Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris
Blue Moon Gallery, New York
Lerner-Heller Gallery, New York

New York, Museum of Modern Art (on loan)
Basel, Galerie Beyeler, Austellung Europa, 1971, no. 25
Paris, Galerie de Seine, André Masson, Période asiatique 1950-1959, 1972, no. 8, illustrated in the catalogue
New York, Blue Moon Gallery & New York, Lerner-Heller Gallery, André Masson, 1973, no. 44
Paris, Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, André Masson, 1977, no. 134

William Rubin & Carolyn Lanchner, André Masson, New York, 1976, illustrated p. 196

The work is in excellent condition. The canvas has not been lined. The colors are vivid and the surface is nicely textured. Under UV light: certain pigments fluoresce but no inpainting is apparent.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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An extraordinarily agile artist, Masson created a diverse body of work that spans several movements including Cubism, Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism. The present painting, completed in the mature years of the artist’s career, embodies the artist’s unique approach—specifically his integration of color, line and form in a style that is at once both figurative and abstract. In L'ORACLE I, an explosion of calligraphic lines and kaleidoscopic colors are set against a vast expanse of pastel lavender. While no immediate figure is present, the complex linear forms are executed in a manner that seem to suggest action, as if the lines indeed represent biomorphic forms engaged in a frenzied dance throughout the composition. Such fantastical imagery is common in many of Masson’s best works.

Discussing L'ORACLE I in the context of Masson’s oeuvre, William Rubin and Carolyn Lanchner write: “Around 1960 Masson displayed an increasing tendency toward figural allusiveness and with that a greater willingness to detach form from ground, although neither of these propensities affects his art in full force until after 1965. Concomitantly, but again less emphatically before 1965, there was an increased disposition to rely on drawing to delimit form, and a more pronounced return to images evocative of his work of the twenties and thirties. Although The Oracle I of 1959 seems by subject most allusive to the Sibyl and Pythia paintings of 1943-45, in its imagery it is closer to the agitated dreamers of 1931 and the various depictions of Diomedes of 1934. Still invested with the idea of fusion between being and void, The Oracle I presents a struggling figure whose shape covers the canvas. There is no touch of modeling; his thin drawn outlines thus create no sense of interior volume, but rather engender a feeling of the figure and its surrounding space as one. Making a reappearance in The Oracle I is the eye-naval that first appeared in the mid-twenties and was seen again in the late thirties” (William Rubin & Carolyn Lanchner, Andre Masson, The Museum of Modern Art, New York🐻, 1976, pp. 192-93).

During the 1940s when Masson lived in New York, he worked at Stanley William Hayter’s famous “Atelier 17” alongside♏ American artists including Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. Indeeಞd there exist strong affinities between the works of Masson from this period and the art of the American Abstract Expressionists.