Swiss born-American Surrealist Kurt Seligmann’s life and work consisted of a fine balance: a gracious respect for his ancestry, past artists, his personal experiences,  his studies of ethnographic arts, combined with a pursuit of progression in the avant-garde movements. disillusionment amongst society had developed. It was during this time that modernism and surrealism became an outlet for psychological commentary. His work stands as an amalgamation of an artist keenly aware of and active within his surrounding realities, and on a quest to create a language of characters and imagery to express his intuitions and imaginations. explored not only the complications within the human mind, but also the instability of the outside world.

Living in Paris during the 1930s, Seligmann participated in the Abstraction-Création group before joining the Paris based Surrealist movement. There he developed a close friendship with Yves Tanguy. In 1939. Seligmann, his wife and Yves Tanguy relocated to New York in the first months of World War II. In the early years of World War II. Seligmann and his wife assisted many colleagues including André Breton, André Masson, Paul Eluard and Pierre Mabille flee to New York. He then taught at Brooklyn College, Brooklyn before retiring and settling in 1958 in Sugarloaf, NY.

His work can be found in permanent collections including:  Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France, Brooklyn Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC, Museum of Modern Art, NYC,  Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Simon A. Guggenheim Museum, University of Michigan Museum of Art,  Yale University Art Gallery and The Chicago Art Institute, Chicago. The Chicago collectors Mary and Earle Ludgin, The Ludgin Collection, constitutes the foundation for the Art Institute of Chicago’s unparalleled 41 artworks by Seligmann, the largest and most representative of his work within any museum collection in the world.