Kay Sage, Untitled, 1941, Oil on canvas, 30 in. x 40 1/4 in. (76.2 cm x 102.2 cm), Gift of Francis H. Williams in honor of Rachael Arauz (Class of 1991) 2017.242

Untitled by Kay Sage was recently given to the Davis Museum, and is only the second work by the Surrealist painter to enter the collections. Sage was born in upstate New York and spent much of her youth travelling throughout the United States and Europe. The young painter discovered Surrealism in Paris in 1937, which transformed her art. Inspired by the works of Giorgio de Chirico, Sage befriended André Breton and Yves Tanguy, whom she would later marry, and became a key artistic voice within the Surrealist movement. She painted this canvas in 1941, the same year the newly married couple moved from New York City to rural Woodbury, Connecticut.

Now on view on Level 5, Untitled is emblematic of Sage’s Surrealist paintings. The barren landscape is articulated in subdued tones of brown and blue, and inhabited by triangular planes and sand dunes. The focal object appears to be inanimate, possibly metallic, and is formed by intersecting triangles. Upon closer inspection, the top and bottom sections are ripped open to expose bleeding veins and a skeletal structure. Like much of Sage’s work, Untitled is ambiguous and filled with contradictions: inanimate yet organic, smooth yet jagged, stationary yet suggesting movement.