Roberto Matta, (1911-2002), surrealist painter

[Michael Rhodes]

Roberto Sebastián Antonio Matta Echaurren, surrealist painter, died at
Civitavecchia, Italy, 23 November, 2002, aged 91.

Matta was born at Santiago, Chile, 11 November 1911, of Spanish-French
parents. In 1934, when he was 22, he went to Paris to study under Le
Corbusier.In 1937, he made contact with the Surrealists and the
following year he began to paint.

At that period Surrealism was getting almost no support or impulse
from new young artists. Matta was the exception. With Gorky and Robert
Motherwell, the two American artists he felt closest to, he
constituted a bridge between the French surrealists and the younger
American painters.

Matta's pictures have an improvisational quality. Elements of L'Art
Informel are interspersed with three dimensional looking shapes. At
times Matta poured paint directly onto the canvas, then pounded and
rubbed it in.

http://www.artnetgallery.com/artists/matta.html

Accident played a greater part in his work than pure intention. His
primary interest belonged to the process of picture making.

He married and had five offspring.

--

Michael Rhodes [who has a print of *Being There* painted by Matta in
1945-46 oil on canvas, 7' 3 3/8" X 14'9 7/8"].