About This Artwork

Angel Planells
Spanish, 1901–1989

Midday Sorrow, 1932

Oil on canvas
39 3/4 x 37 3/8 in. (101 x 95 cm)
Signed, l.r.: "Angel Planells"
Block, Serlin and Saidenberg, and Twentieth-Century Purchase funds; through prior bequest of Clara S. Binswanger; through prior acquisitions of Chester Dale, Mr. and Mrs. Carter H. Harrison, Ella M. Schapper Memorial Fund, Joseph Winterbotham, and Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection, 1993.259

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

Barcelona, Galeries Catalonia, Exposicio Angel Planells, November 5–20, 1934, cat. 1.

London, New Burlington Galleries, The International Surrealism Exhibition, June 11–July 4, 1936, no. 307.

Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, El Surrealismo en Espãna: 1924–1939, October 18, 1994–January 9, 1995, traveled to Düsseldorf, Kunsthalle, February 11–April 17, 1995; Kunsthalle Vienna, May 12–July 16, 1995, pp. 255 (ill.), 366, no. 160, as Mediodia triste.

Publication History

Herbert Read, ed., Surrealism (Harcourt, Brace and Co., New York: 1936), p. 16, pl. 83.Galeria Rene Metras, Angel Planells (Barcelona, 1975), n.p. (ill.), fig. 83.

Lucia Garcia de Carpi, La Pintura Surrealista Espãnola: 1924–1936 (Editions ISTMO, Madrid: 1986), p. 86 (ill.), cat. 42 (ill.), as Migda Penós.

Christie’s London, The Art of the Surreal Evening Sale (February 3, 2003), in “1936 International Exhibition of Surrealism New Burlington Galleries London,” n.p. (ill.).

Ownership History

Roland Penrose (died 1984), London, acquired directly from the artist, probably summer 1936 to 1984 [letter February 11, 2004 from Antony W. R. Penrose, in curatorial file]; by descent to his son, Antony W. R. Penrose, Sussex, England, 1984 to c. 1992 [letter mentioned above]; sold to Timothy Baum, New York, c. 1992 [Timothy Baum, in conversation with Stephanie D’Alessandro, September 15, 2003]; sold to the Art Institute, 1993.