The Giants Dance

Inscriptions

Signed and dated, lower right: Kay Sage ’44; signed, dated, and inscribed, in graphite, by artist, on stretcher reverse: “THE GIANTS DANCE” 1944 KAY SAGE / WOODBURY, CONN.; label on stretcher reverse [label is printed; underlined elements are hand written in blue ink]: CATHERINE VIVIANO GALLERY / 42 east 57 street new york 22, n.y. / Artist Kay Sage / Title The Giants Dance / Size 11 1/4 x 15 ¼

Label

The Giants Dance is a characteristic example of Kay Sage’s painting style, recognizable by mysterious, hard-edged  structures set within mostly vacant and seemingly endless landscapes. The massive assemblage of angular blocks and slabs seen here extends ominously across the eerie wasteland, populated only by a much smaller and distant structure. The dramatic contrast in scale between the two elements perhaps suggests domination of one over the other. It could also evoke impending misfortune— an interpretation heightened by a steep, essentially impossible angle of the larger form. The presence of the drapery adds a decidedly human touch in Sage’s uninhabited universe.

Sage worked closely with the Surrealists in Paris, and was eventually married to Yves Tanguy, but she was not well received by the inner circle of French artists such as André Breton. Sage and Tanguy moved to the United States at beginning of World War II and remained until the end of their lives. Sage’s career gained momentum in the years following the war, with several gallery shows and museum shows. In retrospect, it seems that her early exposure to the work of Giorgio de Chirico (whose La Surprise she owned) set the tone for her moody and mysterious, seemingly dream-inspired landscapes.

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

Course History

THEA 17, 19th and 20th century Performance, Laura Edmondson, Spring 2014

WRIT 7, Religion and Literature: Revisioning the Invisible, Nancy Crumbine, Spring 2014

WRIT 5, Writing into the Wilderness, Nancy Crumbine, Spring 2014

WRIT 5, Writing into the Wilderness, Nancy Crumbine, Fall 2014

WRIT 5, Writing into the Wilderness, Nancy Crumbine, Fall 2014

WRIT 5, Writing Into the Wilderness, Nancy Crumbine, Winter 2015

WRIT 5, Writing Into the Wilderness, Nancy Crumbine, Winter 2015

SART 25.01, Painting I, Viktor Witkowski, Winter 2022

SART 25.02, Painting I, Viktor Witkowski, Winter 2022

WRIT 2.07, WRIT 3.01, Exposition and Composition, Erikki Mackey, Fall 2022

Studio Art 31.01/72.01, Painting II/III, Jen Caine, Winter 2023

Exhibition History

20th Century Art from the Dartmouth Collection, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 16-May 29, 1988.

American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 9-December 9, 2007.

American Paintings from the Dartmouth Collection, 1910-1960, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 17-April 12, 1998.

An Introduction of the History of Art from the Fifteenth Century to the Twentieth Century, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, Art 2, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, February 12-March 15, 1992.

Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, February 6-March 24, 1995.

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

Director's Choice, Jaffe-Friede Gallery, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 10-July 10, 1966.

Figures and Structures: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, Art History 2, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshrie, January 2-March 10, 1996.

Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 2, 2005-July 17, 2006.

Kay Sage, 1898-1963, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, January 26-March 13, 1977; Art Gallery, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, April 5-May 15, 1977; Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, New York, June 8-July 20, 1977, no. 25.

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.

Publication History

Judith D. Suther, A House of Her Own: Kay Sage, Solitary Surrealist, Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1997, ill. section between p. 138 and p. 139

Regine Tessier Krieger, Kay Sage, 1898-1963, Ithaca: Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, 1977, checklist no. 25.

Barbara J. MacAdam, American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Muesum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2007, p. 108, no. 82.

John R. Stomberg, The Hood Now: Art and Inquiry at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2019, p. 161, ill. plate no. 92.

Provenance

The artist, 1944-1963; given by the estate of the artist to the present collection, 1964.

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