Roberto Matta

Roberto Matta, who was born in Santiago, Chile, studied architecture and interior design at the city’s Catholic University. In 1933, Matta went to work for Le Corbusier in Paris, where he became increasingly interested in painting. On travels through Peru and Panama in the spring of that year, he made a series of surreal landscape drawings.

After graduating and serving for a time in the Merchant Marine, Matta traveled through Europe and the USA where he met artists such as Salvador Dalí, André Breton, and Arshile Gorky. Breton in particular was a major influence on Matta, and he introduced Matta to the work of many of the prominent European artists at the time. In 1938, Matta began painting. His “inscape” series was conceived as a visual representation of his inner psyche. His early paintings are associated with biomorphism, utilizing shapes and patterns that are reminiscent of organic forms. He became strongly associated with the Surrealist group of artists, producing illustrations and essays for the Surrealist journal Minotaure.

In the 1940s and ’50s, the political situation in Europe during World War II influenced the introduction of mechanical forms and distressed figures in Matta’s paintings. Although he began gaining notoriety, Matta was formally expelled from the Surrealist group when he was accused of indirectly causing Gorky’s suicide by carrying on an affair with the artist’s wife. After this break, Matta spent time between South America and Europe, continuing to paint semi-abstract, epic canvases in a surreal style.

In his later life, Matta dedicated much of his work to political activism and was a strong supporter of the Socialist government of Chilean president Salvador Allende. He died in Civitavecchia, Italy on November 23, 2002. His son was the contemporary artist Gordon Matta-Clark.