply as deistic entities. These beings ancient Greek tragedy. In Paalen’s drama Kunstmuseum Bochum 1997 (then: conjoin the divine and the human in they are Cosmogones, the voices of the Kunstverein Gütersloh 1997; S-Galerie practically all belief-systems which use great cosmic powers that act like a Greek Sparkasse Gütersloh 1997) trance or hallucination as a technique chorus. So, also Hamnur Trilogy shows a Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina of meditation. In the Judaic Kabbala it mythical matrix reality aimed at integrating Sofia, Madrid 1999/2000 (then: Musée is the Sephiroth who bestow dynamic 3rd-dimensional perception with d´art Moderne et contemporain, encounters with antagonistic pairs, arriving multidimensional states of consciousness. Strasbourg 2000) at a balance between polarities. Through The name Hamnur has, like Selam (see Galerie Doebele, Dresden 2001 the Sephiroth the Kabbala practitioner Selam Trilogy, 1947), most probably unifies all kinds of experiences, elements, Indian Vedantic origins. Literature: and occurences with the objective of Catalogue, Hommage à Wolfgang deepening mind and soul. Paalen´s Trinity Paalen, Museo de Arte Moderno Mexico beings are also mirrors for a meditation, City 1967, p.50 (illustrated) a practice which counterbalances the Catalogue, L’aventure surréaliste autour dualistic fixations of human mind. Paalen d’André Breton, Galerie Artcurial Paris speaks in his essay, The Dialectical Gospel (Edition Filipacchi) 1986 (illustrated) in DYN 2, in this sense, referring to the Catalogue, Surrealismus und danger in Western civilizations, which tend Lateinamerika, Kunstmuseum Bochum to gamble away the various models of 1993, No. 432 (illustrated) balancing consciousness, models more José Pierre, Wolfgang Paalen, Paris “primitive” traditions have passed on (Edition Filipacchi) 1998, p.38 (illustrated for thousands of years through religious in color) Catalogue, Aspekte imaginativer praxis. Kunst im 20.Jhdt, Kunstmuseum Bochum (then Kunstverein Gütersloh In the winter of 1946/47, Paalen stayed and S-Galerie Sparkasse Gütersloh), No. as a guest, some two weeks, in the house 34 und p. 27 (illustrated in color) of Robert Motherwell, where there was a Andreas Neufert, Wolfgang Paalen. group staging of his theatrical play, The Im Inneren des Wals, Wien New York Beam of the Balance. He had written this (Springer) 1999, p. 175 (illustrated in drama as a counterpoint and complement color), Catalogue Raisonné No. 47.02, p. to his new pictorial entities. He made 320 (illustrated) use of several figures from the body of Catalogue, Surrealistas en el exilio y los archetypal myths to serve as forms of inicios de la Escuela de Nueva York, direct experience and incorporated them Madrid 1999, p. 226 (illustrated in color); in the profane action of his play. They Catalogue Strasbourg 2000, p. 214 were not meant to be characters per se, Andreas Neufert, Wolfgang Paalen, The Paalen wrote in a synopsis of the play, but painter as Thinker and Visionary, Edition rather the interplay of prototypes which Galerie Doebele, Dresden 2001, p. 62 thus far have provided the major figures in (illustrated in color) the historical pageant of humanity. Here too, the figures, flowing forms without contour, intangible, constitute possible axes of the causal actions of mortal beings rendered corporeal. That which is humanly possible constitutes the essence of these forms, which were to be imparted to the

34 Hamnur Trilogy AN 47.02 L´enclume oil on canvas In 1952, Paalen returned to Paris with 135 x 190 cm (53 x 74 3/4 in.) the desire to reconcile with André Breton. signed with initials WP (lower right), He rented Kurt Seligman’s home (Villa verso title Seurat) and rejoined the Surrealist group executed in 1952 for what would be their last look at Paalen’s creative evolution. His Dynaton Paalen Archiv No. 52.09 project, which had aimed to bring together the leading thinkers and artists in San Provenance: Francisco, had failed mostly due to private Geo Dupin, Paris; Private Collection, conflicts of interest. This failure ironically Germany freed Paalen to create a masterly lyrical abstraction, L’enclume, in which all his Exhibition: methods of painting converged in a Galerie Villand et Galanis, Paris 1970 single canvas. Intimations of landscapes Musée de l´Art, Ixcelles 1979 and faces become a self-evident part Musée de l´Art Moderne de la Ville Paris of his composition in this period, in this 1979 rich production all his previously heroic pretenses have vanished, allowing for a Literature: new virtuosity. L´enclume (the anvil) is a José Pierre, Domaine de Paalen, large scale composition with the paint Paris (Editions Galanis) 1970, no. 18 applied directly onto a dark brown canvas (illustrated) without the use of gesso. Revue du XXième Siècle, no. 43, Paris 1974, p. 119 (illustrated) Catalogue, Hommage à Pierre Loeb, Musée de l´Art de la Ville Paris (illustrated) José Pierre, Wolfgang Paalen, Paris (Editions Filipacchi) 1980, p. 48/49 (illustrated in color) Andreas Neufert, Wolfgang Paalen - Im Inneren des Wals, Vienna/New York (Springer) 1999, p. 329 (illustrated), Catalogue Raisonné no. 52.09

36 L´enclume AN 52.09 Béatrice perdue oil/fumage on canvas Béatrice perdue is a fine example of 81 x 60 cm (32 x 23 1/2 in.) Paalen’s virtuosity with color, employing signed and dated with initials WP 53 painterly textures and composition in (lower right), verso titled which the appearing and disappearing executed in 1953 personages are his theme. The melancholy implied by the title, a reference to Dante’s Paalen Archiv No. 53.11 lost love, somehow contrasts with the rich explosion of vibrant color in this painting, Provenance: creating a balance of polarities, pointing Geo Dupin, Paris; Galerie Galanis- at the potential for deep joy intrinsic in Hentschel, Paris; Agustin Cárdenaz, melancholic moods, a psychological Paris; Galerie 1900-2000, Paris; Private integration which evaded Paalen in his Collection, San Francisco personal life.

Exhibition: Galerie Galanis-Hentschel, Paris 1954; Galerie Villand et Galanis, Paris 1970

Literature: Michel Seuphor, Lexikon Abstrakter Malerei, München 1957/1962, p. 251 (illustrated in color) Andreas Neufert, Wolfgang Paalen - Im Inneren des Wals, Vienna/New York (Springer) 1999, p. 335 (illustrated), Catalogue Raisonné no. 53.23

38 Béatrice perdue AN 53.11 Untitled (fumage) oil/fumage on canvas 72 x 98 cm (28 1/4 x 38 1/2 in.) signed and dated with initials WP 53 (lower right) executed in 1953

Paalen Archiv No. 53.23

Provenance: Geo Dupin, Paris; Ina Salomon, Paris; Private Collection, San Francisco

Exhibition: Galerie Villand et Galanis, Paris 1970

Literature: José Pierre, Wolfgang Paalen, Paris (Editions Filipacchi) 1980, p. 60 (illustrated in color) Andreas Neufert, Wolfgang Paalen - Im Inneren des Wals, Vienna/New York (Springer) 1999, p. 335 (illustrated), Catalogue Raisonné no. 53.23

40 Untitled (fumage) AN 53.23 Bureau de longitudes oil/fumage on canvas 55 x 198 cm (21 3/4 x 78 in.) signed with initials and dated WP 54 (lower right), verso titled executed in 1954

Paalen Archiv No. 54.04

Provenance: Galerie Galanis-Hentschel, Paris; Geo Dupin, Paris; Private Collection, Germany

Exhibition: Galerie Galanis-Hentschel, Paris 1954, no. 16

Literature: Andreas Neufert, Wolfgang Paalen - Im Inneren des Wals, Vienna/New York (Springer) 1999, p. 339 (illustrated), Catalogue Raisonné no. 54.04

42 Bureau de longitudes AN 54.04 Untitled gouache on cardboard 46 x 38 cm (18 x 15 in.) executed in 1954

Paalen Archiv No. 54.12

Provenance: Private Collection, Paris

44 Untitled AN 54.12 Abridged Biographical Chronology

1905 Wolfgang Robert Paalen is born on July 22nd in Baden, 1937 Meets Marcel Duchamp on occasion of the design near Vienna, Austria. of Galerie Gradiva in Paris. Participates in Surrealist exhibitions in London (Artists International Society) and 1913 Parents move to Rochusburg in Sagan, Silesia. Cambridge (University Art Society). Travels to Sagan, Prague and Bohemia in summer. Prepares objects for 1919 Family moves to Rome, summers in Sagan. the Winter Surrealist Show in Paris. Illustration for Alfred Jarry’s Ubu enchainé. 1921 Studies with Leo von Koenig in Tivoli and Berlin. 1938 International Surrealist Exhibition in Paris (Palais de 1922 Studies with Adolphe Meyer in Berlin, meets Julius Meier- Beaux Arts, Galerie Wildenstein). Paalen is responsible Graefe. Relation with Helene Meier-Graefe (Aya). Shows for plant and water installations. Under Duchamp’s paintings in Impressionist style in Berlin Secession. Meets ceiling he creates an artificial lake with plants. Personal Serge Brignoni. show of his fumages in Galerie Renou et Colle, Paris (Text by André Breton). Illustration for a Surrealist edition 1924 Stays in Paris until 1926. Shows in the Galerie Figuet, of Lautréamonts Les Chants de Maldoror. Meets Frida Paris. Friendship with Marie-Louise von Motesitsky. Kahlo during her visit to Paris who invites him to Mexico. Meets Max Beckmann. Studies Cubist paintings. Summers in La Mesangère Varèngeville with Breton. Visits Aya in Germany, decides in Munich to leave 1927 Visits Hans Hofmann School in Munich and Cassis. Europe. Rents studio in La Ciotat (Cassis). Meets circle of German artists (Westphal, Petersen, Becker) and Jean Varda. 1939 Solo exhibition at Peggy Guggenheim’s Gallery Visits Braque in Varengeville. Guggenheim Jeune, London. Critiques Breton and Herbert Read in London Bulletin (No.10, p.17) and 1929 Takes a studio in Paris on rue de Guerre. Meets Jean Minotaure (No.12/13, p.90). Travels with Alice Rahon Hélion and Hans Hartung. Studies with Fernand Léger. and Eva Sulzer from London to New York. Meets Julien Participates in group show in Galerie Flechtheim, Berlin, Levy, William Baziotes and Gerome Kamrowski. Travels at Salon des Surindépendants. to Canada, British Columbia. Collects Native American totemic art. Travels to San Francisco and Mexico in 1930 Meets again Max Beckmann, Marie-Louise von autumn. Rents studio in San Angel, Mexico near Frida Motesitsky and Elias Canetti. Takes larger studio in rue Kahlo and Diego Rivera’s house. Friendship with Manual Pernety. Participates in the annual show at Rheinische Alvarez Bravo and César Moro. Prepares Surrealist Sezession Düsseldorf. Marries the Breton artist Alice exhibition with Moro. Rahon. 1940 International Surrealist Exhibition in Galeria de Arte 1932 Group show in Galerie Bonjean, Paris. Studies with Mexicano, Mexico City. Travels to New York for his Stanley William Hayter at Atelier 17 in Paris. Meets Peggy solo exhibition at Julien Levy Gallery. Meets Robert Guggenheim, Valentine and Roland Penrose. Motherwell, Adolphe Gottlieb, Jackson Pollock and Barnet Newman. Back in Mexico organizes visas for 1933 Illustrates a book of poetry by Valentine Penrose. Visits Surrealists in Europe. the caves of Altamira in Spain. 1941 Robert Motherwell studies with Paalen in Mexico for 1934 Starts to collect Cycladic idol-figures. Show at Galerie several months. Motivates Motherwell to collaborate on Vignon, Paris. A.E.Gallatin buys Visage planetaires for his DYN project. Motherwell translates his essay L’Image the Museum of Living Art in New York. Exhibits with the Nouvelle and Paalen introduces Motherwell to Breton. group abstraction creation – art non-figurative (catalogue) Gordon Onslow Ford and Jacqueline Johnson move to Mexico. 1935 Publishes Reponse à une enquiete in Cahiers d’Art (No.14, 1935). Travels to London to visit Henry Moore 1942 The Nazis confiscate St.Rochusburg in Sagan. Order and Roland Penrose. Rents house in Le Bruse sur of Deportation for his father Gustaf Rainer Paalen who Seine during summer. Travels to Greece and Cycladic supposedly flees to Switzerland or commits suicide in islands. Exhibits two paintings in the show these- Berlin. First issue of DYN is published in Mexico, ending antithèse-synthèse in Kunstmuseum Luzern (catalogue), in 1944 a total number of four magazines are printed, one organized by Hans Erni. Leaves abstraction creation of them double-sized (Amerindian Number 1943). First group with Hans Arp and Sophi Taeuber. Meets André issue contains Paalen’s Farewell au surrealisme which Breton. Participates at the show Exposition de dessins makes his distance from Surrealism official. Participates surrealistes in Les Quatre Chemins, Paris. Joins the in the show First Papers of Surrealism in New School for Surrealist group. Social Research, New York.

1936 Personal show in Galerie Pierre, Paris. Participates in 1943 In New York he meets Isamu Noguchi and Luchita Surrealist shows: New York, Museum of Modern Art Hurtado del Solar. (Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism), London, Burlington Galleries (International Exhibition of Surrealism), Paris, 1944 The German Bauhaus architect Max Cetto builds a studio Galerie Charles Ratton (Exposition Surréaliste d’Objèts). house for Paalen in San Angel, Mexico, the Villa Obregon. Frontispiz to the poem-book Le Nouveau Candide of Valentine Penrose. Takes studio in rue Boulard, Paris. 1945 Publication of Paalen’s essay La crise du sujét dans la Makes first fumagedessin fait avec bougie. peinture moderne in Revue de L’IFAL, Mexico. One man show in Galeria de Arte Méxicano, Mexico City with 19

46 works from 1939-45. Correspondence with Motherwell other Surrealists. about the planned book Form and Sense with collected essays of Paalen. After Mark Rothko and Jackson 1954 Exhibition at Geo Dupin’s Galerie Galanis- Pollock, Peggy Guggenheim shows Paalen’s new Hentschel, Paris. Illustrates the 2nd issue of Medium paintings from Mexico in May of this year. After the end – Communication Surréaliste, edited by Jean Schuster of the war (May 8) Paalen stays through the summer with and José Pierre. Travels through Germany, visits Helene Motherwell in New York. Form and Sense is published Maier-Graefe in Badenweiler. Travels back to America. as first number of the seriesProblems of Contemporary Exhibition at the Paul Kantor Gallery in Los Angeles. Art under the direction of Motherwell. Contact with the theologian and novelist Arthur A.Cohen, who was 1955 Buys a small house in Tépoztlan near Mexico City. inspired by the life and destiny of Paalen for his famous novel Acts of Theft. 1956 Exhibition at Galeria de Arte Mexicano, Mexico City.

1946 Paalen and his companion Luchita Hurtado stay three 1957 Buys a Hacienda near Merida in the Yucatan and months in Motherwell’s house Quonset in East Hampton dedicates himself more and more to his collection of Pre- in Long Island. Private reading of Paalen’s play The Columbian art. Beam of the Balance with Motherwell and friends. In November one man show in the Nierendorf Gallery, New 1959 Commits suicide after a long depression in Taxco on the York. Nierendorf publishes the monograph on Paalen by night of September 24th. the German novelist Gustav Regler. The sculptor Louise Nevelson invites them to prolong their stay until January 1947 in her home in Long Island. Intensive contact with New York artists Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko.

1947 Divorce from Alice Rahon, marries Luchita Hurtado del Solar. Becomes Mexican citizen after his attempts to aquire US citizenship fail. Motherwell continues DYN under the name Possibilities in New York with Harold Rosenberg. Works by Paalen appear in the Surrealism show at Galerie Maeght, Paris.

1948 In February Paalen travels to New York and Chicago and plans a DYNATON exhibition in San Francisco. Spends November and December in New York with Motherwell in East Hampton to discuss the foundation of a new art shool with Rothko and Clifford Still. During a dinner with the Rothkos in Manhattan he receives an invitation to teach in San Francisco, but declines. Rene d’Harnoncourt gives Paalen a one man show in the San Francisco Museum of Art. In Mill Valley he meets Henry Miller, Anäis Nin and Jean Varda and works on his essay Metaplastic. The Onslow Fords acquire a house in Mill Valley and invite Paalen to stay. They meet Lee Mullican and travel together in Mexico before they decide to work together in Mill Valley in 1949/1950.

1949 After traveling to New York, the Paalens move to San Francisco to prepare the Metaplastic show at the Stanford Art Gallery, which is accompanied by lectures by Sybil Moholy-Nagy.

1950 The new Association Dynaton exhibits together at the San Francisco Museum of Art, titled A New Vision. With the exhibition the museum publishes the book DYNATON. Luchita divorces from Paalen to live with Lee Mullican.

1951 Paalen returns to Mexico and travels through the Yucatan. Works on his essay on the Olmec culture, published in 1952 in Cahiers d’Art. In New York he exhibits with the Willard Gallery and meets Maria Wilson, with whom he travels to Paris. Rents Kurt Seligman’s Villa Seurat in Paris. Exhibits in Galerie Pierre and resumes contact with André Breton and the Surrealists. Becomes member of the Societé des Americanistes.

1953 Summers in Breton´s house in Saint Circ la Popie with

47

Wolfgang Paalen, Béatrice perdue Oil/fumage on canvas, 81 x 60 cm (32 x 23 1/2 in.), 1953

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