To The Rescue

Inscriptions

Inscribed, signed and dated, lowe right: To the Rescue Dorothea Tanning 1965

Label

In this work, part of her series titled Insomnias, Tanning dematerializes a scene into a swirling mass of cotton candy–colored bodies. We catch glimpses of the recognizable—a dog on the right and a horse’s rear on the left—but the luscious brushstrokes emphasize atmosphere over form, a clear priority of this surrealist artist.

Does reading Sarah Dickenson Snyder’s poem “To the Rescue” change how you perceive this painting?

From the 2024 exhibition Immersive Worlds: Real and Imagined, curated by Amelia Kahl, Barbara C. & Harvey P. Hood 1918 Senior Curator of Academic Programming and Neely McNulty, Hood Foundation Curator of Education

To the Rescue

Maybe it is oblivion—being held by a blurred,
softened universe of greens, blues, & yellows.
We’ll sink into each other, feel the final heat
of a horse’s thigh, enveloped in the folds
of something womb-like, the presence
of all we’ve touched filling in. The last
clarity: the dark eyes of a loved one—
how my grandmother died lying
next to her Lhasa Apso, a small nestle
of heartbeats. I thought there might be
a miniature person behind his curtained face,
so attentive he was to every breath & word
my grandmother exhaled. Can you measure
the topography of that steady love?
His name was Happiness. Happiness,
the first sound I’d hear when I’d visit—
his sharp barks letting her know I was there.
I remember learning that Lhasas
were bred as watchdogs for Tibetan monasteries,
their compact bodies protected by a flowing
coat & housing large lungs for breathing
at the top of the world. When I landed in Lhasa,
I felt the thinness of air the entire stay.
It could have been a dream: sacred lakes,
tattered prayer flags against a bluer blue
& my slow steps up to the dark halls
of chanting, red-robed monks. Echo
& scent lifting in the flickering
of yak butter candles. I never saw
a dog there, but I understand
how the clicking nails on a tiled floor
warn of an intruder. My grandmother
lived by herself in a low home near the beach.
She did not leave the world alone.
Think of a small-statue alertness, a sentinel,
the shadowed cavities of eyes knowing.
His staying still. His rescuing.

 
—Sarah Dickenson Snyder, 2024 (Hartford, Vermont)

Commissioned for the 2024 exhibition Immersive Worlds: Real and Imagined, curated by Amelia Kahl, Barbara C. & Harvey P. Hood 1918 Senior Curator of Academic Programming and Neely McNulty, Hood Foundation Curator of Education

Course History

SART 31, Painting II, Tom Ferrara, Summer 2012

SART 76, Senior Seminar, Jennifer Caine, Winter 2020

SART 31/SART 72, Painting II/III, Jen Caine, Winter 2022

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

Studio Art 31.01, Studio Art 72.01, Painting II, III, Andrew Shea, Fall 2023

Exhibition History

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

Dorothea Tanning, Aleandre Iolas Gallery, New York, February 11-March 7, 1965.

Dorothea Tanning, Galerie Jan Krugier, Geneva, November 21-December 21, 1974.

Dorothea Tanning, Peinture recentes, petites sculptures d'or, Le Point Cardinal, Paris, May 24-June 30, 1966.

Dorothea Tanning, Retrospective, XXe Festival Belge d'Ete, Belgium, June-August, 1967.

Dorothea Tanning: Insomnias, Paintings from 1954-1955, Kent Gallery, New York, October 21-December 3, 2005.

Dorothea Tanning: Oeuvre, Retrospective, Centre National d'Art Contemporain, Paris, May-July 1974.

Dorothea Tanning: Om Konst Kunde Tala (If Art Could Talk), Retrospective, Malmo Konsthall, Malmo, Sweden, April 3-May 16, 1993.

Dorothea Tanning: Works, 1942-1992, Camden Arts Centre, London, September-November 1993.

Eleven Paintings by Dorothea Tanning, Kent Fine Art, New York, May 18-June 18, 1988.

Modern and Contemporary Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 26,2009-March 15, 2010.

Muse, Kent Gallery, New York, February 8-March 27, 2004.

XXIe Salon de Mai, Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, May 1965.

Publication History

Katharine Conley, Teaching the Words and Images of Surrealist Artist Dorothea Tanning, Hood Museum of Art Quarterly, No. 16, Summer 2006, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, p. 7.

Annual Report 2005-6, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2006, ill. p.25.

Alain Bouquet, Dorothea Tanning, Paris: Jean-Jacques, 1966,ill. p. 144 [misdated 1964].

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.53, no.29.

Provenance

The artist; Kent Gallery, Inc., New York, New York; sold to present collection, 2006.

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