Katherine Linn Sage was born into the rich family of a senator, was the youngest of two daughters. Shortly after Katherine’s birth, her mother left her husband and the elder daughter, and lived with her youngest daughter in Europe. Kay always kept in touch with her father and received help from him, although her parents divorced in 1908.
1898 - 1963
Katherine Linn Sage
description
An American artist and a surrealist poet who lived and worked for a long time in Europe – Italy and France. Her creative career as an artist lasted about 30 years, starting from her first exhibition in 1936.
As a representative of the “golden era of Surrealism” – its active post-war period – she was known and widely recognized for her original artworks, usually containing architectural themes.
When Katherine Linn Sage was married the first time, she was a rich Italian princess and generously helped other artists. Throughout her career, she mostly worked under the shadow of her second husband, Surrealist Yves Tanguy, who today remains more famous in the art world than Sage. However, Katherine’s creations were also popular, especially after the artist’s full biography was published in 1997.
In modern art criticism, Sage and Tanguy are considered to be a closed system – a chain of influence of two creators on each other, which was confirmed by the exhibition “Double Solitaire: Surrealistic Worlds of Kay Sage and Yves Tanguy”, held at the Davis Museum, Wellesley College in 2012.
Kay Sage is known mainly as a visual artist, but she also wrote five volumes of poetry, mainly in French, and four plays. The autobiography “Chinese Eggs” was not published during her life.
The style of Sage is similar to Veristic Surrealism, in which illusory images of incredible places inspired by a dream and imagination are presented; her art is mentioned among works of such authors as Giorgio de Chirico, Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, Paul Devo and Yves Tanguy.
Key ideas:
– The artist began her creative career in Italy, originally painted landscapes in the open air. She later described her first avant-garde paintings as “experimental abstract compositions”.
– In Paris, she visited the exhibition of 60 Surrealists and admired their style. The works of G. de Chirico, which Kay imitated at first, particularly impressed her. However, artist and historian William Chadwick argues that even these first surrealistic canvases were “full of an aura of purity, a feeling of stillness, impending catastrophe and doom, which no one else had in Surrealism.”
– The first works of Kay Sage of the Paris period were noted by A. Breton. He was sure that their author was a man, and began to search for an artist unknown to him. The “father of surrealism” made such a conclusion, seeing that the plots were full of unsettled paradoxes and hallucinatory qualities, which he highly valued.
– In the 1940s (the period of the greatest flourishing of creativity), the paintings of Kay Sage often contained architectural motives and geometric shapes filled with color and lit from the side.
– By the beginning of the 1950s, she started using motives of forests sometimes combined with draped forms included in the barren spaces of the paintings. The artist’s style is characterized by almost invisible brushstrokes, a mysterious light and surprisingly clean and sharp edges of outlines of objects.
– After the unexpected death of Yves Tanguy (1955), Katherine who suffered from severe depression and was almost blind, stopped drawing, but created reliefs and collages using foil, glass, wire, small stones and other materials.
1898
1919
1921
1925
1936
1937
1938
1940
1942
1951
1955
1961
1963
The birth of the artist
She started to seriously study painting at the Corcoran Art School
She started to seriously study painting at the Corcoran Art School in Washington. However, after a year and a half, she and her mother returned to Italy.
She studied art in Rome for several years
She studied art in Rome for several years, mastering traditional methods and styles. She took oil painting lessons from Carlo Karosi, anatomy lessons from Giuseppe Battaglia, learned landscape painting from Oronato Karlandi. Most of all, she enjoyed painting outdoors together with Onorato Carlandi, thanks to whom she managed to pass the entrance exam at Scuola Libera delle Belle Arti in 1923, but did not study there.
Married Italian prince Ranieri de San Faustino
Married Italian prince Ranieri de San Faustino. For the full 10 years, she led an idle life in Rome, which she later described as a “stagnant swamp”.
The first exhibition
The first exhibition in the artist’s biography was held at the Galleria del Milione in Milan. The year before, she left her husband, having a plan to go to Paris and start living as a free artist (later she received the marriage annulment from the Pope).
Moved to Paris
Moved to Paris, where she rented a luxury apartment with a workshop. In early 1938, she saw the international surrealist exhibition at Galerie Beaux-Arts, where 60 artists from 14 countries were represented. She was especially amazed by the paintings of Italian artist G. de Chirico, bought his “Surprise” and kept it all her life.
6 paintings were presented at the Salon des Surindépendants
6 paintings by the beginning artist were presented at the Salon des Surindépendants in Port de Versailles (she began to sign them as Kay Sage). Although the motifs and style were borrowed, the paintings attracted the attention of A. Breton and other Surrealists.
Returned to the United States
Returned to the United States in connection with the outbreak of the war and soon married Yves Tanguy. The couple moved to Woodbury, Connecticut, where they lived until the end of their lives, giving temporary shelter to other creative people running from the Nazis – Andre Breton and his family, Alexander Calder, Peter Blum, Hans Richter and Naum Gabo.
The artist's works were presented at the exhibition of contemporary art in New York
The artist’s works were presented at the exhibition of contemporary art in New York. Thanks to his long-time friendship with Pierre Matisse (one of the sons of H. Matisse), the married couple Yves Tanguy and Kay Sage was able to quickly gain fame and popularity in America. They took part in all major joint exhibitions of avant-gardists.
Won the Community Development Connecticut Award
After the exhibition at the Catherine Viviano Gallery, the artist participated in the Corcoran Gallery Biennale (Washington) and won the Community Development Connecticut Award. After 2 years, she exhibited her works in Rome (Gallerie dell ‘Obelisco), and then with Yves Tanguy at Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art (Hartford, Connecticut) and at the Guggenheim Museum (New York).
She suffered a series of unsuccessful operations in connection with glaucoma
Suffered after the demise of her husband Yvas Tanguy, who died of a stroke. In 1959, she made the first suicide attempt in 1959, having overdosed sleeping pills. Soon she suffered a series of unsuccessful operations in connection with glaucoma.
"And I came"
An exhibition of the artist’s collages was held at the Catherine Viviano Gallery, New York. However, the loss of the person whom she loved had an increasingly destructive effect on her. Before committing suicide, she wrote a death note, “The first picture of Yves, which I saw before I got to know him, was called “I am waiting for you.” And I came. Now he is waiting for me again – I’m on my way to him”.
The death of the artist
Katherine Linn Sage died on January 8, 1963 in Woodbury, Connecticut, the USA.