(Chilean, 1911-2002)

Game in Suisse, 1938, signed verso "Matta", inscribed recto "Do you remember our game in Suisse", a puzzle letter for Miss Elisabeth Onslow-Ford, sister of the artist, Gordon Onslow-Ford. with canceled cover dated 1938, crayon and pencil on paper, sight 10-5/8 x 6-7/8 in.; wood frame with sandwiched glass revealing verso inscriptions, 17-3/4 x 13-3/4 x 5/8 in.

Provenance: Roberto Matta to Elisabeth Onslow-Ford, sister of the artist, Gordon Onslow-Ford; By Descent in family

Inscriptions by Matta on the verso of the puzzle pieces:

I am going to paint your sea soon

Gordon thinks you should go and visit

Send me more drawings

if you found the whole thing it merits a price

your picture in your last letter it is marvelous

I really like it

I show it to Gordon hiding the signature and he adores it.

This piece is on the other side

 till the next letter

 It is a pity you can't come

Matta

Exhibited: Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC, Gordon Onslow-Ford: Voyager and Visionary, February 11 – May 13, 2012.

Note: Roberto Matta and Gordon Onslow-Ford met in Paris in 1937, became close friends and reveled in shared artistic discovery. They joined Breton’s Surrealist group together in 1938 and were the youngest members. Gordon’s sister Elisabeth, an adventurous young woman, visited Gordon in France, befriended the Surrealists and joined them in many adventures in Paris, Brittany and Switzerland. (“our game in Suisse”). Elisabeth introduced Matta and the others to English games, charades, riddles and rhymes for fun and also to teach them English. Such games could stimulate unexpected vision and spark leaps of creativity. They were an important way to join the worlds of dream, myth, illusion and absurdity which was part of the Surrealist quest. Elisabeth was back home in London in August 1938 and received a letter from Matta. He had made a bold and humorous drawing of a head (harkening back to the English game of “head, body and legs” or, as the Surrealists called it, Cadavre Exquis.) It is also reminiscent of the fruit and vegetable portraits by Giuseppe Arcimbolo, known as Grandfather of Surrealism. Matta carefully tore his drawing into irregular pieces and wrote little personal messages here and there, front and back. He withheld one corner piece and teasingly said “if you found the whole thing it merits a price ((sic) prize.)” Imagine her surprise and delight receiving this envelope full of little scraps of colored paper. She fitted them together like a jigsaw puzzle, saw the inner meaning and treasured his joke for a lifetime. Elisabeth did return to France for one last summer with her dear friends before the war scattered them to the winds.

upper left corner not present (likely artist intended, see inscription "if you found the whole thing it merits a price"), not removed from sandwich glass framing