Yves Tanguy was a Surrealist so we knew he was weird, but we didn’t know that he would be the eat-live-spiders kind of weird.

Tanguy was born in Paris in 1900. His father was a retired navy captain so Tanguy’s first job-related inclination was to join the merchant navy. Before he could figure out that it wasn’t his cup of tea, he was drafted into the military and served until 1922. While in service, Tanguy met the poet and screenwriter, Jacques Prévert, who took a liking to Tanguy because he did fun stuff like chew his socks and eat live spiders, a talent Tanguy later adapted into a cool party trick. After his service, he returned to Paris to flounce around aimlessly and work odd jobs. One day, Tanguy was on a bus and happened to get a glance at Giorgio de Chirico’s painting, Le cerveau de l'enfant. Tanguy was so intrigued by it that he jumped off of the bus in order to get a closer look. Tanguy took his willingness to risk his life for just a look at this piece as an indication that he should be a painter, which is what he did.

Tanguy soon met Andre Breton, the author of the Surrealist Manifesto, in 1924 and the two hit it off. Tanguy was a huge Surrealism supporter and he and Breton were just two peas in a pod. Breton wrote of Surrealism: "What is Surrealism? It is the appearance of Yves Tanguy, crowned with the big emerald bird of Paradise." We aren’t super sure what that means, but it’s sweet nonetheless. Tanguy and his crew had loads of fun in Paris terrorizing right wing conservatives to the point that they would slash their paintings, and drinking to the point that he would “roll banknotes into balls and throw them at bemused café patrons.” It was the best of times.

Somewhere in there, Tanguy married his first wife, Jeannette Ducrocq, but the bohemian and, frankly, poverty-stricken lifestyle crumbled their marriage. Tanguy and his wife traveled to London together for his first retrospective at the Guggenheim Jeune in 1938, where he began a passionate love affair with Peggy Guggenheim. Tanguy knew which side of his bread was buttered…The affair ended for true love when Tanguy met Kay Sage, who was also an artist. The pair moved to America and got married in Reno in 1940. The best friend, Breton, wasn’t too pleased with their union however. He hated Sage and the fact that she was stealing his BFF. So naturally Breton excommunicated them from the Surrealist movement, something Breton had a knack for. He also demanded that Pierre Matisse, Henri Matisse’s son and Tanguy’s gallerist until that point, end their relationship. They never reconciled.

In America, Tanguy was hyper-proficient. He created an extensive body of work alongside his wife. Tanguy was never one to reveal his process to anyone, though. He said that he “was very much alone in his work” and that “[he] [was] almost jealous of it.” He never discussed his ideas with other artists and when he and his wife were given a joint exhibition, they insisted on their work being put in separate galleries. Their separate togetherness seemed to be working for them until Tanguy died suddenly of a stroke in 1955. Sage was heartbroken and a few years later killed herself leaving a note that read, “The first painting by Yves that I saw, before I knew him, was called ‘I’m Waiting for You.’ I’ve come. Now he’s waiting for me again — I’m on my way.” ...Relationship goals?...