1000 Museums

Kay Sage, originally Katherine Linn Sage was an American Surrealist painter and poet. Born in New York state, Sage spent much of her youth traveling abroad with her mother and became proficient in numerous languages including Italian, Spanish, and French. She studied art in Washington, D.C., and Rome, but it wasn\’t until 1935 when she left her first husband, Prince Ranieri di San Faustino of Italy, that she began to make art in earnest. Heavily influenced by the work of Giorgio de Chirico, Sage used angular, architectural structures alongside flowing, fabric-like forms to achieve the simultaneous sense of discord and balance often found in Surrealist art. In 1938 Sage would become acquainted with André Breton and Yves Tanguy, the latter of whom she would marry. Sage was among the most prominent female surrealists in the United States.