Roberto Sebastian Matta * (Santiago, Chile 1911–2002 Civitavecchia, Italy) Con questa occhiata mi difendo (With this glance I defend myself), 1951, signed and dated on the reverse, oil on canvas, 80 x 100 cm, framed Provenance: Guglielmo Achille Cavellini (1914–1990) Collection, Brescia Galleria Lorenzelli, Bergamo (stamp on the reverse) Lorenzelli Arte, Milan (stamp on the reverse) European Private Collection Exhibited: Rome, Pittori moderni dalla Collezione Cavellini, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, May – June 1957, exh. cat. curated by P. Bucarelli and G. Carandemte, no. 50 with ill. Literature: E. Crispolti, L’Informale. Storia e Poetica, B. Carucci Editore, Assisi-Rome 1971, no. IV with ill. There is a very practical type of painting that blithely skips over form: an eye is an eye perceived, a hand is a hand perceived. But there can also be the considered attachment to form, the eye is an ocean of crystal reflecting the totality of nature, the hand – the germination of one in the world...” Roberto Sebastián Antonio Matta Echaurren Born in Santiago de Chile in 1912, Matta studied architecture and worked in Paris with Le Corbusier. He began drawing in 1935 in Spain, where he counted Lorca and Neruda among his friends. Returning to Paris in 1936, he joined the Surrealist movement, where he was in contact with Breton, Max Ernst and Mirò. In 1939, he left for the United States with Duchamp and Tanguy, to permanently settle overseas. Matta’s complex personality was particularly marked by the Surrealist experience and tends towards multiform visions of reality at the limits of abstraction straddling dream, ecstasy and a symbolism that is, however, substantative rather than formal. (Cfr. Catalogue of the exhibition “Pittori moderni dalla Collezione Cavellini”, Rome 1957, curated by P. Bucarelli and G. Carandente)