André Masson

b. 1896, Balagny-sur-Thérain, France
d. 1987, Paris, France

André Masson was born in 1896 in Balagny-sur-Thérain, just north of Paris. He spent most of his youth in Brussels, studying part-time at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts before relocating to Paris and enrolling at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. During his studies, Masson was exposed to Futurism and Cubism, and developed a fascination with Nicolas Poussin, a 17th century French Baroque painter whose works focused on mythological and religious subjects. 

At the onset of World War I, Masson joined the French Infantry, sustaining critical injuries during his service which required extended hospitalization and subjected him to intense periods of psychological distress.

In 1924, André Breton invited Masson to join the Surrealist group. Inspired by Breton’s automatic writings, Masson began to experiment with automatic drawing, using self-induced hypnosis to record the subconscious on paper — a technique that often yielded what Gertrude Stein famously called “the wandering line.” In the late 1920s, Masson distanced himself from Breton’s Surrealists, finding the group’s dogmatism artistically restrictive, and in 1936, Masson drew the cover for Georges Batailles’ review Acéphale (Headless), contributing to subsequent issues until 1939. 

During World War II, Masson went into exile in the United States —settling in rural Connecticut — where he continued experimentation with automatic drawing and befriended nearby artists Alexander Calder and Yves Tanguy. After the war, he settled in Aix-en-Provence in 1946. Inspired by the local landscape, Masson began to create paintings combining elements of Impressionism, Zen philosophy, and Tachisme. In 1976, at age 80, he received a major retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and continued painting and writing until his death in 1987.