The multifaceted lives of Dorothea Tanning
Surrealism Lovers Series — Great Women Artists Series
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Happy Sunday and welcome back to Giselle daydreams! Today I’m writing about Dorothea Tanning and her multifaceted lives. In this post, instead of writing a thorough analysis on one of her paintings, I’ll be delving into her life and present an artist profile, similar to my post on Marilyn Minter.
Am I a surrealist? Am I a sophist, a Buddhist, a Zoroastrian? Am I an extremist, an alchemist, a contortionist, a mythologist, a fantasist, a humorist? Must we artists bow our heads and accept a label, without which we do not exist? The underlying ideas of surrealism are still very much with me. They are in the backs of a lot of other minds too, even in those so young as to have known only the records, the hearsay, the debris. But I have no label except artist. — Dorothea Tanning, 1989
Dorothea Tanning was a versatile American artist, known for her contributions to surrealism and her explorations of the subconscious through visual art, sculpture, and writing. Born in 1910 in Galesburg, Illinois, she developed a deep love for art from an early age and often found solace in the imaginative worlds of authors like Lewis Carroll and Hans Christian Andersen. In 1936, she moved to New York to pursue her artistic career.
In New York, she became associated with the Surrealist movement and later met her future husband, the famed surrealist Max Ernst, in 1942. Tanning’s early surrealist works, such as her iconic self-portrait Birthday (1942), embraced the movement’s central tenet of exploring the subconscious. In this painting, Tanning positioned herself as both creator and subject, challenging the notion of the muse as an object of male desire. She explored personal and universal themes like identity, desire, transformation, and the complex relationships between women and the spaces they inhabit. Tanning's inspirations were drawn from within — her subconscious, dreams, and the surreal forces she encountered in life and art. Furthermore, her paintings from this period often featured dreamlike settings filled with mysterious and enigmatic scenes filled with symbolic imagery, which blurred the boundaries between reality and imagination. She employed motifs like doors, enigmatic figures, and fantastical creatures, all of which evoked a sense of the hidden or unknown forces within the mind.
Tanning made significant contributions to surrealism, both as an artist and later as a writer, by pushing the boundaries of the movement with her unique blend of surrealist themes and evolving artistic styles.
Tanning’s work often engaged with themes of femininity, though she resisted being categorised as a woman artist. Her paintings frequently depicted female figures in ambiguous, transformative states, challenging traditional roles and offering complex depictions of female subjectivity. For instance, her Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (1943) portrays young girls confronting unsettling and surreal forces, symbolising internal struggles and the mysterious aspects of identity.
Tanning resisted being pigeonholed by gender, frequently rejecting being reduced to the label of woman artist; a position which suggested women were muses for men rather than creators in their own right. Instead, she sought to transcend such limitations in her art, focusing on universal themes of identity, time, and transformation. Tanning's later works, which include her surreal sculptures and abstract paintings, reflect this internalised muse, rejecting the need for external sources of inspiration in favour of a more personal, imaginative exploration.
Dorothea Tanning and Max Ernst had a profound personal and artistic partnership that spanned over three decades. They met in 1942 when Ernst visited Tanning’s New York studio to review her work for a group exhibition. The story goes that Ernst famously discovered Tanning’s painting Birthday (1942) in her studio, which depicts a semi-nude self-portrait of Tanning in a surreal setting. Ernst was enthralled and shortly after this pivotal meeting, they became romantically involved. While Tanning is sometimes described as the muse of Ernst, their relationship is far more complex and reciprocal than that label suggests. Tanning and Ernst were both captivated by each other’s work and presence. However, Tanning’s role extended far beyond being a passive source of inspiration for Ernst. They were equal creative partners in many respects, each influencing the other's work in profound ways.
Tanning’s surrealist imagination and boldness left a significant mark on Ernst, particularly during their early years together in the 1940s. Ernst often painted his partners or featured them in his works — Tanning included — but Tanning was never merely a muse. She was an independent artist whose ideas and creativity rivalled those of Ernst himself.
The couple married in 1946 in a double wedding with artist Man Ray and dancer Juliet Browner. They moved to Sedona, Arizona in the 1940s where they built a home and studio, forming part of a vibrant artistic community. Ernst and Tanning influenced each other artistically, with Tanning’s work during this period reflecting elements of Ernst’s surrealist techniques, such as dreamlike imagery and symbolic use of space. Their collaborative life was a time of mutual influence, with both artists sharing ideas and pushing the boundaries of surrealism. However, Tanning maintained a distinctive style that evolved independently from Ernst’s over time.
Ernst and Tanning were central figures in the surrealist movement, although Tanning often resisted being overshadowed by her more famous husband. They were both committed to surrealism’s exploration of the subconscious, and their mutual fascination with dreams, fantasy, and the irrational is evident in their respective bodies of work. Though they worked in different styles — Ernst’s often leaning toward automatism and collage, and Tanning’s increasingly abstract yet figurative — they shared a deep interest in the fluidity of identity and the mysteries of the mind. While Tanning was undoubtedly a source of inspiration for Ernst, their relationship was based on a shared artistic and intellectual partnership, rather than a traditional muse-artist dynamic. Tanning and Ernst’s relationship was marked by collaboration and independence, allowing both artists to explore the boundaries of surrealism while also developing their individual voices.
Maternity depicts a complex, unsettling vision of motherhood that reflects her surrealist style and thematic interests. The painting shows a woman holding an infant in a desolate landscape, her white dress torn, suggesting vulnerability and perhaps a sense of entrapment. At her feet lies a small dog with the face of a child, an eerie combination that recalls the close relationship Tanning had with her own pet dog. This unusual detail hints at her ambivalence toward motherhood, as she did not have children herself but invested deeply in her art and her beloved pets.
The painting’s background, a barren space with a solitary doorframe that seems to open onto emptiness, suggests isolation rather than security. This can be seen as an exploration of Tanning's view of domesticity and motherhood as conflicting with personal freedom and creativity—a tension that resonates throughout her works. At a time when women artists often had to choose between family and their careers, Tanning used surrealism to interrogate the idealised roles assigned to women and question their limitations within society. This piece, along with her other works, situates her as a significant figure in surrealism who both embraced and challenged the movement’s conventional themes through a feminist lens.
Tanning’s concept of a muse differed from traditional interpretations in art. While muses are often external figures that inspire artists, Tanning resisted such conventional notions, especially gendered interpretations. She did not see herself — or women in general — as passive sources of inspiration for male artists. Instead, Tanning’s muse was often an internal force, driven by her own subconscious mind and imagination, aligning with the surrealist belief in tapping into the irrational and dreamlike states.
Tanning strongly resisted being cast as simply a muse for any male artist, including Ernst. She continually asserted her own identity as an artist, resisting the traditional gendered narratives of women in art as muses rather than creators. Tanning, along with many other female surrealists, worked to challenge these roles and create space for women to be seen as equals in the art world. Her later works, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, embody this autonomy, as she moved toward more abstract and sculptural forms, diverging from Ernst's influence and solidifying her own legacy in surrealism.
By the late 1950s, Tanning’s work evolved toward greater abstraction, but she continued to explore surrealist themes of transformation and the subconscious. In 1957, the couple moved to France, where they lived in Paris and later, in the countryside. During their time in France, both artists continued to work prolifically. However, Tanning’s style began to diverge from the more traditional surrealist techniques she had practised in the U.S. She embraced abstraction more fully, while Ernst continued his exploration of automatic techniques. This period allowed Tanning to expand her artistic voice, even as she remained close to the surrealist circle that surrounded Ernst. Works like Insomnias (1957) show fragmented, dreamlike figures dissolving into abstract planes, an approach that expanded the surrealist vocabulary to include elements of abstraction while still maintaining the movement’s exploration of inner psychological states.
Tanning’s contributions extended beyond painting. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, she began creating soft sculptures, such as Hôtel du Pavot, Chambre 202 (1970–73), a surreal room installation filled with stuffed, fabric figures that merge into the walls and furniture. This immersive work expanded Surrealism into new, tactile dimensions and explored the body’s relationship with space in a dreamlike context. These sculptures were unique within Surrealism for their physical engagement with space and form, merging the boundaries between art, sculpture, and installation.
I wanted to lead the eye into spaces that hid, revealed, transformed all at once and where there could be some never-before-seen-image. — Dorothea Tanning
Ernst’s passing away in 1976 marked a significant turning point in Tanning’s life. She returned to New York and threw herself into her work creating some of her most ambitious works, particularly in painting, poetry, and writing. While Ernst had been a powerful influence on her life, Tanning’s later works are often seen as her own distinct contributions to art, separate from his shadow. In addition to her visual art, she published two memoirs (one detailing her life with Ernst) and several volumes of poetry later in life; and contributed to surrealism through literature. Her novel Chasm: A Weekend (2004) and volumes of poetry retained the surrealist focus on the irrational and the mysterious, illustrating how her surrealist vision permeated multiple forms of artistic expression. Her writing continued to explore Surrealist themes, such as the fluidity of identity and the boundaries between reality and fantasy.
Tanning’s ability to shift between mediums — painting, sculpture, and literature — while maintaining a surrealist approach marks her as a key figure in the movement, one whose contributions helped extend surrealism’s reach beyond painting into new artistic and intellectual terrains. Throughout her career, she moved toward abstraction, but she always retained an interest in the human figure and themes related to memory, desire, and the unconscious. Her work evolved to include large-scale paintings, soft sculptures, and immersive installations, such as Hôtel du Pavot, Chambre 202 (1970–73), which featured fabric figures trapped in a room, blending surrealism with a tangible sense of unease and psychological depth. She remained active well into her 90s, with exhibitions of her work held worldwide, including at the Tate Modern in London and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. She passed away in New York in 2012, aged 101.
My dreams are bristling with objects that relate to nothing in the dictionary. On waking they lose their clarity. Dreams one reads in books are composed of known symbols but it is their strangeness that distinguishes them. — Dorothea Tanning
FIN.
Thank you for this post and the series on surrealism. This style of art inspired me to begin drawing and painting as a teenager. I've always been drawn to work that blends technical proficiency and imaginative imagery.
Looking forward to your future posts.
MAGNIFIQUE