Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris (acquired directly from the artist)
Urban Company Limited, Japan (and sold: Hotel Drouot, Paris, June 16, 1993, lot 36)
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

The work is in excellent condition. The canvas is not lined. The surface is richly textured and the impasto is well preserved. The extreme edges of the canvas have been reinforced with tape. Under UV light: certain original pigments fluorescent 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.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

An extraordinarily agile artist, Masson created a diverse body of work that spans several movements including Cubism, Surrealism and indeed 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 Gardiens du feu, an explosion of calligraphic lines and kaleidoscopic colors are set against a vast expanse of pastel lavender. While figures are only faintly determinate, 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.

Between 1938 and 1947, an unprecedented cultural transference took hold when the greater part of the European Surrealist group were transplanted to New York. Arriving in the United States in 1941, André Masson, along with many members of the Surrealist group, escaped from Vichy France with help from the Emergency Rescue Committee run by the American Varian Fry. While he spent the wartime years and beyond in Roxbury, Connecticut, near Alexander Calder, Masson frequently exhibited in New York and interacted with his Surrealist colleagues as well as members from the burgeoning New York School at Stanley William Hayter’s Atelier 17 alongside Pollock and Rothko. Masson’s exile ultimately proved fruitful in terms of the fecundity and maturity of his artistic output, executing what are considered his finest works at this integral period during and shortly after the war.

Painted in 1959, this visually engrossing canvas is richly colored and textured by the addition of sand to the oil paint. A circle of figures move abou✃t the canvas, gaining stamina through cosmic areas of energy. Bifurcated spaces of saturated, contrasting jewel tones create a sense of anxiety as pockets of luminosity pull the viewer inward as we attempt to understand the vaguely mythological power of this overwhelming conceptual creation. We see Masson’s tendency towards automatism, particularly in the swirling purple and blue planetary masses and the hieroglyphic-like hard-edged strokes surrounding the figure.

While young New York artists working contemporaneously to Masson were staying afloat largely through their involvement with the Works Progress Administration and begrudgingly viewed the Surrealists in exile as the traditional aristocracy of the art world, automatic drawing as seen in the present work ultimately proved influential upon their practices. Pollock’s mature works present undeniable influence from Masson who dripped wax in a comparable fashion in Le Migrateur. Masson’s influential legacy extends to de Kooning and Gottlieb, his swirling hand foreboding Cy Twombly’s calligraphic and mythological tableaux. The aggressive grandiosity and combined graffiti-like primitivism of Gardiens du feu is clearly in dialogue w๊ith the work of de Kooning (see fig. 2), as well as presaging the groundbreaking work of American painter Jean-Michel Basquiat almost thirty years later.