Skip to main content

Explosions of Fire

1950
Yves Tanguy (American (born France), 1900–1955)

Explosions of Fire exemplifies Yves Tanguy’s vision as a painter of eerie landscapes stretching into an infinite distance and populated by minutely rendered but unclassifiable organisms and objects. Tanguy’s forms became more flinty or rocklike over the course of the 1930s. After the artist’s emigration from wartime France to the United States at the end of that decade, his compositions grew more densely populated with complex forms built from smaller pieces of varying shape and size. These forms also gained a looming verticality, enhanced by using the bottom edge to crop them part of the way up. The two tallest vertical forms in Explosions of Fire—one looking like it’s made of marble and having many rounded segments and the other flat and jet-black with a beaklike top projection—have the appearance of sentinels, an ominous figural resonance frequently found in Tanguy’s work in this period.


Object Details

We are always open to learning more about our collections and updating the website. Does this record contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? Contact us here.

Please note that this particular artwork might not be on view when you visit. Don’t worry—we have plenty of exhibitions for you to explore.