Without employing direct references to the real world, Yves Tanguy painted surreal landscapes laden with strange, indeterminate forms. Tanguy taught himself how to paint after seeing a work by Giorgio de Chirico through the window of an art gallery. In 1925, he joined the Surrealist group in Paris, and in a relatively short time, he developed a style that remained consistent from 1927 until his death. In Indefinite Divisibility, which Tanguy painted after moving to the United States, a mysterious structure dominates the foreground and casts a dark shadow, a visual motif he borrowed from de Chirico. In this work, space appears infinite, like an endless desert. The atmosphere is dense and oppressive, yet also penetrated by strong, warming light.

Label from Picasso: The Artist and His Models, November 5, 2016–February 19, 2017