Chilean, 1911-2002
Esquisse-Etat: Six Panels
Colored pencil, pencil and charcoal on paper backed by board
Open, 18 x 18 inches (45.8 x 45.8 cm); closed, 8 3/4 x 11 1/4 inches (22.2 x 28.5 cm)

Provenance:
Gift from the artist to Victoria Barr (1937-2025), daughter of Alfred Barr, circa 1943

A transcribed note from the artist on a typewritten sheet in the family's archives reads:

This is the S TORY of the apartment-tree burning and the homeless bird-- some details are for when Tory ll'be [sic] 20 yrs. old. (HIS TORY then) guide - by appointment/ Love to you three, Matta.

Cartoon's Prof. Potor rolling skats [sic] film - is a fire being put out by water (red & blue) upper left - the sign over the sun - abstraction of the tree.

Margaret Barr spoke of the three black forms in the upper panel: ...this form, invented by Matta, seemed for him to be endowed with some special magic and he had a few of them cut out in black paper which he gave to special friends as a pledge or good-luck fetish. The forms mimicked the partitions of ordinary egg boxes, as they had been made at that time.