Dorothea Tanning

(American, 1910–2012)

Dorothea Tanning was an American artist best known for her Surrealist paintings. Tanning often used her own dreams as inspiration, as seen in her self-portrait Birthday (1942), in which the artist stands bare-breasted with a griffin-like creature on the floor before her. “My dreams are bristling with objects that relate to nothing in the dictionary,” she once said. “Dreams one reads in books are composed of known symbols but it is their strangeness that distinguishes them.” Born on August 25, 1910 in Galesburg, IL, she went on to attend Knox College, before moving to Chicago in 1930. Once in the city, she attended night classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago while working as a waitress. In 1935, Tanning relocated to New York, where she found employment as a commercial artist and first encountered the works of the Surrealists. Five years later, as the flood of refugee artists from Europe during World War II came to the city, Tanning was introduced to Yves Tanguy, Salvador Dalí, and her future husband Max Ernst. It is notable that Ernst left his current wife, the collector Peggy Guggenheim, for Tanning in 1946. The married couple would go on to live in Sedona, AZ, before relocating to France in 1949. The artist returned to New York in 1980 after the death of her husband in Paris. She died at the age of 101 on January 31, 2012 in New York, NY. Today, Tanning’s works are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Tate Gallery in London, and The Museum of Modern Art in New York, among others.
Dorothea Tanning (26 results)
Untitled (Frieze), 1965

Dorothea Tanning

Untitled (Frieze), 1965

Kasmin

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Controversy, 1997–1999

Dorothea Tanning

Controversy, 1997–1999

Kasmin

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Turbulents, ca. 1965

Dorothea Tanning

Turbulents, ca. 1965

Kasmin

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Fatala, 1947

Dorothea Tanning

Fatala, 1947

Gallery Wendi Norris

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Le geste , ca. 1970

Dorothea Tanning

Le geste , ca. 1970

Plazzart

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As Was, 1988

Dorothea Tanning

As Was, 1988

Derriere L'Etoile Studios

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Nude, 1985

Dorothea Tanning

Nude, 1985

Derriere L'Etoile Studios

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Poem, 1987

Dorothea Tanning

Poem, 1987

Derriere L'Etoile Studios

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Run, 1986

Dorothea Tanning

Run, 1986

Derriere L'Etoile Studios

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Untitled, 1992

Dorothea Tanning

Untitled, 1992

Derriere L'Etoile Studios

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Untitled

Dorothea Tanning

Untitled

Anders Wahlstedt Fine Art

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If Art Could Talk, 1993

Dorothea Tanning

If Art Could Talk, 1993

ArtWise

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Untitled, 1960

Dorothea Tanning

Untitled, 1960

Gallery Wendi Norris

Price on Request