Heraldry

Kurt SeligmannWW-1934-040158

1934·Oil on wood·160 × 130.2 cm (63 × 51 1/4 in.)

Born in Switzerland, Kurt Seligmann moved to Paris in 1929 and began exhibiting with the Surrealists, though he did not officially join the group until 1937. Heraldry was one of the works included in the 1938 International Exhibition of Surrealism held at the Galerie Beaux-Arts in Paris, the most elaborate of all the Surrealist shows and the last major exhibition mounted by the group before its artists fled into exile during World War II. The painting reveals Seligmann’s interest in medieval and Renaissance heraldic imagery, and among the earlier titles that he inscribed and then crossed out on the back of the work is Homage to Urs Graf, a reference to the eccentric Renaissance printmaker, goldsmith, and designer.

Catalogue

Year: 1934
Medium: Oil on wood
Dimensions: 160 × 130.2 cm (63 × 51 1/4 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Kurt Seligmann

Artist

Kurt Seligmann

Painting

Kurt Seligmann was an American painter and printmaker who worked across abstraction and figuration, creating dense, layered compositions that incorporated automatist techniques and mythological imagery. Active in the postwar period, he developed a distinctly personal synthesis of Surrealist methods and Jungian psychology, translating psychological states into complex visual narratives. His work combined painting, etching, and collage to explore the unconscious as a generative space.

New York, USA

Full artist profile →