untitled, Roberto Matta

Archive Label 2003:
Roberto Matta first studied architecture in Santiago, and then traveled to Paris in the politically tense year of 1933 to work in architect Le Corbusier’s studio. By 1936, he was in London with Walter Gropius, architect and former head of the Bauhaus school of art and design in Germany. The following year, Matta gave up architecture completely to focus on his drawing. The artist invented imaginative forms that appealed to the sensibilities of the Surrealists gathered in Paris.

At the outbreak of World War II, Matta moved to New York City. He was immediately accepted as an influential modernist artist and praised as a Surrealist visionary, and crucial to the American abstract expressionists’ development. He remained in the United States for a time following the ceasefire in Europe. However, during the Cold War era Matta’s political views were clearly unpopular and he returned to Europe, dividing his time between Paris and Rome. He continued to be vocal, denouncing U.S. involvement in Latin America and decrying exploitation of Third World countries by capitalist industry.