Mots Desserre Freins. Words Unfastening Curbs by Roberto Matta, 1911-2002

Roberto Matta, 1911-2002
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Mots Desserre Freins. Words Unfastening Curbs

Original etching with aquatint in colours. 1972. Signed in pencil. Numbered in pencil from the edition of 25 proofs (xxiii/xxv). There was also an edition of 100 impressions; total edition of 125. Printed at the studio of Visat, Paris 1972. Issued in the series 'Mots Desserre Freins', 1972.
Ref: Sabatier - Matta L'Oeuvre Gravé no 322.

Excellent impression with strong colours. On pale cream Arches paper. Excellent condition. Full margins. Sheet: 12 7/8 x 9 3/4ins. Plate: 9 x 7 1/4ins (228x160mm).

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Matta was born in Chile and followed his first studies as an architect there but in 1931 he moved to Paris. In Paris he worked in Le Corbusier's studio as a draughtsman, but also began to spend an increasing amount of his time painting. In 1931 he was introduced to Dali, and through him to the other Surrealist painters, exhibiting some drawings with them in 1937. By the beginning of the 1940's, when he moved to the USA, he was totally involved in the Surrealist aesthetic.

It was in Matta's exhibitions in the 1940's in New York that he began to develop the distinctive imagery of his mature work. This imagery is an expression of his attitude to the way that he felt that mankind had become increasingly identified with the dominance of the machine and thus of its opposition to and conflict with the free forces of natural phenomena. His forms, part human, part insect, part mechanical, are shown lost in the unidentified and limitless power of space and time. Like his surrealist colleagues the whole purpose of Matta's imagery is to evoke an emotional and instinctive subconscious reaction rather than a rational and visual one.

From the time that he met up with the Surrealists Matta has been interested by printmaking, not least by the way that mechanical or chemical reactions in the creation of an etched plate, for example, could be used in a random manner to heighten the effect of the imagery. This work is a typical example of the mature style of his etching.