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Additional Artworks

From John & Geraldine Lilley Museum of Art

  1. Lady Madeleine Lytton by Sir Jacob Epstein, Image 1.

    Sir Jacob Epstein

    Lady Madeleine Lytton, n.d.

    Bronze

    15.25 x 8 x 10.5 in

  2. La Jolla Coast Line by Carl Thorp, Image 1.

    Carl Thorp

    La Jolla Coast Line, n. d.

    Oil

  3. Lake Tahoe by Hildegard Herz, Image 1.

    Hildegard Herz

    Lake Tahoe, n. d.

    Watercolor

    12 x 15.375 in

  4. Lake Tahoe by Hildegard Herz, Image 2.

    Hildegard Herz

    Lake Tahoe, n. d.

    Watercolor

  5. Lake Tahoe by Hildegard Herz, Image 2.

    Hildegard Herz

    Lake Tahoe, n. d.

    Watercolor

  6. Lake Tahoe by Hildegard Herz, Image 2.

    Hildegard Herz

    Lake Tahoe, n. d.

    Watercolor

  7. Landmarks on the Emigrant Trail by Craig Sheppard, Image 1.

    Craig Sheppard

    Landmarks on the Emigrant Trail

    Reproduction

  8. Lake Tahoe by Hildegard Herz, Image 2.

    Hildegard Herz

    Lake Tahoe, n. d.

    Watercolor

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About the artist

Roberto Matta

This Chilean-born artist known for his unique blending of Surrealism with Abstract Expressionism. Like his friend Arshile Gorky, Matta’s otherworldly paintings and prints explored the unconscious through methods of Surrealist automatism. With fluid brushstrokes of rich color, the artist described nebulous spaces inhabited by floating organic and architectonic forms, as seen in the hallmark work Les Roses sont belles (1951). “I am interested only in the unknown and I work for my own astonishment,” he once declared. Born Roberto Sebastián Antonio Matta Echaurran on November 11, 1911, in Santiago, Chile, he graduated with a degree in architecture from the Catholic University of Santiago in 1932 before moving to Paris to work in the studio of LeCorbusier. While in Europe, he traveled to Madrid where he was introduced to the famed surrealist Salvador Dalí. It was Dalí who encouraged Matta to show his architectural drawings toAndré Breton and pursue a career in art. Now an accepted member of the Surrealist group, Matta settled in New York in 1938, began oil painting, and befriended American artists while maintaining ties with European friends like Yves Tanguy. In 1948, after the suicide of his friend Gorky, many of his American peers blamed Matta for the death, as he had slept his Gorky’s wife shortly before the tragic event. Ostracized, the artist returned to Europe, spending much of the rest of his life between Paris and Rome. He died on November 23, 2002, in Civitavecchia, Italy at the age of 91. Matta’s works are presently held in the collections of the Tate Gallery in London, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice.
Image of artist

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