1898 Lessines
1967 Brüssel

René Magritte was born in Lessines, Hainaut Province, Belgium, on 21 Nov. 1898. He enrolled at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels in 1916. At the outset of his career, literature was at least as important to Magritte as painting was and he belonged to a literary circle in Belgium that was strongly inspired by the Dada movement. Magritte was a pivotal figure in that circle. Both Cubism and Futurism inform Magritte's early paintings.
His encounter with "Pittura Metafisica" painting meant an aesthetic turnaround for Magritte. Since Magritte's own Surrealist paintings met with little understanding in the Brussels art scene, he went to Paris in 1927, where he joined the Surrealists. That same year, 1927, saw the first solo show of Magritte's, at "Le Centaure", a Paris gallery. In Paris Magritte was friends with André Breton und Paul Éluard and was soon in the inner Surrealist circle. Through André Breton, Magritte also met Max Ernst, Francis Picabia and Marcel Duchamp. During that Paris period, Magritte's Surrealist style assumed its final, mature form. Realistically represented figures and objects are torn from their usual contexts to reappear in surprising new constellations, which call into question the viewer's customary habits of visual perception.
In 1930 René Magritte returned to Brussels. By then he was one of the most important and acclaimed exponents of Surrealism and his works were shown at numerous exhibitions devoted to Surrealist art. In 1965 the Museum of Modern Art in New York mounted a large retrospective of René Magritte's work that brought him worldwide recognition. René Magritte in Brussels on 15 August 1967.

Magritte, René

Magritte, René

Magritte, René

18 more sold lots