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Lot Essay
We are grateful to the Joaquín Torres-García Archive of Alejandra, Aurelio and Claudio Torres for their assistance in the cataloging and presentation of the present lot.
We are also grateful to Cecilia de Torres for her assistance cataloguing this work.
An inimitable figure within the transatlantic history of abstraction, Torres-García sought to convey a universal worldview in his artwork, drawing in different measures from the European avant-garde and the pre-Columbian Americas. Born in Uruguay, he moved to Barcelona in 1892, gradually absorbing modernist doctrine--Cubism, Constructivism, Neo-plasticism--in Europe (and briefly, New York) before making his celebrated return to Montevideo in 1934. The principles of Constructive Universalism, his syncretic theory of abstraction, began to take root during his critical years in Paris (1926-32). Aligned with the Parisian abstractionists, among them Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian, Torres-García defined his mature practice around the ideal schema of the Neo-plastic grid, whose geometric austerity (primary colors and straight lines) epitomized for him the totality of the universe and its highest, utopian order. His assimilation of schematic ("universal") symbols within the grid, beginning in late 1930, marked a watershed moment: recovered from pre-Columbian art, the pictographs became archetypal signs, transformed by geometry into a new paradigm for (Latin) American abstraction.
A classic painting from this period, Composition TSF posits a personal and cosmic universe through its arrangement of signs, set in shallow relief within a box-like structure shaded in black, white, gray, and ocher. Torres-García's repertory of pictographs was well established by 1931, and his signs range across the physical and intellectual worlds. In the lower left-hand corner, the boat anchors the image, evoking rites of passage and discovery--or, in an autobiographical sense, Torres-García's own transatlantic voyaging. At the center of the painting, the arrow and compass indicate direction and precision; the scales (balance), the ruler (measurement), and the clock (time) project humanist synergies that converge in the geometricized person of Universal Man, in the upper right-hand corner, tasked to restore cosmic harmony to the world. The addition of a hot air balloon marks the presence of technology and the modern world, an orientation reiterated by the letters TSF--"télécommunications sans fil," or "wireless communication"--that give the painting its title.
Inasmuch as Torres-García privileged pre-modern culture in his theory of Constructive Universalism, he was no less fascinated, at times, by the chaos and clatter of the city and the vitality of modern life. His urban sensibility dates at least as far back as the "vibrationist" paintings of his Barcelona years, in which he described the street culture of Catalonia through the simultaneity of Cubist-Futurist color and form. By the 1920s and '30s, the expansion of "wireless"--i.e., the radio, first called wireless telegraphy--and commercial broadcasting marked a new order of technology. The medium of sound, displaced and disembodied, held enormous interest to the avant-garde, and not surprisingly both the concept and the potential applications of TSF caught Torres-García's attention. Following his return to Montevideo, he would give a series of radio lectures designed to supplement his teachings at the Asociación de Arte Constructivo, the school he formed around the precepts of Constructive Universalism. Nestled near the center of the present work, the letters TSF hint suggestively at parallels between the modern network of wireless communications and the universality of Torres-García's constructivist vision.
Abby McEwen, Assistant Professor, University of Maryland, College Park
In 1931, the year Torres-García creates Composition TSF, he exhibits work for the fourth consecutive year in the Salon Les Surindependants. He receives the following review: "Constructivism in compartments; without disregarding the initial cubist constructions involves dividing the canvas in numerous boxes in accordance to the graphic rhythm of an extreme sensible geometry. The promoters of this tendency gather around the artist Torres-García, whose passionate compositions recall gothic cathedral facades."[1]
A short time thereafter Torres-García writes to his friend Jean Gorin about another show he recently inaugurated, this time at Galerie Percier, stating: ". . . if I had great success in the Surindependants, now with my show at Galerie Percier I have a definite victory."[2]
Torres-García considered himself to be once again at the summit of a momentous period in his life. At the age of fifty seven he was only willing to make an effort in the challenges created by himself. As a consequence he had recently let go of the direction of Cercle et Carré in a rather diplomatic way when Seuphor's squabbles became tiresome. With the absence of Torres-García's "charisma" the group promptly dissolved. Despite the insistence of his fellow friends who as a result were organizing "Abstraction-Creation" he had refrained from participating.
Torres-García's activity in 1931 is both astounding and inspirational. In January he exhibits in Galerie Jeanne Bucher and Galerie Pierre Loeb. Some months later he participates in the group exhibition Où allons-nous along with Miró, Braque, Dalí, Ernst, Léger, Masson, Picasso, and Soutine; additionally there were sculptures by Arp, Giacometti, Lipchitz and Matisse. In June, he shows again with Picasso, Miró, and others, in a group exhibition at Galerie Billet, while simultaneously exhibiting at Galerie Georges Petit, again with Dalí, Max Ernst, Giacometti, Laurence, Lurcat, Marcoussis, Masson, Miró, Ozenfant and Zadkine. In addition to all of this tremendous output, Torres-García writes Pere Soleil and Pierre Reverdy-Poémes; accompanying his texts with illustrated calligrammes, and continues several projects he was working on with Tzara. He closes 1931 with two more "solo" exhibitions at Galerie Jean Charpentier and Librairie Oliviero.
That same year, on May 27, Auguste Piccard a Swiss physicist and his assistant Charles Knipfer, ascended to open space in an air balloon from Augsburg, Germany, in the first flight into the stratosphere; they reached a record height (51,793 ft.). It was on the cover of every newspaper across Europe; Torres-García marks the epic endeavor with the creation of a painting. The soaring hot air balloon is recollected by Torres's balanced graphs and forms on the upper left-hand corner of the present painting.
It should be noted that the title "Composition TSF" is not the original nomenclature established by the artist, but a posthumous name prescribed by his family in the means of classifying his large legacy. It is most probable that Torres-García himself referred to the canvas by the generic term; "Composition." The letters; 'TSF,' which appear on this work, are a recurring motif. The classification process re-named most of the works according to visually identifiable thematic cues within the paintings; for example an artwork 'containing' a clock would be thus named; i.e., clock painting. The family's original intention was to differentiate one canvas from the other instead of applying the numerical sequence commonly employed among other abstract artists. Little did they know they were erasing history one title at a time.
We believe that TSF stands for "transmission sans fil," French for 'wireless broadcast,' an expression in vogue during the 1930s in Paris and a weekly column in the newspaper Le Populaire, a favorite of the artist. His fascination with wireless technology dates back to the beginning of the century. In 1918 Torres-García illustrated Salvat Pappasseit's Poemes en Ondes Hertzianas (Poems on Hertz Waves). The wireless broadcast or 'TSF' in the case of Composition is to be deducted from the visual matrix of symbols displayed in the painting. The artist's intention is to communicate a sens caché message; a.k.a "a hidden meaning" to the viewer. This existence of an embedded secret message is another recurring theme in the artist's work. A possible source can be traced back to 1903 during Torres-García's creation of the stained glass windows at the Cathedral in Palma de Mallorca. While working on this commission the artist became well acquainted with catholic and masonic sign systems and symbolic languages. An interest that would continue throughout his life, together with his friend Luis Fernández, artist and Master Mason of France Loggias, the two would spend hours in Paris studying the Notre Dame Cathedral for its symbolism and geometry.
One could devote countless days to decoding the hidden message locked behind the bold yet graceful spatial subdivisions of Composition, and will likely devote many more before deducing its "sens caché." But who knows, maybe some bright mind or algorithm out in the vast world holds the key to unlocking Torres-García's oeuvre.
Nicolás Arocena Armas
1 L'lntransigeant. 26 October, 1931. Paris.
2 Torres-García. Letter to Jean Gorín. circa December1931. Published in Macula, No. 2. 1977. Torres-García's exhibition at Galerie Percier, (38 Rue la Boetie). November 30, 1931. Cahiers D'Art N 9-10. Paris), published an article by Pierre Gueguin while the Chicago Tribune (13/12/31) published a review by Xceron.
We are also grateful to Cecilia de Torres for her assistance cataloguing this work.
An inimitable figure within the transatlantic history of abstraction, Torres-García sought to convey a universal worldview in his artwork, drawing in different measures from the European avant-garde and the pre-Columbian Americas. Born in Uruguay, he moved to Barcelona in 1892, gradually absorbing modernist doctrine--Cubism, Constructivism, Neo-plasticism--in Europe (and briefly, New York) before making his celebrated return to Montevideo in 1934. The principles of Constructive Universalism, his syncretic theory of abstraction, began to take root during his critical years in Paris (1926-32). Aligned with the Parisian abstractionists, among them Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian, Torres-García defined his mature practice around the ideal schema of the Neo-plastic grid, whose geometric austerity (primary colors and straight lines) epitomized for him the totality of the universe and its highest, utopian order. His assimilation of schematic ("universal") symbols within the grid, beginning in late 1930, marked a watershed moment: recovered from pre-Columbian art, the pictographs became archetypal signs, transformed by geometry into a new paradigm for (Latin) American abstraction.
A classic painting from this period, Composition TSF posits a personal and cosmic universe through its arrangement of signs, set in shallow relief within a box-like structure shaded in black, white, gray, and ocher. Torres-García's repertory of pictographs was well established by 1931, and his signs range across the physical and intellectual worlds. In the lower left-hand corner, the boat anchors the image, evoking rites of passage and discovery--or, in an autobiographical sense, Torres-García's own transatlantic voyaging. At the center of the painting, the arrow and compass indicate direction and precision; the scales (balance), the ruler (measurement), and the clock (time) project humanist synergies that converge in the geometricized person of Universal Man, in the upper right-hand corner, tasked to restore cosmic harmony to the world. The addition of a hot air balloon marks the presence of technology and the modern world, an orientation reiterated by the letters TSF--"télécommunications sans fil," or "wireless communication"--that give the painting its title.
Inasmuch as Torres-García privileged pre-modern culture in his theory of Constructive Universalism, he was no less fascinated, at times, by the chaos and clatter of the city and the vitality of modern life. His urban sensibility dates at least as far back as the "vibrationist" paintings of his Barcelona years, in which he described the street culture of Catalonia through the simultaneity of Cubist-Futurist color and form. By the 1920s and '30s, the expansion of "wireless"--i.e., the radio, first called wireless telegraphy--and commercial broadcasting marked a new order of technology. The medium of sound, displaced and disembodied, held enormous interest to the avant-garde, and not surprisingly both the concept and the potential applications of TSF caught Torres-García's attention. Following his return to Montevideo, he would give a series of radio lectures designed to supplement his teachings at the Asociación de Arte Constructivo, the school he formed around the precepts of Constructive Universalism. Nestled near the center of the present work, the letters TSF hint suggestively at parallels between the modern network of wireless communications and the universality of Torres-García's constructivist vision.
Abby McEwen, Assistant Professor, University of Maryland, College Park
In 1931, the year Torres-García creates Composition TSF, he exhibits work for the fourth consecutive year in the Salon Les Surindependants. He receives the following review: "Constructivism in compartments; without disregarding the initial cubist constructions involves dividing the canvas in numerous boxes in accordance to the graphic rhythm of an extreme sensible geometry. The promoters of this tendency gather around the artist Torres-García, whose passionate compositions recall gothic cathedral facades."[1]
A short time thereafter Torres-García writes to his friend Jean Gorin about another show he recently inaugurated, this time at Galerie Percier, stating: ". . . if I had great success in the Surindependants, now with my show at Galerie Percier I have a definite victory."[2]
Torres-García considered himself to be once again at the summit of a momentous period in his life. At the age of fifty seven he was only willing to make an effort in the challenges created by himself. As a consequence he had recently let go of the direction of Cercle et Carré in a rather diplomatic way when Seuphor's squabbles became tiresome. With the absence of Torres-García's "charisma" the group promptly dissolved. Despite the insistence of his fellow friends who as a result were organizing "Abstraction-Creation" he had refrained from participating.
Torres-García's activity in 1931 is both astounding and inspirational. In January he exhibits in Galerie Jeanne Bucher and Galerie Pierre Loeb. Some months later he participates in the group exhibition Où allons-nous along with Miró, Braque, Dalí, Ernst, Léger, Masson, Picasso, and Soutine; additionally there were sculptures by Arp, Giacometti, Lipchitz and Matisse. In June, he shows again with Picasso, Miró, and others, in a group exhibition at Galerie Billet, while simultaneously exhibiting at Galerie Georges Petit, again with Dalí, Max Ernst, Giacometti, Laurence, Lurcat, Marcoussis, Masson, Miró, Ozenfant and Zadkine. In addition to all of this tremendous output, Torres-García writes Pere Soleil and Pierre Reverdy-Poémes; accompanying his texts with illustrated calligrammes, and continues several projects he was working on with Tzara. He closes 1931 with two more "solo" exhibitions at Galerie Jean Charpentier and Librairie Oliviero.
That same year, on May 27, Auguste Piccard a Swiss physicist and his assistant Charles Knipfer, ascended to open space in an air balloon from Augsburg, Germany, in the first flight into the stratosphere; they reached a record height (51,793 ft.). It was on the cover of every newspaper across Europe; Torres-García marks the epic endeavor with the creation of a painting. The soaring hot air balloon is recollected by Torres's balanced graphs and forms on the upper left-hand corner of the present painting.
It should be noted that the title "Composition TSF" is not the original nomenclature established by the artist, but a posthumous name prescribed by his family in the means of classifying his large legacy. It is most probable that Torres-García himself referred to the canvas by the generic term; "Composition." The letters; 'TSF,' which appear on this work, are a recurring motif. The classification process re-named most of the works according to visually identifiable thematic cues within the paintings; for example an artwork 'containing' a clock would be thus named; i.e., clock painting. The family's original intention was to differentiate one canvas from the other instead of applying the numerical sequence commonly employed among other abstract artists. Little did they know they were erasing history one title at a time.
We believe that TSF stands for "transmission sans fil," French for 'wireless broadcast,' an expression in vogue during the 1930s in Paris and a weekly column in the newspaper Le Populaire, a favorite of the artist. His fascination with wireless technology dates back to the beginning of the century. In 1918 Torres-García illustrated Salvat Pappasseit's Poemes en Ondes Hertzianas (Poems on Hertz Waves). The wireless broadcast or 'TSF' in the case of Composition is to be deducted from the visual matrix of symbols displayed in the painting. The artist's intention is to communicate a sens caché message; a.k.a "a hidden meaning" to the viewer. This existence of an embedded secret message is another recurring theme in the artist's work. A possible source can be traced back to 1903 during Torres-García's creation of the stained glass windows at the Cathedral in Palma de Mallorca. While working on this commission the artist became well acquainted with catholic and masonic sign systems and symbolic languages. An interest that would continue throughout his life, together with his friend Luis Fernández, artist and Master Mason of France Loggias, the two would spend hours in Paris studying the Notre Dame Cathedral for its symbolism and geometry.
One could devote countless days to decoding the hidden message locked behind the bold yet graceful spatial subdivisions of Composition, and will likely devote many more before deducing its "sens caché." But who knows, maybe some bright mind or algorithm out in the vast world holds the key to unlocking Torres-García's oeuvre.
Nicolás Arocena Armas
1 L'lntransigeant. 26 October, 1931. Paris.
2 Torres-García. Letter to Jean Gorín. circa December1931. Published in Macula, No. 2. 1977. Torres-García's exhibition at Galerie Percier, (38 Rue la Boetie). November 30, 1931. Cahiers D'Art N 9-10. Paris), published an article by Pierre Gueguin while the Chicago Tribune (13/12/31) published a review by Xceron.