Artwork Page for A Bird in the Room

Details / Information for A Bird in the Room

A Bird in the Room

1955

Kay Sage

(American, 1898–1963)
Culture
America
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
Unframed: 99.1 x 81.3 cm (39 x 32 in.)
Credit Line
Bequest of Kay Sage Tanguy 1964.340
Copyright
© Estate of Kay Sage / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
This artwork is known to be under copyright.
Location
226B American Modern
Print
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Did You Know?

To maintain her own identity, Sage often refused to exhibit with her husband, also an artist.

Description

Kay Sage created this work, one of her most somber and desolate, shortly after the death of her husband, fellow Surrealist painter Yves Tanguy (1900–1955). The title likely refers to the folk legend that says a wild bird flying into a house is a premonition of death—an actual event that Sage experienced shortly before Tanguy passed away. After his unexpected death, Sage developed a degenerative sight disease that caused blurred vision and made it difficult for her to paint. She devoted her time to writing poetry and creating small collages but lived with depression, eventually dying by suicide in 1963.
A vertically oriented oil painting in deep teals and pale greens depicts a skeletal framework of tall, rigid beams. Rounded bundles wrapped in cord huddle along the floor and left edge. From the upper horizontal beams, small stones dangle by thin, wire-like strings. The background features dark teal horizontal brushstrokes, while long, sharp shadows cast from a light source at the upper left stretch diagonally across the upright light green columns and the floor.

A Bird in the Room

1955

Kay Sage

(American, 1898–1963)
America

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