Kay Sage

1898–1963

Born into a wealthy family in upstate New York, Kay Sage had a peripatetic childhood and spent much of her adult life in Italy and France. In Paris she joined the circle of Surrealist painters working there during the late 1930s. Following the outbreak of World War II, Sage returned to the United States and married fellow Surrealist Yves Tanguy, settling in rural Woodbury, Connecticut. By the end of the war, she adopted architectural imagery as the signature subject of her mature paintings, which depict imaginary psychic landscapes.

No Passing—like many of her canvases—portrays a barren, otherworldly realm, here populated by windowless monoliths that in turn are covered with smaller rectangular slabs and lattice-like constructions resembling scaffolding. Receding infinitely into the distance, these fantastical structures are painted in a meticulous realist style—a hallmark Surrealist technique for invoking an uncanny sense of disjuncture. The flaglike objects that lean against the buildings and are strewn on the ground hint at a mysterious activity or ritual that was suddenly abandoned, leaving the scene eerily devoid of human presence. The painting’s mood of unease and melancholy is reinforced by Sage’s muted tones of gray, green, and blue, a palette influenced by the early Renaissance frescoes she had encountered during her years in Italy. No Passing may depict a world under construction, or a scene of postapocalyptic desolation, but it is impossible to know for certain. Enigmatic and impenetrable, the painting fulfills the admonitory warning of its title.

Wikipedia entry

Introduction

Katherine Linn Sage (June 25, 1898 – January 8, 1963), usually known as Kay Sage, was an American Surrealist artist and poet active between 1936 and 1963. A member of the Golden Age and post-war periods of Surrealism, she is mostly recognized for her artistic works, which typically contain themes of an architectural nature.

Through her marriage to an Italian prince, she became princess of San Faustino in 1925, and a member of American royalty. She was also the sister-in-law of Donna Virginia Bourbon del Monte, wife of industrialist Edoardo Agnelli of the Agnelli family.

Wikidata identifier

Q444567

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Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License . Accessed May 9, 2025.

Getty record

Introduction

Comment on works: genre

Country of birth

United States

Roles

Artist, author, painter, writer

ULAN identifier

500025288

Names

Kay Sage, Katherine Linn, Sage, Kay Sage Tanguy, Katherina Linn Sage, Katherine Linn Sage, Kay Tanguy, Mrs. Yves Tanguy

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Information from the Getty Research Institute's Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License. Accessed May 9, 2025.

Not on view

First acquired
1955

Date of birth
June 25, 1898

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artists/1146