The French American artist, Henri Goetz, moved to Paris in 1930 and in 1937 met and befriended members of the Surrealist circle, including Miró, Breton and Duchamp.

Under their influence Goetz moved away from figurative realism and began to include aspects of the ephemeral, illogical and subconscious into his fantastical landscapes. A dream-like atmosphere fills scenes such as these, emphasised through the use of the colour blue which Miró also used blue to symbolise dreams in paintings such as Peinture, 1926. However, in contrast to Miró’s bright and brilliant blues, Goetz would use more subtle, shadowy tones, emphasising that these mysterious scenes should be read as the inner landscapes of our minds.
Like his contemporary Dali, Goetz filled surreal pictorial worlds with pools of water and strange trees, whilst often maintaining the visual illusions of space and depth accomplished by the Old Masters. In Sans Titre from 1938 he presents his viewer with a clear horizon line and sky. However, in the later work of 1940, by excluding the horizon line he has opened up the pictorial space, as Miró began to do in works such as his Constellations series.

Like Yves Tanguy’s extra-terrestrial landscapes from this period, Goetz’ scenes suggest a pre-human existence when organic forms were being shaped. In Untitled, 1940, unidentifiable shapes and sculptural structures emerge from the water, evoking the Surrealist theme of metamorphosis. In the earlier work from 1938, a large biomorphic shape with one enormous eye dominates the scene; similar creatures characterised by exaggerated eyes appear in works by Miró from this period.

Like Miró, Goetzs’ lifelong interest in literature led him to illustrate many books, including Georges Hugnet’s La femme facil. In the 1960s he invented the carborundum process, which Miró often utilised as it allowed for a more painterly approach to printmaking. He wrote a preface to Goetz’s book, A Treatise on Carborundum Printing, published in 1969.