Collections / Explore the Collection
Today at the Museum

May 23, 2013
LECTURE

Thinking Globally: Exploring the MIA's Indian and Southeast Asian Art Collection

7 – 8 p.m.
Pillsbury Auditorium

Presenter: Risha Lee, the MIA's Jane Emison Assistant Curator of South and Southeast Asian Art. The MIA's Indian and Southeast Asian art collection contains many gems of art, produced in a variety of times and places. In an introduction to the collecti...
Through Birds, Through Fire but Not Through Glass
Title:Through Birds, Through Fire but Not Through Glass
Artist:Yves Tanguy
Date:1943
Creation Place:Europe, France
Credit Line:Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Donald Winston in tribute to Richard S. Davis
Image Copyright:©Estate of Yves Tanguy / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Accession Number:75.72.2
Joining the flight of artists from Paris to New York during World War II, Yves Tanguy emigrated to America in 1939. Considered to be Tanguy's finest work from his "first American period" of 1939 to 1945, the Institute's painting is characterized by bright colors and mysterious, biomorphic forms. In this surreal otherworldly landscape, Tanguy presents us with an ultra-realistic depiction of the unreal by employing a deliberate, precise method of painting. Inexplicable titles, often evocative of a dream state, were used by Surrealists to compel the viewer to search for a deeper meaning or truth in the artwork.