Roberto Matta

Roberto Matta was a Chilean-born painter and one of the major figures of 20th-century Surrealism, later influential on Abstract Expressionism. He studied architecture in Santiago, worked in Paris with Le Corbusier, and then turned to painting in the 1930s.

Matta was born in Santiago, Chile, in 1911 and studied architecture and interior design at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. After graduating, he traveled widely and eventually moved to Europe, where he encountered the avant-garde scene that shaped his artistic direction.

By the mid-1930s, Matta had abandoned architecture and become involved with the Surrealist movement in Paris. His work developed into imaginative, abstract “inner landscapes” or cosmic environments, and he was associated with André Breton and other key Surrealists.

Matta moved to New York in 1939, where he became an important bridge between European Surrealism and younger American artists. His ideas and imagery influenced several Abstract Expressionists, and his art gradually became more political and socially engaged over time.

He divided much of his later life between Europe and Latin America, supported Salvador Allende’s government in Chile, and remained active in political and artistic circles. Matta died in 2002 in Civitavecchia, Italy.