André Masson, Le Thé chez Franco, 1938

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Ink on paper

45,5 x 58 cm

Signed and dated lower left : André Masson 19 novembre 1938.
Titled lower center : Le thé chez Franco

When civil war broke out in Spain, the Surrealists unanimously sided with the Republicans, and Joan Miro's Reaper came face to face with Picasso's Guernica in the Spanish Pavilion at...

When civil war broke out in Spain, the Surrealists unanimously sided with the Republicans, and Joan Miro's Reaper came face to face with Picasso's Guernica in the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 Universal Exhibition. Although Picasso was not an actual member of the Surrealist group, he was nevertheless close to Paul Eluard, André Breton and, of course, his muse and lover Dora Maar. Created in 1937, Max Ernst's L'Ange du foyer also appeared as an allegory of fascist barbarism. Under the impetus of André Breton, the publications ‘La Révolution surréaliste’ and ‘Surréalisme au service de la révolution’ took up positions denouncing the war and colonialism.

André Masson found himself in war-torn Spain, where he had lived with his family since 1934. He was forced to leave Catalonia in 1937 to take refuge in France. André Masson was to produce some of the most bitter satires of Franco's regime and of the political situation in Europe at the time. Le Thé chez Franco (Tea at Franco's) represents a specific historical moment, in reference to the Münich agreements of 1938, which ceded Czechoslovakia to Hitler. Signed between Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Italy and which opened the door to war, giving greater legitimacy to the Reich. Winston Churchill rightly put it: "They had to choose between dishonor and war. They chose dishonor, and they will have war".

The drawing was reproduced on the cover of the second issue of Clé, the bulletin of the International Federation of Independent Revolutionary Art (FIARI), created by André Breton and Léon Trotsky with the help of Diego Rivera.

Provenance

Collection H. Michael Hertz, Bremen
Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris
Collection Ernst O.E. Fischer, Krefeld
Collection particulière, Belgique - Private collection, Belgium

Exhibitions

2024 Metz, Centre Pompidou Metz, André Masson. Il n'y a pas de monde achevé, cat.
2019 Céret, Musée d'Art Moderne, André Masson, Une mythologie de l’être et de la nature, cat. Bruxelles, Galerie de la Béraudière, Works on paper
2018 Berlin, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Neolithic childhood. Art in a False Present, ca. 1930, cat. Bruxelles, Galerie de la Béraudière, Calder, Miró et leurs rencontres parisiennes
2012 - 2013 Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro Arte Reina Sofia, Encounters with the 1930, p.367
1986 Museum Bochum Kunstsammlung, No pasaran – Für SpanienKunst und Internationale Kultur zum spanischen Bürgerkrieg 1936-1946, n° 66
1985 Berlin et Hanovre, Galerie Brusberg, André Masson und die Metamorphose, n° 29
1983 Berlin, Staatliche Kunsthalle, 1933 – Wege zur Diktatur, n° 53
1973 St-Paul de Vence, Fondation Maeght, André Malraux, n° 374
1964 Berlin, Akademie der Kunste, André Masson, n° 95

Publications

Manuel Borja-Villel, Rosario Peiro, The Thirties: Theater of Cruelty, Place of Encounter, Museo Nacional Reina Sofia, Madrid, 2013, p. 82 ill.

André MASSON: Le Surréalisme révolutionnaire: Parcours Paris Surréaliste

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André Masson French, 1896-1987

Provenance

Exhibitions

Publications