Possible men
(Hommes possibles)
(1934)
- Medium
- tempera and oil on canvas
- Measurements
- 156.0 × 91.4 cm
- Place/s of Execution
- Paris, France
- Inscription
- inscribed in black paint l.c.r.: WP.
- Accession Number
- 2017.10
- Department
- International Painting
- Credit Line
- National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
The Eugénie Crawford Bequest, 2017
© Succession Wolfgang Paalen et Eva Sulzer - Gallery location
- Late 19th & early 20th Century Paintings & Decorative Arts Gallery
Level 2, NGV International - About this work
-
Wolfgang Paalen travelled widely throughout Europe from 1920 onwards, painting in France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Greece and Czechoslovakia before settling in Paris in 1928. There he joined the avant-garde Abstraction-Création movement that included Jean Arp, Albert Gleizes, Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson. Paalen also exhibited with the Surrealists from 1932 to 1939, becoming a leading figure in that movement. In this painting from his Surrealist phase, Paalen adopted a simplified graphism in which the human being is reduced to interlocking triangular forms painted in a limited palette of strong colours with little modulation or shading.
- Subjects (general)
- Abstract Art
- Subjects (specific)
- anthropomorphic figure-derived form attributes flat (form attributes) heads (representations) shape (form attribute) simplicity (artistic concept)
- Movements
- Surrealism
