Roberto Matta

ROBERTO MATTA (Santiago, Chile, 1911 – Civitavecchia, Italy, 2002).
“The Sea – Salt Pathway.” From the series *Paroles peintes IV*, 1970.
Color etching and aquatint on Johannot paper, print no. 6/14.
Signed and dated in pencil.
Published by O. Lazar-Vernet, Paris, 1970.
Work created as an illustration for a text by André Pieyre de Mandiargues in the group publication *Paroles peintes IV*.
Bibliography: Roland Sabatier, *L’œuvre gravé de Matta, 1943–1974*, no. 214 bis.
Measurements: 24.3 x 19.5 cm (print); 38 x 28 cm (paper).

The composition unfolds Matta’s characteristic imagery through two biomorphic figures facing each other against a dark, undefined space. The incisive outlines, transformed anatomies, and the use of chromatic areas with an almost phosphorescent appearance transform the scene into a mental space rather than a narrative one. The etching provides the nervous precision of the drawing, while the aquatint builds the densities of the background and the areas of color—techniques particularly well-suited to the unstable and visionary spatiality that characterizes his artistic language.

Roberto Matta, an architect by training, settled in Paris in the 1930s, where he worked with Le Corbusier and came into contact with André Breton and the Surrealist circle. His explorations of so-called “inner landscapes” or psychological morphologies made him a pivotal figure in the evolution of Surrealism and exerted a significant influence on the Abstract Expressionist generation during his time in New York. Graphic art constituted a consistent strand of his output, allowing him to translate his unique combination of automatism, space, and the metamorphosis of the figure into printmaking. His work is represented, among other institutions, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which holds an extensive collection of the artist’s works, and at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice.