Dorothea Tanning: Birthday mini print

Mini print of Birthday, 1942, by Dorothea Tanning.

In her memoirs, Tanning says that this painting was titled by her future husband, Max Ernst, on his first visit to her studio, to look for art to include in the Exhibition by 31 Women show at Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of this Century Gallery. It is a Surrealist self-portrait, as Tanning stands in a vertigo-inducing room of tilted floor and infinite doors, clad in a jacket with a train of seaweed twisted into human figure shapes, with a winged, lemur-like creature as her familiar.

Dorothea Tanning (1910 – 2012) was an American artist, writer and poet. Aside from three weeks of tuition at the Chicago Academy of Fine Art in 1930, she was entirely self-taught. Although often described as a Surrealist artist, after the 1940s Tanning moved away from surrealist themes and evolved her own personal style. She lived with her fellow artist and husband, Max Ernst, in France from 1949 until Ernst’s death in 1976. In 1980, she moved to New York, and after a decade of studio art, turned to writing and poetry in the 1990s, which she continued until her death at the age of 101.

All our mini prints measure 28 x 35.6 cm and include a white border with full artwork credit line.

Our mini prints are produced on 250 gsm matt art paper using a four colour flat-bed digital printer. We work with only UK based PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forestry Certification) and FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified suppliers for our print products.

• Artist Dorothea Tanning
• Artwork Birthday, 1942
• Exhibition Dorothea Tanning
• ISBN 5032495337519