With its proximity to the cultural hub of New York City and its quieter suburban and rural landscapes, Connecticut was fertile ground for artists and writers in the period of Modernist movements between 1913 and 1979. Many of these cultural figures are well known through biographical and critical studies. Creative Places seeks to show how place played a significant role in creative work, and how in turn the artists and writers influenced communities in Connecticut.
Andre Masson
Painting/Drawing
1896 – 1987
Initially interested in Cubism, Masson became a Surrealist artist in the circle of Joan Miro and Jean Dubuffet in Paris. He spent the years during World War II in exile in Connecticut.
- Biography/Description of Work
Masson’s work in the 1920s and 1930s often reflected violent or erotic themes, and during the Nazi occupation he was condemned as a degenerate. When he emigrated to the US from a French internment camp in 1941, Alexander Calder hosted him and found him a home in New Preston. While he stayed only a few years before returning to France at the end of the war, his work was an influence for emerging abstract expressionists.
- Associated Resource(s)
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