Slowly Toward the North
Yves Tanguy
American, born France. 1900–1955
1942
A surreal oil painting in which Yves Tanguy arranges polished, biomorphic and machine-like shapes across a shadowy, distant plane to evoke a dreamlike, unconscious landscape.
A deep, nocturnal blue spreads like a void while odd, glossy forms—cones, joints, and skeletal frameworks—sit and float with precise, almost mechanical detail, lit by a cold, uncanny glow.
Tanguy’s razor-sharp, invented topographies exemplify surrealist automatism made visible and helped bridge European Surrealism with later strands of American abstraction by proving that meticulously painted, imaginary spaces could carry psychological force.
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
42 x 36" (106.7 x 91.4 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Philip Johnson
Accession
627.1943
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
