Ecstasy
(Extase)
(1938); cast (1987)
Medium
bronze
Measurements
92.3 × 61.3 × 31.6 cm
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased NGV Foundation, 2013
© André Masson/ADAGP, Paris. Licensed by Copyright Agency, Australia
Gallery location
Late 19th & early 20th Century Paintings & Decorative Arts Gallery
Level 2, NGV International
About this work
Ecstasy belongs to a group of small anthropomorphic figurative pieces of a violently erotic nature, which André Masson made shortly after his re-acceptance into the official Surrealist group led by André Breton. This work has a strong linear quality, and the profile of the female head echoes the lamenting mother in Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, 1937, created just a year earlier. The whimsical and erotic elements of the sculpture, partly abstract yet explicit, reveal an affinity with other Surrealists of the time: Alberto and Diego Giacometti and Joan Miró. Masson and Salvador Dalí remained close friends during the 1930s and the group shared a symbolic language of the unconscious.
Artwork Details
Place/s of Execution
Paris, France
Edition
artist’s proof 1
Inscription
cast (vertically) in top of base l.l.: EA 1 a (…illeg.) / F. BRUSTOLIN / VERONA (…illeg.) / (…illeg.) (…illeg.)
Accession Number
2013.575
Department
International Sculpture
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of Digitisation Champion Dame Carol Colburn-Grigor CBE through Metal Manufactures Limited