Dorothea Tanning Transformations

A definitive and nuanced study of American artist Dorothea Tanning, positioning her as one of the most fascinating and significant creative forces to emerge during the 20th century.

Extensively illustrated, the book features unpublished material from interviews which the author conducted with the artist between 2000 and 2009. Carruthers provides a framework within which to consider the range and depth of Tanning's work, well beyond the better-known early Surrealist works of the 1940s, and makes connections between her life experiences and thematic preoccupations.

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 there, turned to writing and poetry in the 1990s, which she continued until her death at the age of 101.

Victoria Carruthers is Senior Lecturer in modern and contemporary art history and theory at the Australian Catholic University, Sydney, Australia. Carruthers completed her doctoral thesis on the work of Dorothea Tanning and has published several articles on her practice. She was fortunate enough to visit the artist on a number of occasions and enjoy many lengthy conversations on her life and work.

• Dimensions 23.5 x 27.8 x 2.3 cm
• ISBN 9781848221741
• Hardback Yes
• Number of illustrations 167 Colour, 33 B&W, 200 unspecified
• Publisher Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd
• No of pages 224