Background
André Masson was born on January 4, 1896 in Balagny-sur-Thérain, France.
Rue du Midi 144, 1000 Bruxelles, Belgium
Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts
Ecole des Beaux-Arts
André Masson was born on January 4, 1896 in Balagny-sur-Thérain, France.
Since 1907 to 1912, Andre studied at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels under the guidance of Constant Montald. In 1912, immediately after studies at the academy, Masson left for Paris, where the same year he enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts and studied there until 1914.
In 1915, with the outbreak of World War I, Masson joined the French Army and fought in the battles of the Somme. He sustained a serious chest wound and was hospitalized for an extended period. Deeply traumatized by his wartime experiences, the artist also suffered a spiritual crisis and was briefly confined to a hospital for mental illness.
Upon his return to Paris in 1920, André was influenced by André Derain, before joining the Surrealist artists in 1924. Since 1925, the journal La révolution surrealiste (The surrealist revolution) published Masson's automatic drawings. His experimentation with media continued during this period, when he began to incorporate sand into his paintings.
By 1929 Masson began to distance himself from the Surrealists, finding their theoretical pronouncements too polemical and dogmatic. Some time later, in 1936, the artist resumed contact with the group. In 1943, he cut off all ties with Surrealist movement.
Also, in 1936, Masson drew the cover of the first issue of Georges Bataille's review, Acéphale, and participated in all its issues until 1939.
In 1939, Masson migrated to the United States, where he influenced many American painters, notably Jackson Pollock, and continued to experiment with automatism. He also spent time in rural Connecticut, where the landscape again exerted influence over him, resulting in a number of expressive landscape paintings, some of which incorporated American Indian motifs and themes from Iroquois mythology.
Later, in 1946, Masson returned to France and produced several landscape paintings. These paintings were exhibited at Documenta (1955-1964) and at the Venice Biennale (1972). In 1965, the artist also created ceiling painting for the Parisian Théatre Odéon. In 1979, due to his poor health, he abandoned painting and devoted himself to drawing.
Metamorphosis
Star, Winged Being, Fish
Andromeda
The painter and the time
Prisoner of the Mirror: Transfiguring Your Death
Sirens
Pursued Woman
Meditation of the Painter
Reclining Nude
Earth
Prison Gray
Street at Daybreak
The Fruits of the Abyss
Two naked
Bullfighting
The Camargue
Removal
Childbirth
Couple in the night
The Workshop of Dedalus
Landscape with miracles
Pool at the Villa d'Este
Blue Vase
Tribute to Saint-Pol Roux
Bones and Chrysalids
The Red Lands and the Montagne Sainte Victoire
The Kill
Automatic Drawing
Emblem
The bird market
Returning from the execution
Nocturne
Furious Suns
Portrait of Tal Coat
Removal
Goethe or the metamorphosis of plants
Florence at Dusk
The horses of Diomedes
Metamorphoses
Pasiphaë
Pasiphae
Dawn in Montserrat
Lamento
Portrait of the poet Kleist
Armour
There is no world ended
Landscape with Rocks
Yard birds
The Star
Panic
Nu au soleil noir
Seeded Earth
Villa d'Este
The Andalusian Reapers
Tracking the outbreak and germination
Torso
The Frogs
Pomegranates in the Wind
The meals
Figure
Landscape
Minors
Mist in the Valley of the Arc
The Sun in the Forest
Three Pomegranates
Little Genius of Wheat
Red Pomegranates
Rut
Woman holding a bird
The Genius of the Species
Birds and masks
The Sand Crab
L'homme emblématique
Reader with Red Book
Riez
Portrait of André Breton
The Metaphysical Wall
Gradiva
Pedestal Table in the Studio
Caribbean Landscape
The Horse Tryout
Leonardo and Isabella d Este
Battle of the Fishes
Iconic views of Toledo
Dark Forest
Birth of Birds
Meditation on an Oak Leaf
The pianotaure
Montserrat
The street singer
Fish drawn on the sand
The bird pierced with arrows
Blue Bather
Nuit fertile
The Metamorphosis of the Lovers
Ripe Pomegranates
Green Nude
Card trick
Games Centaurs
Rome: Portico of Octavia
Battle of Fishes
Portrait of Roland Tual
Guitar and Profile
Depressed Woodcock
The Sleeper
Pasiphae
Rose and Blue Mountain
Attacked by birds
Les Hain-Teny
No Name
Werewolf
Pupae to Toledo
Untitled
Kitchen-maids
Portrait of an American teenager in the forest
Hespéride
In the Tower of Sleep
Ibdes in Aragon
The bottom of the sea
Odette Cabalé was Masson's first wife. In 1929, the couple divorced and five years later, the artist married Rose Masson. André had three children — Lily Masson (a child from the first marriage), a painter, Luis Masson, an actor, and Diego Masson, a conductor and composer.