Tanguy was born in Paris, France, the son of a retired navy captain. His parents were both of Breton origin. After his father's death in 1908, his mother moved back to her native Locronan, Finistère, and he ended up spending much of his youth living with various relatives.

In 1918, Yves Tanguy briefly joined the merchant navy before being drafted into the Army, where he befriended Jacques Prévert. At the end of his military service in 1922, he returned to Paris, where he worked various odd jobs. By chance, he stumbled upon a painting by Giorgio de Chirico and was so deeply impressed he resolved to become a painter himself in spite of his complete lack of formal training.

Tanguy had a habit of being completely absorbed by the current painting he was working on. This way of creating artwork may have been due to his very small studio which only had enough room for one wet piece.

Through his friend Jacques Prévert, in around 1924 Tanguy was introduced into the circle of surrealist artists around André Breton.

Tanguy quickly began to develop his own unique painting style, giving his first solo exhibition in Paris in 1927, and marrying his first wife later that same year. During this busy time of his life, André Breton gave Tanguy a contract to paint 12 pieces a year. With his fixed income, he painted less and only ended up creating eight works of art for Breton.

Throughout the 1930s, Tanguy adopted the bohemian lifestyle of the struggling artist with gusto, leading eventually to the failure of his first marriage. In 1938, after seeing the work of fellow artist Kay Sage, Tanguy began a relationship with her that would eventually lead to his second marriage.

With the outbreak of World War II, Sage moved back to her native New York, and Tanguy, judged unfit for military service, followed her. He would spend the rest of his life in the United States. Sage and Tanguy were married in Reno, Nevada on August 17, 1940. Toward the end of the war, the couple moved to Woodbury, Connecticut, converting an old farmhouse into an artists' studio. They spent the rest of their lives there. In 1948, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States.

In January 1955, Tanguy suffered a fatal stroke at Woodbury. His body was cremated and his ashes preserved until Sage's death in 1963. Later, his ashes were scattered by his friend Pierre Matisse on the beach at Douarnenez in his beloved Brittany, together with those of his wife.[1]

Style and legacy
Yves Tanguy's paintings have a unique, immediately recognizable style of nonrepresentational surrealism. They show vast, abstract landscapes, mostly in a tightly limited palette of colors, only occasionally showing flashes of contrasting color accents. Typically, these alien landscapes are populated with various abstract shapes, sometimes angular and sharp as shards of glass, sometimes with an intriguingly organic look to them, like giant amoebae suddenly turned to stone.

Tanguy's style was an important influence on several younger painters, such as Roberto Matta, Wolfgang Paalen, and Esteban Francés, who adopted a Surrealist style in the 1930s.[2] Later, Tanguy's paintings (and, less directly, that of de Chirico) influenced the style of the French animated movie Le Roi et l'oiseau, by Paul Grimault and Prévert.[3]

References
^ John Russell, Matisse, Father & Son, p.210, published by Harry N. Abrams, NYC. Copyright John Russell 1999, ISBN 0-8109-4378-6
^ José Pierre, Yves Tanguy, Oxford Art Online. Retrieved July 20, 2012.
^ Quelques propositions d’activités – Le roietl’oiseau, Paola Martini et Pascale Ramel, p. 4

List of paintings

1920s
Vite! Vite! (1924)
Rue de la Santé (1925) The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Self Portrait (1925) Private Collection
Dancing (1925) Private Collection
The Testament of Jacques Prévert (1925) Private Collection
Fantômas (1925–26) Private Collection
The Storm (1926)
The Lighthouse (1926) Private Collection, France
The Girl with Red Hair (1926) Private Collection
Title Unknown (The Giantess, The Ladder) (1926) Private Collection
I Came As I Had Promised. Adieu (1926) Dieter Scharf Collection Foundation
The Storm (Black Landscape) (1926) Philadelphia Museum of Art
Woman Dreaming (Sleeping) (1926) Private Collection
Composition (1927) Private Collection
A Large Painting Which is a Landscape (1927)
Death Watching His Family (1927) Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid
Second Message II (Third Message) (1927) Private Collection
Someone Is Ringing (1927) Private Collection, Switzerland
There! (The Evening Before) (1927) Menil Collection, Houston
He Did What He Wanted (1927) Richard S Zisler Collection, New York
Shadow Country (1927) The Detroit Institute of Arts
Mama, Papa is wounded! (1927) The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Extinction of Useless Lights (1927) The Museum of Modern Art, New York
The Hand in the Clouds (1927) Staatsgalerie Stuttgart
Finish What I Have Begun (1927) Private Collection
Belomancy I (1927) MuseoNacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid
Surrealist Landscape (1927) StaatlisheKunsthalle Karlsruhe
Title Unknown (Surrealist Composition) (1927) Ulla and HeinerPietzsch Collection, Berlin
Title Unknown (He Comes) (1928) Private Collection
Old Horizon (1928) National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Unspoken Depths (1928) Private Collection
The Dark Garden (1928) Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf
Tomorrow They Shoot Me (1928) Hildén Art Museum, Tempere, Finland
Tabernacle (1928)
Landscape with Red Cloud (1928) Private Collection
Title Unknown (1928) Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio
Indifferent DrouningIndifferent Walnut Tree (1929) Private Collection
Perfect Balance (1929) Gunter Sachs Collection
Outside (1929) Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh
Lit Bleu (1929) Private Collection
Inspiration (1929) Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes
L’Avion (1929)
The Look of Amber (1929) The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
The Lovers (1929) Museum Folkwang, Essen
Derive d'Azur (1929) Museum Ludwig, Köln
Out of the Blue (1929) Private Collection
The Lurid Sky (1929) Mount Holyoke College Museum
Views (1929) Private Collection
Satin Pillow (1929) Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

1930s
Cloud (1930) Private Collection
La SplendeurSemblable (1930)
Neither Legends Nor Figures (1930) Menil Collection, Houston
Clouds of Earth (The Man) (1930) Private Collection
Similar Resplendence (1930) Kunstmuseum, Basel
Tower of the West (1931) Kunstmuseum Winterthur
Promontory Palace (1931) Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
The Armoire of Proteus (1931) Private Collection
Four-Part Screen (The Firmament) (1932) Berardo Collection, Lisbon
The Heart of the Tower (1933) Private Collection
The Certitude of the Never-Seen (1933) The Art Institute of Chicago
Between the Grass and the Wind (1934) Private Collection
The End of the Rope (1934) Private Collection
I Am Waiting for You (1934) Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Passage of a Smile (1935) The Toledo Museum of Art
Echelles (1935) Manchester Art Gallery
The Meeting-Place of Parallels (1935) Kunstmuseum, Basel
Title Unknown (Metaphysical Landscape) (1935) Staatsgalerie Stuttgart
Palming (1935) Private Collection, Hamburg
The New Nomads (1935) John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota
The Geometer of Dreams (1935) Private Collection
Untitled (1935) Collection of Carlo F. Bilotti
Heredity of Acquired Characteristics (1936) Menil Collection, Houston
L’Extinction des Especes (1936)
From the Other Side of the Bridge (1936) Private Collection, New York
The Nest of the Amphioxus (1936) Museum of Grenoble
Treasures of the Sea (1936) Private Collection
Fragile (1936)
Way of Heredity (1936) Private Collection
The Air in Her Mirror (1937) Sprengel Museum, Hanover
Les Filles des Consequences (1937)
The Doubter (The Interrogation) (1937) Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC
The Sun in its Jewel Case (1937)
Lingering Day (1937) Musée National d'ArtModerne, Centre Pompidou, Paris
Movements and Acts (1937) Smith College Museum of Art
Title Unknown (Landscape) (1938) Private Collection
Familiar Little Person (1938) Musée National d'ArtModerne, Centre Pompidou, Paris
Ennui and Tranquility (1938) Private Collection
Boredom and tranquillity (1938) The Jeffrey H. Loria Collection
Hidden Thoughts (My Hidden Thoughts) (1939) San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
If it Were (1939) Private Collection
La Rue aux Levres (1939)
The Furniture of Time (1939) The Museum of Modern Art, New York
The Great Nacre Butterfly (1939) Private Collection
Second Thoughts (1939) San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Satin Tuning-Fork (1939) Collection of Mr and Mrs Jacques Gelman

1940s
Belomancy II (1940) Private Collection
The Witness (1940) Collection of Mr and Mrs Frederick R. Weisman
A Little Later (1940) Private Collection
The Earth and the Air (1941) Baltimore Museum of Art
On Slanting Ground (1941) Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
The Five Strangers (1941) Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford
The Palace of Windowed Rocks (1942) Musée National d'ArtModerne, Centre Pompidou, Paris
Naked Water (1942) Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC
The Long Rain (1942) Honolulu Museum of Art
Indefinite Divisibility (1942) Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo
The Absent Lady (1942) Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf
The Great Mutation (1942) The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Slowly Toward the North (1942) The Museum of Modern Art, New York
The Stone in the Tree (1942) The Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe
Minotaur (1943) Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona
Through Birds, Through Fire and Not Through Glass (1943) The Minneapolis Institute of Arts
Reply to Red (1943) The Minneapolis Institute of Arts
Zones D’Instabilite (1943)
Equicocal Colors (1943) Private Collection
The Prodigal Never Returns I (1943) Collection of Mr and Mrs Leonard Yaseen
The Prodigal Never Returns II (1943) Collection of Mr and Mrs Leonard Yaseen
The Prodigal Never Returns III (1943) Collection of Mr and Mrs Leonard Yaseen
The Prodigal Never Returns IV (1943) Collection of Mr and Mrs Leonard Yaseen
Distances (1944) Private Collection
Twice (1944) Private Collection
The Tower of the Sea (1944) Washington University Gallery of Art, St Louis
My Life, White and Black (1944) Collection of Mr and Mrs Jacques Gelman
The Rapidity of Sleep (1945) The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
There, Motion Has Not Yet Ceased (1945) Richard S Zeisler Collection, New York
There the Mouth has not Ceased Yet (1945) Collection of Richard S. Zeisler
The Provider (1945) Private Collectio
Hands and Gloves (1946) Muséed'ArtModerne de Saint-Etienne
Clothed in Wakefulness (1947) Collection of Mr and MrsIsidore M. Cohen
There Is (1947) Private Collection
At the Risk of the Sun (1947) Nelson Gallery - Atkins Museum, Kansas City
From One Night to Another (1947) de Young Museum, San Francisco
First Stone (1947) Private Collection
Who Will Answer (1948) Collection of Mr and Mrs Herbert Lust
Fear (1949) Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

1950s
Rose of the Four Winds (1950) Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford
The Immense Window (1950) Private Collection
From Pale Hands to Weary Skies (1950) Yale University Art Gallery
To look at in Winter (1950) Smith College Museum of Art
Unlimited Sequences (1951) Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia
The Invisibles  The Transparent Ones (1951) Tate Modern, London
The Hunted Sky (1951) Menil Collection, Houston
Time Without Change (1951) University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson
The Stars in Open-Work (1951) The Art Institute of Chicago
Because (1951) Williams College Museum of Art
This Morning (1951) Collection of NesuhiErtegun
Through the Forest (1952)
The Mirage of Time (1954) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The Saltimbanques (1954) Richard L Feigen, New York
Imaginary Numbers (1954) Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid
From Green to White (1954) Collection of Mr and Mrs Jacques Gelman
Multiplication of the Arcs (1954) The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Books about Yves Tanguy
Yves Tanguy and Surrealism (2001) Published by HatjeCantz - Authors Karin von Maur, Susan Davidson, KonradKlapheck, Gordon Onslow Ford, Andreas Schalhorn and Beate Wolf
An Important Private Collection of Works by Yves Tanguy (2001) Published by Christie's New York
Yves Tanguy The Graphic Work (1976) Published by Wolfgang Wittrock - Authors Wolfgang Wittrock and Stanley W Hayter
Yves Tanguy (1974) Published by Acquavella Galleries, Inc. - Authors Nicholas M Acquavella and John Ashbery
Yves Tanguy (1974) Published by Éditions Filipacchi - Author  DanielMarchesseau
Yves Tanguy (First Edition 1955, Second Edition 1977) Published by The Museum of Modern Art - Author James Thrall Soby