Modern Sensibilities

The Mattatuck Museum showcases modernist Kay Sage alongside works by Georgia O'Keeffe

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Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986), New Mexican Landscape, 1930. Oil on canvas. Michele and Donald D' Amour Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Massachusetts. The James Philip Gray Collection, 35.04. Photography by David Stansbury.

Through June 8, 2025
Mattatuck Museum
144 W. Main Street Waterbury, CT 06702 t: [phone] www.mattmuseum.org

Kay Sage was an American surrealist painter and poet, whose biography reads like a cross between a high-society romance novel (her first husband was an Italian prince) and a who's who in the international avant-garde art scene of the 1930s. She married French surrealist Yves Tanguy; her work was sought out by the movement's leader André Breton, and Alexander Calder was among her personal friends. And yet, Sage (1898–1963) and her impressive oeuvre of architecturally-based surrealism have largely been lost to the annals of time.

The Mattatuck Museum, located in Waterbury, Connecticut, not far from Woodbury, where Sage and Tanguy lived out the final decade of their tumultuous marriage, is endeavoring to change that with the exhibition Modern Women: Georgia O'Keeffe and Kay Sage, on view through June 8. Sage's work, even alongside examples by the most famous female modernists in history, does not fade in comparison but, rather, shines.

“One of the conceits of this pairing is to use O'Keeffe's star power to raise Sage's profile while using the comparison to view each artist's work in a new light,” says chief curator Keffie Feldman. “I believe Sage deserves more attention and recognition as a strong and unique voice in 20th-century American art.”

Kay Sage (1898-1963), The Instant, 1949. Oil on canvas. Mattatuck Museum. Bequest of Kay Sage, 1964-65, KSCX68.10.