The Dance

Kurt SeligmannWW-1940-016169

1940·Oil on glass·87 × 101.6 cm (34 1/4 × 40 in.)

Less than two weeks after Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, painter Kurt Seligmann traveled from Europe to New York for the opening of an exhibition of his work. Urged not to return home due to the threat of Nazi persecution, he became one of the earliest Surrealist artists to seek refuge in New York. For The Dance, which envisions a modern danse macabre, or dance of death, Seligmann employed a traditional German folk technique in which he painted in reverse on the backside of glass and used candle smoke to enhance the rich black tones. The technique and imagery reflect Seligmann's fascination with medieval heraldry and magic, as well as his horror at the contemporary tragedies of war. As the artist wrote around the time he made The Dance, "My mind is as black as the background in my paintings."

Catalogue

Year: 1940
Medium: Oil on glass
Dimensions: 87 × 101.6 cm (34 1/4 × 40 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

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