A Pinch of Earth

Inscriptions

Signed and dated, on reverse: Matta 1953

Label

A Pinch of Earth features bonelike, biomorphic forms in a dark, moody dreamscape characterized by turbulence, defiance, and hope. Touchpoints of reality, such as the horizon on which the sun is just rising, intermingle with shooting sparks from a force field of colorful lights, linking day and night. Insectlike creatures encased in gauzy cocoons energize the strange landscape, which is further animated by an oddly realistic human fist caught in defiant motion. Overall, the image seems a slightly menacing creation of a mind caught in the rapture of dreaming.

Roberto Sebastián Antonio Matta Echaurren, later known simply as Matta, left his native Chile in 1933 to serve as an assistant to renowned architect Le Corbusier in Paris. He soon discovered, and was transfixed by, the work of French Surrealist painters who were interested in exploring the unconscious mind. By the time he moved to the United States at the start of World War II, he had developed a deeply individual style that combined his experience with architectural rendering with the goals of Surrealism, creating what he called “inscapes.” His merging of Surrealism and abstraction exercised a significant influence on younger artists—especially those who soon developed Abstract Expressionism, such as Jackson Pollock and Robert Motherwell.

From the 2019 exhibition Cubism and Its Aftershocks, curated by John R. Stomberg Ph.D, Virginia Rice Kelsey 1961s Director

Course History

SART 31, SART 72, Painting II, Painting III, Jennifer Caine, Fall 2014

SART 31, 72, Painting II, III, Jennifer Caine, Winter 2019

SART 25.01, Painting I, Viktor Witkowski, Winter 2022

SART 25.02, Painting I, Viktor Witkowski, Winter 2022

Studio Art 25.01, Painting I, Enrico Riley, Winter 2023

Studio Art 25.01, Painting I, Lucy Mink Covello, Winter 2024

Spanish 9.02, Culture and Conversation, Mauricio Acuna, Spring 2024

Exhibition History

Art Since 1945: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 19, 1992-March 14,1993.

Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 30-July 12, 2006.

Contemporary Art from the College Collection, Jaffe-Friede Gallery, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 24-March 2, 1975.

Cubism and Its Aftershocks, Citrin Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 26, 2019-February 16, 2020.

Light in Art, Jaffe-Friede, Strauss and Barrows Galleries, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 2, 1977-January 29, 1978.

Second Stage of Modernism: Art from 1945 to the Present, William B. Jaffe, Evelyn A. Jaffe Hall, Churchill P. Lathrop, Friends, and Owen Robertson Cheatham galleries, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 6-August 16, 1987.

Shadows and Hallucinations: Surrealist Art from the Permanent Collection, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, MALS308, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, July 24-September 5, 1999.

Surrealist Works from the Permanent Collection, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, MALS, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, July 20-September 1, 2002.

The Dartmouth Collection: 19th & 20th Century Paintings, Jaffe-Friede Gallery, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 17-November 6, 1982.

Publication History

Treasures of the Hood Museum, Dartmouth College, New York, Hudson Hill Press, 1985, p. 142, no. 136.

Brian P. Kennedy and Emily Shubert Burke, Modern and Contemporary Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2009 p.32, no.9.

Provenance

Thomas George (1918-2014), Princeton, New Jersey; given to present collection, 1965.

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