The Pace Gallery in Chelsea is currently featuring an exhibition in honor of the one hundredth anniversary of artist Roberto Matta’s birth in: Matta: A Centennial Celebration. The show features 14 paintings that were completed during the later years of the artist’s life. The selected works are being shown to the public for the first time in the United States; they have previously been shown only in Europe.
Matta, who was born in Chile, is widely recognized as one of the greatest Surrealists and an important influence in the development of Abstract Expressionism. In 1938, Matta was the youngest artist to participate in the Paris Exposicion International du Surrealism. The following year, he moved to New York where he quickly established a strong presence in the New York art world.
Ten years later, Matta moved back to Europe, living in Rome until 1955, and spent the rest his life in living in Paris, London, and Tarquinia (north of Rome). Matta was a well-traveled artist throughout his lifetime with his work being influential to numerous artists of various cultural backgrounds.
As Matta’s daughter Federica explains, “He created his thinking in the waves of the different languages mixing…[and] his thought was built in the moment of his speaking. He was doing the same in painting…He was letting the languages and the forms carry him.”
The exhibition also offers a catalog of essays about Matta and his career by Justin Spring, whose writings have won him awards such as the 2010 National Book Award and one of the New York Times’ Notable Books of the Year.
“This year, the centenary year of Matta’s birth, cultural historians are finally coming to a fuller understanding of this restless international genius, and in so doing, starting to situate his life and work not only in the context of European art history, but also within the increasingly linked cultural histories of Latin America, the United States, Italy, Spain, and France,” Spring writes. At The Pace Gallery (534 W. 25th St.) through Jan. 28. The gallery is open Tuesdays through Fridays from 9:30 a.m. until 6 p.m.
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