biography of Kay SAGE (1898-1963)

Birth place: Albany, NY

Death place: Woodbury, CT

Addresses: As a child, she lived mostly in Europe with her mother; Italy, 1919-35; Paris;Woodbury, CT, 1941-

Profession: Painter, illustrator

Studied: mostly self-taught, took brief winter course at the Corcoran Art Sch., c.1915; informally with Onorato Carlandi

Exhibited: Milan, Italy, 1936 (solo); Salon des Surindépendents, Paris, 1938; Matisse Gal., 1940 (solo); SFMA, 1941 (solo); Julien Levy Gal., 1944 &1947 (solo); AIC, 1945 (prize), 1946-47, 1951; Corcoran Gal biennials, 1951-61 (5 times, incl. 4th prize, 1951); WMAA, 1946-62; CI, 1946-50; TMA, 1947-49; CPLH, 1949-50; Univ. Illinois, 1949, 1951; Herron AI, 1947- 48, 1951; LACMA, 1951; BM, 1951; Detroit IA, 1952; Viviano Gal., 1950, 1952, 1958 (solo shows); PAFA Ann., 1953; Wadsworth Atheneum, 1954 (with Yves Tanguy); Cornell Univ., 1977; Hirschl & Adler Gal., NYC, 1998 (surrealism exhib.). Awards: Connecticut Development Comm., 1951 (prize).

Work: AIC; CPLH; WMAA; Wesleyan Univ., CT; MMA; MoMA; Walker Art Center.

Comments: A surrealist active in Paris in the mid to late 1930s, she married Yves Tanguy in 1940 and moved with him to Woodbury, CT. Although his career overshadowed her own, Sage continued to paint and exhibit in the 1940s and 1950s (Tanguy died in 1955). In 1958 she lost part of her vision after a double cataract operation; the following year she made an unsuccessful suicide attempt with barbiturates, and four years later she fatally shot herself with her husband"s pearl-handled pistol. Author & illustrator: Piove in Giardine (1937); Ale More I Wonder (1957 verse); Demain, Monsieur Silbe (1957, French verse).

Sources: WW59; Baigell, Dictionary; Rubinstein, American Women Artists, 290-92; Wechsler, 24; Regine T. Krieger, Kay Sage (exh. cat., Cornell Univ., 1977); Art in Conn.: Between World Wars; Falk, Exh. Record Series; death info courtesy Betty Krulick, Spanierman Gal., NYC.