Cafãƒâ© Des Beaux Arts at 80 West 40th Street

"…A sizable Surrealist whose highly private pictures are mirrors of the universal Cocky.

—The New York Times

Born in Basel, Switzerland in 1900, the Swiss-American Surrealist Kurt Seligmann's life and work consisted of a fine balance: a gracious respect for his beginnings, past artists, his experiences as a youth, and his studies of magic and ethnographic arts, combined with a pursuit of progression, both in the avant-garde movements and the tumultuous political times within which he lived. His piece of work stands equally an affiliation of an artist keenly aware of and active within his surrounding realities, and on a quest to create a language of characters and imagery to express his intuitions and imaginations.

Seligmann was the first fellow member of the Paris-based Surrealists to relocate to New York in the get-go months of Globe War II and was instrumental in helping to rescue many of his swain artists and intellectuals from Occupied French republic. From his friendship with Jean Arp and involvement with the Abstraction-Création grouping, to his induction as a member of the Surrealist circle, to his exile in America and his influence on many of the up-and-coming New York School artists, Seligmann'due south rich oeuvre demonstrates the importance of the homo and his fine art in the canon of art history.

• Unititled (The Exorcist) , c. 1930's

• Le gainsay (de Tancrède et de Clorinde) , 1934

• Un dimanche (Jubivillad) , 1938

• Automne trompette de fourrure (Le carillon muet)aka Trumpet of Fur & Kite , 1938

• Sabbath Phantoms (Mythomania) , c. 1945

• Devil and Fool , 1948

• Le génie de la conviction , 1943

• Evocation , 1955

Kurt Fifty. Seligmann, New York, 1946. Photograph by Irving Penn. Copyright © The Irving Penn Foundation.

Myths and legends have from fourth dimension immemorial inspired the artist. They contain and limited a constant psychological truth. And they lend themselves generously to costless associations and interpretations.

—Kurt Seligmann

Early Years

Born in Basel, Switzerland in 1900, Kurt Seligmann'due south commencement employment as a teenager was in a local printer's shop and involved learning to apply color to pictures on glass projected for educational use, a skill he would later use in his own contrary glass paintings. He took lessons from the traditionalist Ernst Buchner and the modernist Eugene Rudolf Ammann, setting a pattern of concurrent and seemingly opposite influences that would continue in his own work throughout his life. In 1918 he started to regularly participate in exhibitions at the Basel Kunsthalle, and in 1919 he began studying at the École des Beaux-Arts in Geneva, where he met Alberto Giacometti. A portrait that he painted of the sculptor at that time now hangs in the Kunstmuseum, Bern.

Kurt'due south male parent, Gustav Seligmann, established a successful piece of furniture business organization in Switzerland, and his female parent, Helene Guggenheim, was a member of one of the oldest families in Lengnau; the art collector Peggy Guggenheim was related to the family equally well. Kurt'south time at the Beaux-Arts abruptly ended when his father became ill and he returned dwelling house to presume the responsibilities of running the family concern, a role which lasted for eight years. An exhibition at the Kuntsmuseum Basel of the 16th century artist/mercenary Urs Graf was the impetus for him to revisit his artistic pursuits, and in 1926, he resigned from the business. Though information technology had prospered under his son's management and he had been initially reluctant to have Kurt attend fine art school, Gustav supported him in the pursuit of his passion and happiness, any class that was to take.

Paris and Abstraction-Création

Left to right: Kurt Seligmann, Serge Brignoni, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Jean Arp, and an unidentified person, at Kunsthalle, Bern, August 1932. Kurt and Arlette Seligmann Papers, The Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

Later studying and traveling in Italian republic for a year, Seligmann moved to Paris in 1929, spending a few months at the school of André Lhote as well equally working from models at Colarossi'south Académie de la Grande Chaumière and subjects he met in the city. His cosmopolitan life was enriched past frequent visits to the Louvre, his reading of Freud'south lectures on psychoanalysis, and the company of other Swiss artists, including Serge Brignoni and Gérard Vuillamy. According to his diary, he purposely sought to find inspiration across his intellect and reality, to invent new forms from insight and fantasy.

In 1930 Paris was the epicenter of avant-garde artistic movements, especially the brainchild groups and Surrealism. Seligmann'southward style and sensibility demonstrated traits of both genres. The figures inside his semi-geometric abstractions set against stark grounds gradually softened to organic forms of stiff contrasting colour interacting in sweeping curves, which perhaps struck a chord with Jean Arp who invited Seligmann to his studio. Before introducing himself to Max Ernst and André Breton, Seligmann felt he needed to demonstrate his artistic gravitas. That year he was accepted to the tertiary Salon des Surindépendants with paintings and a forest construction. Wolfgang Paalen was amongst the artists who responded to Seligmann'due south work, and the two became lifelong friends.

Arp invited Seligmann to join the group he had founded, Brainchild-Création, inside which he took active roles, somewhen becoming right-hand man to the president, Auguste Herbin, until the group dissolved in 1936. His introduction to Jeanne Boucher past Arp atomic number 82 to his kickoff solo exhibition in 1932, and thereafter he exhibited in Basel and Bern in shows besides featuring Arp.

Kurt Seligmann in his studio at the Villa Seurat, c. 1936-37.

From the outset, Seligmann'southward work stood in contrast to the others inside Brainchild-Création, with his Surrealist tendencies condign more than evident, and in 1934 he officially became a member of the Surrealist group along with Jacques Hérold, Óscar Domínguez, Richard Oelze and Hans Bellmer. His paintings developed into a unique combination of Surrealism and his Swiss heritage, portraying characters composed of various peculiar shapes and elements. At a show at the Galleria de Milione in Italy in 1935, he exhibited several paintings on contrary glass, employing techniques from his teen years and a traditional Swiss folk art. While straddling the tenets of both artistic groups, the Japanese avant-garde artist Taro Okamoto, with whom he had collaborated, believed that Seligmann was the primary crusade of the split between the abstractionists and semi-abstractionists which eventually lead to the finish of Abstraction-Création.

A Shift Towards Surrealism

The urban center of Basel had an essential significance inside Seligmann's life and work, as he recalled growing up with the image of the 15th century mercenary and the subconscious effect his civilization had on his creative ventures. He affirmed the notion that progress first needs a cognition of and respect for the by. Nigh notably, the city'due south Carnival Day, when the citizens would swarm the streets in medieval costume and lavish headgear in an almanac revelry of music and kin, left an enduring impression on the artist. In a 1935 interview, Seligmann recalled:

"My entire childhood was impregnated by the ancient ideal of the Soldier of Fortune which since the 15th century has left an indelible mark on Basel. The heraldic ensigns, the armor, the halyards, the drapery, the ribbons, all this anachronistic attire was very much alive for me. It seems to me that I e'er hear, in the depth of my ears, the deafening audio of the enormous drums that are reserved for Carnival Day. Basel, you see, is still and ever Holbein, Erasmus, Frobeinus, Melanchton. It is in the culture of my natal city to which my subconscious always travels whenever I begin ane of my compositions, whether abstract or imaginative." Héraut, Henri, "Artistes d'aujourd'hui: Kurt Seligmann, peintre d'advanced," Sud, Nr. 126, Marseille, 15 April 1935

These depictions are nearly literally illustrated when his characters are in full regalia, engaged in a trip the light fantastic toe macabre or haunting procession, waving flags or in a flight en masse. Even within his early abstractions and the subsequently anthropomorphic and vegetal compositions, one can detect the heraldic undertones: swaying ribbons of paint, swathes of curtain, a strength in stance and motility. In the essays accompanying the 1961 D'Arcy Galleries exhibition, French Musée d'Art Moderne Director Jean Cassou chosen Seligmann'south figures "truly baroque," with the "swirling and "undulating" folds of fabric producing "elegant" results. James Johnson Sweeney, Director of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, described his "violence of expression" and "an urgency and fever that brings his work closer to expressionism than to classical repose." Many observed his relation to his Swiss antecedents, citing the "energy" of Urs Graf (c. 1485-1529) and Nicolas Manuel Deutsch (1484-1530), whose artwork depicted boxing scenes and medieval creatures and which tin can be found reinvented in Seligmann's modernistic-24-hour interval combats and fantastical parades. Murdock Pemberton, art critic for The New Yorker magazine, conveyed that "Seligmann reports being especially enraptured by the inner rhythm of battle scenes" of the Italian Renaissance master Paolo Uccello.

Kurt and Arlette Seligmann on their honeymoon, 1935.

In 1935, Seligmann met and married Arlette Paraf, niece of the gallery director Georges Wildenstein, afterwards which they embarked upon world travels together. While in Japan, Taro Okamoto's father organized a one-person evidence in Tokyo for Seligmann—the offset time an artist associated with Surrealism exhibited in Japan prior to the first official International Exhibition of Surrealism in Tokyo, 1937. During their stay at the Hotel Grosvenor in Paris in 1936, Kay Sage, as well a guest, discovered Kurt's paintings while peering through an open up door. A friendship formed between the 3, leading Sage to the Surrealists and ultimately to her marriage to Yves Tanguy.

Kurt and Arlette eventually plant a new domicile and studio in Paris in the Villa Seurat. In 1937, with the encouragement of Tanguy, Seligmann was admitted to the daily meetings of the Surrealists with Breton at the Café Deux Magots, along with Esteban Francés and Patrick Waldberg. Breton wrote in Le Surréalisme et la Peinture, "Kurt Seligmann, who passed through this phase of heraldic symbolism and whose first mission seems to have been to elucidate its mysteries, has moved on to explore all the phosphorescent aspects of the medieval 'night'. From these expeditions he has brought back the pure forms of man anguish and energy…"

Kurt and Arlette Seligmann dwelling movie with André Breton and Jacqueline Lamba, Paris, 1938. (No audio)

A large Surrealism exhibition opened at Wildenstein'south noteworthy Galerie des Beaux-Arts in 1938. The exhibition was an experience to exist had: a corridor lined with mannequins adorned by the Surrealists, including Seligmann; coal sacks hanging from the ceiling courtesy of Marcel Duchamp; beds surrounding a pond designed past Paalen. Seligmann's earlier works given new Surrealist titles hung amongst those by Max Ernst, Joan Miró, and other Surrealist artists. His objects were also featured, including a soup tureen covered with feathers, a tear-shaped plaster with four homo artillery, three copies in plaster of a kid's portrait bust by the 19th century sculptor, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, and his controversial Ultrameuble—a stool consisting of iv female person legs in high heels, possibly in a nod to the furniture shop of his past.

Seligmann's involvement with the Surrealists avant-garde: his collage Les animaux surréalists was included in the Dictionnaire abrégé du Surréalisme published by Breton and éluard; he was among the twelve artists invited past Breton to illustrate the Les Chants de Maldoror by Isidore Ducasse, also known as le Comte de Lautréamont; and his piece of work was featured in an additional Surrealism exhibition organized by Breton and Éluard held in Amsterdam in 1938.

Kurt Seligmann in front of a Gitksan Totem Pole, British Columbia, 1938.

An exhibition of non-European sources of Western art at the Musée du Jeu de Paume in 1937 was of particular interest to the Surrealists, who were intrigued by tribal art. A Surrealist map of the world was presented depicting the largest land masses as those rich in tribal art, and Seligmann, along with many other beau Surrealists, acquired tribal art objects. What captivated him was the "totemistic substance" of such objects, symbolizing human's connections to primordial life conditions. Kurt and Arlette traveled to British Columbia, spending three months living in a Tsimshian village and observing their life and legends and their parallels to European tales and traditions. They acquired a 60-human foot totem pole that was shipped to Paris and installed at the entry of the Musée de 50'Homme.

New Home in America

In September of 1939, following the German invasion of Poland, the Seligmanns departed France by send for New York. Seemingly the trip was planned and so that they could attend his exhibition at Karl Nierendorf's gallery, though the timing indicates this could take been a strategy for them to leave Europe. Seligmann may have predictable the possibility for a long stay abroad, equally the calendar month prior he had sought storage for his glass paintings with Georges Wildenstein which was already occupied. In fact, as early as 1932, he foreshadowed an inevitable state of war in a scrapbook he had assembled of articles and images.

The exhibition at Nierendorf Gallery, Specters 1939 A.D.—13 Variations on a macabre theme, reflected the current violence of the time while retaining ambiguous elements and those unique to the artist, such every bit medieval alchemy, classical myths, Swiss devices, and distinctly mod renderings. Upon the evidence'due south determination, a return to France was impossible, and the Seligmanns moved from the Plaza Hotel annex to a large studio on 40th Street near Fifth Avenue, where they would reside for the following twenty years.

Their relocation to New York and financial stability proved unexpectedly beneficial as Seligmann was able to aid his fellow Surrealists seeking to immigrate from Europe with the threat of impending danger during wartime. He received requests from colleagues, whether they were Jewish or German nationals away, and artists whose piece of work was included in Hitler'south Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Fine art) exhibition, for assistance with visas, finances, and reference messages, and he helped to provide affidavits to the Emergency Rescue Committee for Surrealists seeking to depart Europe, including André Masson and Breton. The latter wrote to him from France in 1940, "I am convinced that the hereafter of Surrealism is where you are."

Surrealist Émigrés

Artists in Exile group photograph, New York, 1942. Left to right, first row: Stanley William Hayter, Leonora Carrington, Frederick Kiesler, Kurt Seligmann; second row: Max Ernst, Amédée Ozenfant, André Breton, Fernand Léger, Berenice Abbott; third row: Jimmy Ernst, Peggy Guggenheim, John Ferren, Marcel Duchamp, Piet Mondrian.

Paalen, who was living in Mexico, wrote to Seligmann in November regarding a show he was organizing with César Moro at the Galería de Arte Mexicano. Breton, who was all the same serving as military medical staff in French republic, provided the list of inclusions. Paalen sketched the 2 Seligmann paintings he wanted to exhibit in the letter to Kurt and informed him that Tanguy had recently arrived in New York. The Paris Surrealists began arriving and regrouping in fall and leap, including Matta, Sage, Duchamp, Masson, Max Ernst, Gordon Onslow Ford and Stanley William Hayter. Their presence led to shows at the galleries of Julien Levy, Curt Valentine and Pierre Matisse, exhibitions at the New School for Social Research, and publications featuring Surrealism. Seligmann was listed equally ane of the sponsors of View, poet Charles Henri Ford's "poesy newspaper," for which he designed a cover and contributed articles on magic.

The 1940s was an active decade for Seligmann. He designed sets and costumes for dance performances, including Hanya Holm's The Gilt Fleece and George Balanchine's The Four Temperaments. He exhibited over again at the Nierendorf Gallery, the New Schoolhouse, Museum of Modern Fine art, the Boston Found of Modern Art, the Addison Gallery, and the Chicago Fine art Institute. The art historian Meyer Schapiro and his wife Lillian became close friends, and at the suggestion of Lillian's brother, Kurt and Arlette explored and bought a 19th century farmhouse in Carbohydrate Loaf, north of New York City. As it would happen, Schapiro sent 1 of his graduate students, Robert Motherwell, to Seligmann for painting lessons. In 1943, the Seligmanns took a postponed trip to Mexico at the invitation of the Minister of Education to exhibit at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, which allowed them to spend time with friends who lived there such equally Paalen and Frida Kahlo.

Left to correct: Frida Kahlo, Arlette Seligmann, Kurt Seligmann, and an unidentified person, in Mexico, 1943.

In his personal technique of automatism in the 1940s, Seligmann strove to attain imagery by pure accident then as to avoid repetition in favor of what he referred to every bit "the a priori element." Inspired by a method of Hans Rudolf Schiess, he projected fractured glass onto paper or canvas which he then traced for patterns and cultivated cyclonic forms floating or spiraling up from the basis, a fitting vocabulary for his impressions of the awe-inspiring terrains of the Chiliad Coulee and American Southwest. For the show European Artists Teaching in America at Andover'southward Addison Gallery, he wrote, "They are landscapes, but they are not static. I call them cyclonic landscapes." During his exhibition at the Durlacher Gallery the adjacent yr, he further expressed, "This is an interpretation of southwestern American landscape. They are psychological landscapes with anthropomorphic elements; living beings seem to disassemble themselves from tortuous geological formations. A world in formation—not the heroic landscapes of prehistory, but rather a lyrical 1." In contrast to the long histories of his European homeland, this new earth held mystery and unpredictability. In his "Prolegomena to the Third Manifesto of Surrealism—or else," Breton simultaneously wrote about his theory of invisible present beings called "the Great Transparents," which also may have been inspiration for some of these forms.

The group of Surrealist refugees connected to exhibit and produce artwork together. A serial of etchings was printed on a printing in Seligmann'southward barn/studio in Sugar Loaf, which was destroyed by a cyclone a few years subsequently. Duchamp famously fired five shots at the foundation wall of an side by side befouled, and so photographed it and printed it with the bullet holes punched out for the comprehend of the catalogue for the Start Papers of Surrealism exhibition of 1942. Seligmann'southward work was exhibited in that show and at Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century gallery. He contributed writings on magic and alchemy to the journal VVV, edited by Breton and Ernst, and the surrealism-oriented View, while accumulating his own drove of rare books on magic. As similar to other Surrealists, he was eventually expelled from the group by Breton, stemming from a disagreement over an estimation of Tarot cards.

This did not curtail Seligmann'due south piece of work, and he connected to exhibit regularly. Peculiarly revealing was the artist'due south statement to the Museum of Modernistic Art in New York in 1946 for an exhibition titled Eleven Europeans in America, that afterwards briefly experimenting with the cyclonic depictions, his discipline matter had returned "to the prevailing interest of my work, which is man." In the later 1940s his theatrical characters were juxtaposed confronting architectural backgrounds, similar to Matta's planes, perchance influenced past his stage blueprint piece of work. While most of his colleagues returned to French republic after the war, he and Arlette stayed and became American citizens. They kept their firm in the Villa Seurat and allowed friends such as Paalen and Noguchi to stay. While they visited Paris for his retrospective at Maeght Gallery in 1949, they were happy to return to their Carbohydrate Loaf farm.

Myth and Magic

Photograph of a "Magic Evening" ("Soirée Seligmann") in Kurt Seligmann'south New York studio, 1948. Kurt Seligmann and Enrico Donati in a magic circle. Photograph by Bernard Hoffman.

Seligmann expanded his collection of books on magic, motivated by a desire to stay connected to traditions of Europe and the press of his Swiss homeland, and his interest in the link of magic, science and the homo psyche.

"I am an artist and I think as a painter. This is the true reason why magic attracts me—the completeness of the magical globe. For an artwork should besides exist complete in itself. At that place should be a manifoldness of forms, a variety held together by a coordinating law similar to the magical world constabulary spoken of in clear words past the Babylonians, the Egyptian magis and the Greek metaphysicists…the great philosophers have not been able to break through the magic circle…The corking axiom of magic: all is all and all is ane has haunted our civilized westward and the almost east for thousands of years." View, February/March 1942

In 1948 Seligmann's own book, The Mirror of Magic, was published by Pantheon; later on under the championship of History of Magic, it was translated into multiple languages and has gone through many printings. In magic he saw a metaphor for life. "If all is one, there cannot be a separation between human being, the stars, and the invisible. At that place cannot exist annihilation reverse to the earth's harmony."

The Mirror of Magic, by Kurt Seligmann, published in 1948.

In the work of the 1950s, Seligmann increasingly invoked vegetal forms, insects, the elements and cosmos, peradventure inspired by the gardens of the Carbohydrate Loaf farm that he and Arlette enjoyed together, and this harmonious platonic which he sought. His new focus of composition retained his classic elements of figure, billowing imagery, motility and energy, practical to references to nature and even Abstract Expressionism.

In 1950 Thomas Bouchard's motion-picture show of Seligmann working in his studio, The Birth of a Painting, premiered at New York University and was shown for an extended menstruation at the Museum of Modern Art. Seligmann lectured at the New School and exhibited oftentimes in New York, and in 1954 he was appointed to the Brooklyn College faculty. He suffered a heart attack only soon resumed painting, writing to the author Harvey Arnason, "I am a romanticist. My globe is that of dreams, fantasies, apparitions…It is the strange, the unheard of, the exquisite which attracts me…for nothing in the world would I forgo my solar day and night dreams."

On January 2, 1962, while he was preparing to shoot the rats eating from his birdfeeder, Seligmann slipped on the icy steps, and his rifle accidentally discharged, killing him immediately. A neighbor coming to pick him upwards plant him shortly thereafter. Arlette passed away xxx years later, and both are buried in the small family unit plot at the Sugar Loaf farm.

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by Stephen Robeson Miller

1. 1900

   Kurt Leopold Seligmann was born in Basel, Switzerland, on July twenty. His parents were Gustav Seligmann, a businessman, who opened a successful furniture shop in 1909, and his wife, the former Helene Guggenheim. They also had a daughter, Marguerite, born 1897.

2. 1912–13

   Even as a child, Seligmann demonstrated an creative proclivity. His earliest extant piece of work is a linoleum ex libris print depicting a helmeted Roman soldier in profile, a subject he would develop in numerous variations throughout his life.

3. 1917–18

   Took individual painting lessons with 2 local artists, Ernst Buchner and Eugen Rudolf Ammann. In November of 1918, an exhibition in Basel called Das Neue Leben (The New Life), introduced him to avantgarde art.

4. 1918–19

   He exhibited for the first time during the wintertime of 1918–19 by contributing five works to the almanac Christmas exhibition held at the Kunsthalle in Basel. He would likewise contribute works to this almanac exhibition in 1920, 1922, 1932, 1938 and 1952.

   His parents tried to discourage his interest in condign an artist past telling him that information technology was impractical and that he "would never exist Rembrandt." His reply was, "I don't want to be Rembrandt, I want to be Kurt Seligmann!" Equally a outcome, he began to study art formally at the École des Beaux-Arts in Geneva, where two of his fellow students were Alberto Giacometti, who would later become famous as a painter and sculptor, and Pierre Courthion, who would get on to have a distinguished career as an art historian of Impressionist painting. During this time, he painted an oil portrait of Giacometti (now in the collection of the Kunstmuseum, Bern).

5. 1920–1928

   In February 1920, his begetter, whose health had deteriorated, demanded that he leave Geneva and return dwelling to presume management of their furniture store. He would remain in this position for nearly eight years, during which time he was unable to work at his painting.

   After years of having his artistic aspirations concise by running his male parent'south business, Seligmann only became more determined to pursue his passion. He finally resigned from his management position and set off for Florence, Italy, where he enrolled in the Accademia di Belle Arti for the better role of the yr.

6. 1929

   In February, he left for Paris where he rented a pocket-sized room in the Hôtel des Écoles and enrolled in painting classes at the Académie André Lhote. Afterwards a short time at that place, he decided to pursue the less academic instruction offered at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiére. During this time, he met the Alsatian creative person and sculptor, Jean (Hans) Arp, who introduced him to Surrealist fine art and would get a mentor. Through Arp, he also made the acquaintance of another Surrealist, Max Ernst.

7. 1930

   Sojourn to Basel upon the death of his father. Later on returning to Paris, he enrolled in classes taught by the cubist painter Fernand Léger. Examples of his piece of work were accepted for inclusion in a group exhibition at the Salon des Surindépendants. Met the leader of the Surrealist group, André Breton, as well every bit such abstract artists as Jean Hélion, Auguste Herbin and Alberto Magnelli. Began to develop a personal painting mode which included imaginary geometric elements set confronting dark backgrounds in which one can discover the influence of Arp. In summertime, he made a trip to Greece with the Swiss architect Le Corbusier.

8. 1931

   At the invitation of Jean Hélion and Arp, he joined the group of artists called Abstraction-Création Art Non Figuratif. Members included the likes of Georges Vantongerloo, Naum Gabo, Wolfgang Paalen, Alexander Calder, Antoine Pevsner, Joaquín Torres-García, amid some xxx others. A publication illustrating their work and including philosophical statements of each participant was published annually using member contributions, the last of which appeared in 1935.

9. 1932

   Met Ivy Langton, a naive English language creative person, who became his girlfriend for the next several years. Had his starting time solo exhibition at the Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris. Exhibited his work at the Kunsthalles in Bern and Basel.

10. 1933

    His friend Jean Hélion arranged an exhibition at the Galerie Pierre in Paris of his own work and that of Calder, Miró, Pevsner, Seligmann and Arp from June 9–24; the catalogue introduction was by Anatole Jakovsky. Calder later stated in his autobiography that the only line he could remember from Jakovsky'south essay was "You don't need a compass in Seligmann'south land." Exhibition of prints at the Zwemmer Gallery and the Mayor Gallery, both in London. The publisher, Chroniques du Jour in Paris, published a numbered portfolio of xv of his etchings to back-trail Protubérances cardiaques by Anatole Jakovsky.

11. 1934

    Exhibited watercolors at the Galleria del Milione in Milan, March 8–21. The Paris publisher, Chroniques du Jour, published a second portfolio of fifteen of his etchings titled Vagabondages héraldiques, with an introductory essay by Pierre Courthion. A 2d solo exhibition of his work was held at the Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris.

12. 1935

    Second exhibition at the Galleria del Milione, Milan, Jan 30–February fifteen.

    Exhibition at the Galleria Bragaglia, Rome (April–May). During a summer visit to Geneva, while at the beach on the lake, he met Arlette Paraf (she had been stung by a bee, and he came to her aid). They ended upwardly taking the train back to Paris together, past which time, as she subsequently stated, she knew it (the relationship) was "serious." They were married in Paris on Nov 25, the witnesses being Jean Arp and Max Ernst, and left thereafter for a six-month honeymoon trip around the world. Seligmann had exhibitions in Tahiti and Japan along the style.

    Contributed 3 engravings as illustrations to the poem, Flaques, by Jean-Paul Collet.

13. 1936

    Contributed engravings as illustrations to Pierre Courthion's Métiers des Hommes, published past Editions Guy Levis Mano in Paris.

    In New York, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., the managing director of the Museum of Modern Art, included his work in the museum'due south landmark exhibition, Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism (November–December).

14. 1937

    Formally accustomed into the Surrealist meetings past André Breton, who acquired his work for his personal collection.

15. 1938

    International Surrealist Exhibition in Feb, held at the Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Paris, which was owned past Arlette'due south uncle Georges Wildenstein. Summer spent in British Columbia collecting Indian artifacts on behalf of Claude Levi- Strauss, the director of the Musée de l'Homme in Paris, including a sixty-foot totem pole which was installed at the archway of the museum.

    Joined other Surrealists (Brauner, Domínguez, Ernst, Magritte, Human being Ray, Masson, Matta, Miró, Paalen and Tanguy) in illustrating the complete work of Lautréamont, published by Editions G.L.M., Paris.

    Contributed an engraved frontispiece illustration to André Breton'south Dreams, and a set of engravings to illustrate Georges Hugnet's A Readable Writing.

16. 1939

    His commodity, "Interview with a Tsimshian," based on his findings during the time he spent in Alaska in 1938, was published in the journal Minotaure (Nr. 12/thirteen), Paris.

    Arrived in New York in September with Arlette for an exhibition of his piece of work at the Nierendorf Gallery, called Kurt Seligmann: Specters 1939 A.D.—13 Variations on a macabre theme. He was the outset Surrealist to be exiled in America. Took an apartment in the Beaux-Arts building at fourscore Due west 40th Street. Began to assistance his fellow artist colleagues left backside in Europe to accomplish prophylactic in the United States. Also exhibited at the New School for Social Research.

17. 1940

    His work was included in the International Surrealist Exhibition held at Inés Amor's Galería de Arte Mexicano in Mexico City (January–February).

    Exhibition of Drawings and Etchings by Kurt Seligmann held in March at the New Schoolhouse for Social Research, New York.

    In a gallery at the Museum of Modern Fine art, he met the art historian Meyer Schapiro, Professor of Fine art History at Columbia Academy, and the two became fast friends.

    Contributed the frontispiece paradigm to Herodias, a poem by Stéphane Mallarmé, with an introduction and commentary by Clark Mills, published by The Press of James A. Decker, Prairie Metropolis, Illinois.

    Post-obit a visit to the residence of Schapiro's brother-in-law, Dr. Joseph Milgram, in Marlboro, New York, he and Arlette discovered the nearby hamlet of Sugar Loaf. In that location they purchased a l-5 acre farm, with barn and other farm buildings, and its accompanying late 18th century business firm. This would be their retreat from the urban center for the rest of their lives and the location of many gatherings of their artist and writer friends.

    Taught painting technique and printmaking at Briarcliff Inferior Higher, New York. The futurity Abstract Expressionist, Robert Motherwell, studied painting privately with Seligmann at the suggestion of Meyer Schapiro.

18. 1941

    Became a frequent contributor to the advanced publication, View mag, edited by Charles Henri Ford, founded in this year, until it ceased publication in 1948.

    Opening of the New York City Ballet production of The Golden Fleece by Hanya Holm in March, with costumes and set designed by Seligmann, at the Mansfield Theatre.

    Second solo exhibition at the Nierendorf Gallery, New York (April–May).

    Provided the frontispiece analogy for Edouard Roditi'due south book, Prison within Prison: Three Elegies on Hebrew Themes, published by The Press of James A. Decker, Prairie Metropolis, Illinois.

19. 1942

    André Breton included his work in the exhibition, First Papers of Surrealism, held at the Whitelaw-Reid Mansion, 1042 Madison Avenue, New York, from Oct 14–Nov 7. This would be the only Surrealist exhibition organized by Breton in the United States during his wartime exile.

    Participated in the landmark exhibition, Artists in Exile, held at the Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, along with fourteen of his fellow Surrealist and modernist exiles: Berman, Breton, Chagall, Ernst, Léger, Lipchitz, Masson, Matta, Mondrian, Ozenfant, Seligmann, Tanguy, Tchelitchew, and Zadkine. The famous grouping photograph taken past George Platt Lynes.

    Another memorable group photograph in which he appeared was taken at Peggy Guggenheim's penthouse and included Marcel Duchamp, Peggy Guggenheim, Max Ernst, Frederick Kiesler, André Breton, Fernand Léger, Amédée Ozenfant, Berenice Abbott, Jimmy Ernst, John Ferren, Piet Mondrian, Stanley William Hayter, and Leonora Carrington.

    He was a frequent contributor to the iv issues of VVV mag (1942–44), André Breton's official publication in America during the Surrealists' exile.

20. 1943

    Contributed the comprehend design for the April issue of View magazine, edited past Charles Henri Ford.

    Contributed an engraving as the frontispiece to André Breton'due south Pleine Marge, published by Nierendorf Gallery, New York.

    During a meeting of the Surrealist group in New York, while Breton was discussing the significance of the tarot card, Seligmann corrected him most a bespeak he was making. Breton erupted in anger and told him that he was to consider himself expelled from the Surrealist group. Breton returned the works he owned by Seligmann to him and told him he would non exist included in whatsoever future Surrealist exhibitions. Seligmann was devastated, but, co-ordinate to his friend Meyer Schapiro, the expulsion did non interfere with his personal friendships with other Surrealists.

    Traveled to Mexico in the summertime for the opening of his solo exhibition of twenty-1 paintings at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, organized by Inés Amor. While in that location, he and Arlette visited Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Wolfgang Paalen, Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, Benjamin Péret, and Gordon Onslow Ford.

21. 1944

    Durlacher Bros. Gallery, New York, published and exhibited his six etchings illustrating the Myth of Oedipus in a boxed, numbered ready of fifty copies with a text by Meyer Schapiro.

    His work was included in The Imagery of Chess exhibition held at the Julien Levy Gallery, from December 12, 1944–January 13, 1945.

22. 1946

    Later on the war, all of his Surrealist colleagues living in or around New York and Connecticut, except for Tanguy, returned to Europe permanently.

    Designed the costumes and stage designs for the New York City Ballet production of George Balanchine's The Four Temperaments.

    James Johnson Sweeney, curator at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, included his work and interview in "Eleven Europeans in America," The Museum of Modern Art Bulletin, vol. xiii, nos. iv–5.

    As with many of his friends, such as Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning, and Kay Sage and Yves Tanguy, he and Arlette were photographed by Irving Penn.

    Peggy Guggenheim, who had opened her gallery called Art of This Century in New York in 1942, and who owned 3 works by Seligmann, coveted a 1919 Dada work by Max Ernst in Seligmann's drove. She told him that if he did not let her have the Ernst, she would expunge Seligmann's works from her drove and never exhibit his art again. When he and Arlette said they would not part with the Ernst, Guggenheim kept her give-and-take.

23. 1947

    His piece of work was included in the exhibition, Abstruse and Surrealist Art in America, held at the Art Institute of Chicago, from November six, 1947–Jan 11, 1948.

24. 1948

    His book, The Mirror of Magic, published by Pantheon Books, New York, was critically well-received. Information technology would exist afterwards reprinted by the same publisher nether the championship The History of Magic in 1952, and as Magic, Supernaturalism and Religion, past the Universal Library, New York, in 1968. Information technology would be translated and published in Italian, French, German and Portuguese.

    Contributed the illustrations to Wallace Stevens' poem, A Primitive Like an Orb, published by the Gotham Book Mart (A Prospero Pamphlet), New York.

25. 1949

    Traveled with Arlette to Paris in April for a large retrospective exhibition of his work held at the Galerie Maeght. During this sojourn, he visited numerous friends, such every bit Tristan Tzara, Charles Duits, and César Domela. On this occasion, the gallery prepared a special number of its publication, Derrière le miroir (Nr. 49), about his piece of work, with essays by Charles Duits, Georges Duthuit, Pierre Courthion and Pierre Mabille.

26. 1950

    His neighbor and friend in the Beaux-Arts building, filmmaker Thomas Bouchard, fabricated and directed a film nigh Seligmann called The Nativity of a Painting (35 minutes in length; photography by Diane Bouchard; narration by Kurt Seligmann; music by Edgard Varése). Commencement shown in New York on May 25, the film follows Seligmann equally he creates a version of his painting Magnetic Mountain. (Since the death of Diane Bouchard in March 2013, 2 other films made by Thomas Bouchard well-nigh Seligmann have come to light).

    Solo exhibition at Durlacher Bros. Gallery, New York, from November 7–Dec 2.

    Seligmann organized the American delegation of artists whose work was included in the Third Exposition of Independent Artists held at the Yomiuri Shimbun in Tokyo, Nippon, from February 27–March 18, 1951.

27. 1951–57

    Taught art at the New School for Social Research, New York.

28. 1952

    Contributed an extended "A Alphabetic character nearly Drawing" to the Art Institute of Chicago's Quarterly, Vol. LXVI, no. 3, September 15, 1952.

    Solo exhibition at Durlacher Bros. Gallery, New York, December 16, 1952–January 10, 1953.

29. 1953

    Solo exhibition at the Alexandre Iolas Gallery, New York, in Feb; catalogue introduction by the Greek poet, Nicolas Calas.

30. 1953–62

    Taught art classes at Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, New York.

31. 1955

    On April 1, he became a naturalized U.s. denizen.

    Solo exhibition at Durlacher Bros. Gallery, New York, in November.

32. 1956

    Solo exhibition at The Fantasy Gallery, Washington, D.C. (February–March).

    He left the United states of america in Nov for Paris, where he stayed at his Villa Seurat residence, working on a new serial of paintings which he called In Full Daylight (En plein jour). He would not return to New York until May 1957.

33. 1958

    Suffered a heart attack on March 31, from which he spent nearly six weeks recovering. Every bit a result, he canceled the trip he had planned to Paris during the summer of 1958, and gave upward the idea he had entertained of making annual trips abroad.

    He and Arlette vacated their apartment and studio in the Beaux- Arts edifice at 80 W 40th Street, and they settled permanently on their farm in Sugar Loaf.

    Deputed by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, to illustrate The Unicorn, the Gorgon and the Manticore by Gian-Carlo Menotti, produced in concert grade past the Center Arts Council in June.

34. 1959

    Dual exhibition of Seligmann and Max Ernst held at the Pennsylvania Country University, University Park, Pennsylvania (February–March).

35. 1960

    In April, Otto 1000. Gerson organized an exhibition for Seligmann titled Kurt Seligmann: Recent Paintings at his gallery, Fine Arts Associates, in New York.

36. 1961

    Retrospective exhibition at the D'Arcy Galleries, 1091 Madison Avenue, New York, Apr 18– May 13. The catalogue included accolades and tributes near his work by James Johnson Sweeney, Katherine Kuh, Murdock Pemberton, Edwin Alden Jewell, Nicolas Calas, Benjamin Péret, Jean Cassou, Gualtieri di San Lazzaro, Anatole Jakovsky, Aline B. Saarinen, Parker Tyler, and Florence Stol.

    Solo exhibition at the Ruth White Gallery, New York.

37. 1962

    In the early on morn of January 2, while preparing to shoot the rats that were menacing his bird feeder at his subcontract in Sugar Loaf, he slipped on the icy steps of his house, fell backwards, and his rifle accidentally discharged into his head, killing him immediately. A few minutes later, he was constitute past his neighbor, Charles Shaughnessy, who had come up to take him to have his auto repaired in the nearby town of Goshen.

    His obituary appeared in The New York Times and Dice Neue Zürcher Zeitung, amidst many others. His funeral was held at Conger Memorial Funeral Home, Chester, New York. At his asking, internment was at the nineteenth century graveyard about his studio in Carbohydrate Loaf.

38. 1964

    The D'Arcy Galleries, 1091 Madison Avenue, New York, mounted an exhibition called Kurt Seligmann: The Early Years, Jan 27–Feb 15, which included an essay by his old friend Meyer Schapiro.

    Coinciding with the D'Arcy Galleries exhibition, Time Magazine ran an article with color illustrations about him and his work, called "Trip the light fantastic without the Dancer" in its Jan 31 effect, vol. 83, no. 5, pp. 44, 46.

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Source: https://www.weinstein.com/artists/33-kurt-seligmann/

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