Roberto MATTA

Roberto Matta – Biography, Etchings and Original Prints

Roberto Matta (Roberto Sebastián Matta Echaurren) was born in Santiago, Chile, on 11 November 1911 and died at Civitavecchia, near Rome, on 23 November 2002. Trained as an architect, he spent time in Le Corbusier’s Paris studio before joining the Surrealists in 1937, and became known for the ‘psychological morphologies’ – inner landscapes he called inscapes. A Chilean who took French nationality in 1969, he lived in Paris, New York, Rome and, for a time, London. Alongside his paintings he produced a large body of original prints, chiefly colour etchings and aquatints, many of them published in Paris by Georges Visat.

Le Coin des Arts currently offers several sheets from two of Matta’s finest print projects: Les Voix (1964), colour etchings and aquatints made for a text by Michel Fardoulis-Lagrange, and Centre Nœuds (1974), a suite of colour etchings from his mature period. Each impression has been chosen for the quality of printing, the freshness of colour, its numbering, provenance and condition.

An architect’s training: Santiago, Paris and London (1911-1937)

Matta studied architecture and interior design at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in Santiago, qualifying in the early 1930s. He then left for Europe and spent about two years as a draughtsman in the Paris studio of Le Corbusier. These were years of travel: in Spain he met Federico García Lorca and Salvador Dalí; in Scandinavia he met Alvar Aalto; and in London he worked briefly with Walter Gropius and László Moholy-Nagy, then living in exile in England. In 1937 he assisted Josep Lluís Sert and Luis Lacasa on the Spanish Republic’s pavilion at the Paris International Exhibition, where Picasso’s Guernica was unveiled. That same year he met André Breton, who welcomed him into the Surrealist group.

Surrealism and the ‘inscapes’ (1937-1939)

Abandoning architecture, Matta turned first to drawing – his work appeared in the review Minotaure – and in 1938 to oil painting. He showed at the International Surrealist Exhibition at the Galerie des Beaux-Arts in Paris that year. His canvases were built up in fluid layers, often laid on with a sponge before being worked with the brush, opening on to spaces without horizon, shot through with points of light and lines of force. Matta’s term for them, ‘psychological morphologies’, captures the ambition: to paint the mind’s interior as if it were a landscape, a cosmic extension of Breton’s psychic automatism.

Exile in New York and the break with Breton (1939-1948)

When war broke out Matta left for New York, joining Breton, Max Ernst, André Masson and Yves Tanguy in exile. His first solo exhibition was held at the Julien Levy Gallery in 1940; a journey to Mexico in 1941 enlarged his ambitions and his formats; and in 1942 he featured in ‘Artists in Exile’ at the Pierre Matisse Gallery. Younger than the European émigrés, he mixed with American painters such as Arshile Gorky, Jackson Pollock and Robert Motherwell, on whom his automatist methods had a recognised influence. He made his first etchings in 1943, and met Marcel Duchamp in 1944. Tate’s collection includes his painting Black Virtue (La Vertu noire, 1943) from these years. In 1948, after Gorky’s suicide, for which some held Matta partly to blame, he was expelled from the Surrealist group and returned to Europe.

Rome, Paris and politics (1948-1976)

Matta lived in Rome in the early 1950s before settling in Paris. His imagery filled with machine-like figures caught in the tensions of the Cold War. In 1956 he painted a mural for the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, and in 1957 the Museum of Modern Art in New York gave him a retrospective. He exhibited at the São Paulo Bienal in 1962, first visited Cuba the same year, and became a committed supporter of Salvador Allende’s government in Chile. Major exhibitions followed at the Nationalgalerie in Berlin (1970) and the Kestner-Gesellschaft in Hanover and the Venice Biennale (both 1974).

Matta in Britain and the late years (1977-2002)

Matta’s closest ties with Britain date from the late 1970s. The Arts Council mounted an exhibition of his work at the Hayward Gallery, London, from 27 September to 20 November 1977, with an accompanying catalogue. According to the chronology published by the Praemium Imperiale, he lived in London between 1977 and 1980, taught as a visiting professor at the Royal College of Art, and designed the sets for Mozart’s The Magic Flute at Covent Garden. Back in Paris, he was the subject of an exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in 1985. Honours followed: Chile’s National Prize for Art (1990), the Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts (1992) and the Praemium Imperiale for painting (1995). He spent his last years between Paris and Tarquinia in Italy. Among his children were the artist Gordon Matta-Clark, Ramuntcho Matta, Federica Matta and Pablo Echaurren.

Matta’s printmaking: Visat, aquatint and the Sabatier catalogue

Matta’s first intaglio plates date from 1943 in New York, in the circle of Atelier 17, the workshop of the English printmaker Stanley William Hayter. The bulk of his output, however, came from 1960s Paris and the studio of the master printer and publisher Georges Visat. There Matta found his idiom: etching for the restless line, aquatint for the soft, saturated grounds, and frequently blind embossing that lifts the paper into relief. Les Voix (1964), co-published by Visat and Le Point Cardinal with a text by Michel Fardoulis-Lagrange, combines colour etching, aquatint and embossing; impressions are held by the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Centre Nœuds (1974), co-published by Visat and Alexander Kahan of New York, is a suite of ten colour etchings and aquatints accompanied by a poem by Antonin Artaud. Other suites include Hom’mère – Chaosmos (1973), ten etchings with aquatint. Many of these projects are illustrated books issued in loose sheets, often with an additional suite on Japan paper.

The standard reference is Roland Sabatier, Matta. Catalogue raisonné de l’œuvre gravé (1943-1974), co-published by Sonet (Stockholm) and Georges Visat (Paris) in 1975. Prints are cited as ‘Sabatier’ followed by the catalogue number, sometimes with the page: ‘Sabatier 275’ refers to plate 275 in that volume. Plates made after 1974 fall outside its scope.

Collecting Matta’s prints: a buyer’s guide

Catalogue raisonné. For any print made before 1975, ask for the Sabatier number, which identifies the plate, its date and the suite or book it belongs to.

Edition and numbering. Matta’s editions are typically around a hundred numbered impressions – 110 for Les Voix, 125 for Centre Nœuds – plus hors commerce proofs in Roman numerals. See the printing.

Signature. Edition impressions are signed ‘Matta’ in pencil and numbered. Plates from a book may be unsigned individually, the justification appearing in the colophon. See the signature.

Paper and colour. Arches, Rives or Japan paper: check that the aquatint colours have not faded and that the embossing is crisp rather than flattened. Conservation framing with UV-filtering glazing and a deep mount protects the relief.

Pitfalls. Exhibition posters, offset lithographs and reproductions of paintings are not original prints. Our guarantees are set out on the authenticity page.

The gallery selects Matta’s etchings alongside those of fellow Surrealists Wifredo Lam, Dorothea Tanning, André Masson, Max Ernst and Hans Bellmer. Explore Surrealism and our etchings and lithographs.

Sources and further reading

Roland Sabatier, Matta. Catalogue raisonné de l’œuvre gravé (1943-1974), Sonet, Stockholm / Georges Visat, Paris, 1975 · Matta, Arts Council of Great Britain, Hayward Gallery, London, 1977 · Tate – Matta · Praemium Imperiale – Matta · Peggy Guggenheim Collection – Roberto Matta · Art Institute of Chicago – Les Voix