Collection Online as of December 4, 2023
for the VVV Portfolio
VVV Portfolio: Phantom of the Past
Kurt Seligmann
(Swiss, 1900–1962)
Etching and aquatint
Sheet: 44.1 x 34.3 cm (17 3/8 x 13 1/2 in.); Platemark: 35.2 x 29.5 cm (13 7/8 x 11 5/8 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 1999.95
© Orange County Citizens Foundation / Artists Rights Society, (ARS), New York
Catalogue raisonné: Mason 116
State: III/III
Edition: c. 30 (the intended edition was 50)
Location
not on view
Description
In 1929 Seligmann settled in Paris and began to associate with Surrealist artists like Yves Tanguy, André Masson, and Max Ernst, who also made prints from the same portfolio, published in New York to benefit the journal VVV. This menacing figure recalls the tradition of mythological creatures and heraldic imagery in medieval and Renaissance art in Switzerland.