Virginia Commonwealth University VCU Scholars Compass Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 2013 Art and Becoming-Animal: Reconceptualizing the Animal Imagery in Dorothea Tanning's Post-1955 Paintings Samantha Karam Virginia Commonwealth University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons © The Author Downloaded from https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/470 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at VCU Scholars Compass. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of VCU Scholars Compass. For more information, please contact [email protected]. © Samantha Karam 2013 All Rights Reserved Art and Becoming-Animal: Reconceptualizing the Animal Imagery in Dorothea Tanning’s Post-1955 Paintings A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University. By Samantha Karam Director: Kathleen Chapman, Ph.D., Art History Richmond, Virginia April 24, 2013 ii Acknowledgement I would like to express my gratitude to a number of people for their aid in the production of this thesis. To my adviser and mentor, Dr. Chapman, thank you for your guidance, support, and involvement in every step of the process. To Dr. Hobbs, thank you for providing your savvy theoretical insight and expertise. And to Dr. Lawal, thank you for contributing your time and a valuable nonwestern perspective to my research. I would also like to thank Pamela Johnson, director of the Dorothea Tanning Collection and Archive in New York, for welcoming me into the archive, sharing her knowledge, and providing me with materials which proved indispensible to this thesis. I am also grateful to Wendi Norris of the Gallery Wendi Norris in San Francisco for contributing her time and insight regarding the Gallery’s recent exhibition, “Dorothea Tanning: Unknown but Knowable States.” My sincere gratitude also goes to Virginia Commonwealth University’s art history department for generously funding my research in San Francisco through a graduate research travel grant. Lastly, I would like to thank Ron and my family for their constant encouragement and advocacy in all of my endeavors. iii Table of Contents List of Figures................................................................................................................................ iv Abstract............................................................................................................................................v Introduction......................................................................................................................................1 Chapter I. From Tiny Surrealist to Changing the World ...............................................................23 Chapter II. Supremacy: Humanity’s Problem Drug ......................................................................37 The Rise of Animal Studies ...............................................................................................42 Dorothea Tanning’s Perspective on Animals ....................................................................46 Chapter III. From Seeing to Becoming..........................................................................................62 An Introduction to Deleuze and Guattari...........................................................................64 Art as an Event?.................................................................................................................89 Chapter IV. Engaging with Tanning’s Post-1955 Paintings..........................................................96 Larger Ideas .....................................................................................................................122 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................132 Figures .........................................................................................................................................139 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................147 iv List of Figures Figures 1. Dorothea Tanning. Le Mal oublié (The Ill Fogotten). 1955. 52 x 61 ! in. The Dorothea Tanning Collection and Archive, New York, NY. © The Dorothea Tanning Collection and Archive.............................................................32 2. Dorothea Tanning. Insomnies (Insomnias). 1957. 81 " x 57 # in. Moderna Museet, Stockholm. © The Dorothea Tanning Collection and Archive...........................................................104 3. Dorothea Tanning. To the Rescue. 1965. 80 $ x 58 % in. Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH. © The Dorothea Tanning Collection and Archive...........................................................104 4. Dorothea Tanning. Chiens de Cythère (Dogs of Cythera). 1963. 77 " x 117 in. The Dorothea Tanning Collection and Archive. New York, NY. © The Dorothea Tanning Collection and Archive...........................................................109 5. Dorothea Tanning. A Parisian Afternoon (Hôtel du Pavot). 1942. 40 " x 17 $ in. The Dorothea Tanning Collection and Archive, New York, NY. © The Dorothea Tanning Collection and Archive...........................................................112 6. Dorothea Tanning. Self-Portrait. 1944. 24 x 30 in. The Dorothea Tanning Collection and Archive, New York, NY. © The Dorothea Tanning Collection and Archive...........................................................112 7. Dorothea Tanning. Kenningar. 1961. 31 & x 39 % in. Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, NY. © The Dorothea Tanning Collection and Archive...........................................................113 8. Dorothea Tanning. Memoires d’un touriste (Memories). 1964. 28 " x 36 ! in. The Dorothea Tanning Collection and Archive, New York, NY. © The Dorothea Tanning Collection and Archive...........................................................113 Abstract ART AND BECOMING-ANIMAL: RECONCEPTUALIZING THE ANIMAL IMAGERY IN DOROTHEA TANNING’S POST-1955 PAINTINGS By Samantha Karam, MA A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2013 Director: Kathleen Chapman, Ph.D., Art History In 1955, American artist Dorothea Tanning abandoned her figurative Surrealist renderings of dream-like scenarios in favor of a complexly abstract and fragmented style of painting. With few exceptions, the ways in which Tanning’s later works function independently of her earlier paintings tends to be downplayed in the scholarship on her oeuvre. Equally sparse is the scholarship on Tanning’s dog imagery, which pervades her oeuvre but becomes most apparent in her later phase. This thesis seeks to shift attention toward Tanning’s later abstract paintings; it also seeks to fill the gap in scholarship on Tanning’s dogs. Specifically, through the study of five Tanning paintings from the late 1950s and 1960s, with the theoretical aid of Deleuze and Guattari’s conception of the becoming-animal, this thesis will investigate how Tanning’s post-1955 paintings create and promote new ways for viewers to think about the relations between humans and animals in the human-dominated modern world. Introduction Fragmented, dynamic, and vibrantly colored, Le Mal oublié (The Ill Forgotten), painted in 1955, marks a significant turning point in the career of American-born artist Dorothea Tanning (1910-2012). With her debut of The Ill Forgotten, Tanning abandoned her more clearly delineated, figurative renderings of dream-like scenarios, as seen in her well-known 1943 painting Eine kleine Nachtmusik (A Little Nightmusic), in favor of a more abstract and elusive style of imagery.1 While her earlier paintings, dating from the 1940s through the mid-1950s, earned Tanning the Surrealist label and in many ways paralleled the works of René Magritte, Salvador Dalí, and Leonor Fini, Tanning’s later paintings broke away from the Surrealist idiom. However, today Tanning remains most known as a Surrealist artist. With the exception of Insomnies (Insomnias), completed in 1957, Tanning’s later works tend to be overlooked in the scholarship on her oeuvre.2 At most, they are interpreted largely within the context of Tanning’s 1 This thesis provides illustrations for a selection of Tanning’s paintings examined most closely in the present study. These paintings are indicated in the text by a corresponding figure number. For an illustration of Eine kleine Nachtmusik and other paintings which are less important to this thesis’s argument, readers may consult the online catalogue of Tanning’s works, provided by the Dorothea Tanning Collection and Archive, at http://www.dorotheatanning.org/. 2 A small handful of published studies about Tanning’s later works include Catriona McAra, “Kaleidoscope Eyes: Cytherean Voyages in the Post-Surrealist Practice of Dorothea Tanning,” in Dorothea Tanning: Unknown but Knowable States (San Francisco: Gallery Wendi Norris, 2013); Martin Sundberg, “The Metamorphosis of Dorothea Tanning: On the Painting Insomnias: Between Facets and Details,” trans. Frank Perry, Konsthistorisk Tidskrift/Journal of Art History 79 (March 2010): 18-32; and Charles Stuckey and Richard Howard, Dorothea Tanning: Insomnias: Paintings from 1954-1965 (New York: Kent Gallery,