JEAN TINGUELY (Switzerland, 1925 -1991).Untitled, 1986.Mixed media and collage on paper.Signed and dated in the lower right corner. Dedicated to Dr. Hans Theler.Addressed envelope with Dr. Hans Theler's address affixed to the back.Size: 21 x 31 cm; 35 x 44 cm (frame).From 1973 onwards, Jean Tinguely produced a series of letters/collages addressed to great personalities of the artistic life of our century. Among the recipients of his letters were the conductor Paul Sacher and his wife Maja Sacher, a patron of contemporary art. The letter/collage presented here is addressed to Dr. Hans Theler, a member of one of the most powerful Swiss families in the country's recent history, and reveals the avant-garde character that determined Tinguely's production, closely linked to kinetic art and the ready-made. As he did with his famous machine sculptures, Tinguely's work satirises the senseless overproduction of material goods by advanced industrial society.The Swiss painter and sculptor was, for more than 30 years, a key figure in the European avant-garde movement. He was known for his "sculpture machines" or kinetic art, rooted in the Dada tradition. He applied the term meta-mechanics to his creations. As in the rest of his kinetic works, his purpose was to give the spectator a spectacle of displacement, or at least the illusion of it. Jean Tinguely's mobile works were created to destroy or self-destruct, all in an effort to satirise the overproduction of meaningless goods manufactured by advanced industrial society. After turning to abstract painting, the Swiss artist experimented with movement as a form of expression. His first works, exhibited in Paris, were moved by electric motors. These monumental pieces depicted an ironic universe of useless machines that, it seemed, were producing. "The concept is to show that a work of art is never a definitive object, but that its creative capacities are, in truth, the potential given to it by both the artist and the spectators. He also worked on ready-made works, approaching the New York New Realists and assemblage artists. His production, which touched on all the themes that interested the artists of his generation, earned him an important place in post-war Paris, a leading figure of the stature of Yves Klein. Jean Tinguely is currently represented in the most important museums all over the world, including the Tinguely Museum in Basel, Switzerland, dedicated to the painter's life and work, the Tate Modern in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Museo Reina Sofía.