Jean TINGUELY - Meta Matic suitcase, 1972 - Object book with signed drawing

Jean Tinguely : (1925-1991) was a swiss sculptor, painter and draughtsman: one of the most innovative sculptors of the 20th century. Among his most original inventions, his most famous are the "Méta Matics", or animated sculptures, which he started assembling in 1954 under the name of "Méta-mecaniques". Distorting salvage objects and their mechanism from their original sense and purpose, he breathed them into a new life to make them autonomous sculptures moving thanks to electricity. Steeped in Marcel Duchamp's works (Ready-made or usual objects promoted as works of art), he placed himself in a dadaist spirit which shows itself thanks to provocation and derision. In 1959, his first public triumph tool place at the Paris Biennale, inaugurated by André Malraux, at the Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris, with machines producing series of paintings. With his second wife, Niki de Saint Phalle, he created gigantic sculptures. His works can be seen in the Espace Jean-Tinguely–Niki-de-Saint-Phalle in Freibourg, at the Musée Tinguely in Basel, at the Musée d'art contemporain de Marseille as well as at the Centre Georges-Pompidou in Paris.