Kay Sage: Serene Surrealist recreates the American artist’s inaugural 1950 exhibition with the Catherine Viviano Gallery in New York. One of the few women Surrealists, Kay Sage (1898-1963) achieved notable success during her career. Sage’s representation with Catherine Viviano followed her successful solo showings at the Pierre Matisse Gallery, Julien Levy Gallery, and the San Francisco Museum of Art. The paintings included in the 1950 exhibition demonstrate a shift to diffused light, scaffold-like elements, and subdued colors, qualities for which the artist became best known. Of the original fourteen paintings shown that year, one was destroyed in a fire and one was sold from the exhibition to a private collector and has since gone missing. This intimate look at her paintings brings viewers into a dream-like world where, in Sage’s words, things are, “half mechanical, half alive.” The exhibition comprises all twelve of the extant paintings, marking their first showing as a group in over 65 years.
This exhibition is presented in conjunction with Collector and Benefactor: Kay Sage and James Thrall Soby, a focused display of six works from WCMA’s collection.
The Kay Sage: Serene Surrealist exhibition coincides with the October 16, 2018 release of the Kay Sage Catalogue Raisonné published by Prestel.