MATTA | Untitled

Pace Wildenstein, New York
Acquired from the above 

New York, Pace Wildenstein, Matta: Five Decades of Painting, Works from the Collections of Federica Matta and Ramuntcho Matta, 2009, no. 23, illustrated in color in the catalogue

This work is in very good condition overall. The canvas is unlined and well-stretched. The colors are vibrant, and the media layer is stable. In the upper left quadrant, a horizontal area of grey spot accretions is present measuring 8 inches in length. In the upper center quadrant, in the rectangular orange element, a fine vertical line of hairline craquelure is present measuring 4 ½ inches in length.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

When Matta arrived in New York in the fall of 1939 he, along with the growing community of European surrealist-refugees including Tanguy, Seligmann, Breton, and Duchamp amongst others, made their presence immediately known within the American art world. It was Matta, however, who made the definitive mark crowned by the art critic Rosamund Frost in 1942 as the “dynamo of things to come” (Martica Sawin, “Matta in New York” in Matta, Centenario.11.11.11. (exhibition catalogue), Santiago de Chile, 2011, p. 188). Matta, the eternal rebel, created commanding, visionary works throughout his prolific artistic career exposing and offering us, the audience, worlds unlike anything seen before—from his exquisite and mystical Psychological Morphologies and later on much more experimental large-scale canvas works depicting mechanical forms. Upon Matta’s departure from New York in 1949 to Italy and eventually France, the works executed in the “fifty-plus years post-New York” regularly visit the concept of “shifting space and evolving movement” through the appearance of geometric, cube-like shapes that seem to dissolve into limitless landscapes of bold and shocking colors (Mary Schneider Enriquez, “Roberto Matta: International Provocateur” in Matta, Making the Invisible Visible (exhibition catalogue), McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, 2004, p. 37). Matta, who was trained as an architect and worked in the office of Le Corbusier in the mid-1930s, began to vigorously showcase his original, formal training in these works. With time, his technique progressively matured; his gestures became freer, liberated, and to a certain degree become more playful. The present work, Untitled (painted circa 1949), is an exemplary painting of the conceptual project of a painted cube and elongated human/totem-esque forms Matta began to explore during the late-1940s and early 1950s. Populated with what appear to be “satellite shields bursting apart, floating, and attacking space and the figures within it,” Matta evokes “an endless, shifting space that conveys a palpable level of movement manipulating pigments that, both in color and in the means of application, conjure up vaporous, unearthly spaces, the metallic shine of a machine piece, or the excessive brilliance and tone of a world sickened by technological disaster” (ibid., pp. 37-38).