André Masson

André Masson (1896–1987), French artist and a leading member of the surrealist movement. Born in Balagny, France, Masson was trained in Brussels, Belgium, and at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris. He served in the French army during World War I (1914-1918), an experience that helped establish the themes of destruction and transformation that dominate his later work. Masson’s first one-man exhibition in 1923 was followed by a close association with surrealism from 1924 to 1928. Despite differences with surrealism’s founder and leader, André Breton, Masson was intermittently connected with the surrealist movement in later decades.

Masson was initially influenced by cubism. He borrowed its language of angular planes and juxtaposed these forms with more free-flowing forms in works such as The Wing (1925, Nationalgalerie, Berlin). Influenced by surrealism, he experimented with automatism, a method of executing drawings and paintings without apparent control or interference by the conscious mind. These automatic drawings and paintings were intended to reveal the workings of the unconscious mind, although the extent of their spontaneity is debatable. Masson’s interest in the operation of chance led to the invention of sand paintings, in which he dribbled glue onto canvas in the manner of automatism and then poured colored sand onto the glue. The patterns thus created suggested subjects, usually of a violent or an erotic nature, which he developed with paint.

From 1940 to 1945 during World War II, Masson lived in New York City. His automatic drawings had a marked influence on American artist Arshile Gorky. Masson also influenced the gestural style of abstract expressionism, especially the branch known as action painting. Masson returned to France after the war, living near Aix-en-Provence and painting landscapes.