René Magritte Belgium, 1898-1967
Overview
"Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see, but it is impossible. Humans hide their secrets too well.... If the dream is a translation of waking life, waking life is also a translation of the dream"
- René Magritte
René Magritte (21 November 1898 - 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts. Provoking questions about the nature and boundaries of reality and representation, Magritte's imagery greatly influenced pop, minimalist and conceptual art.
Following a period of study at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts (Brussels), the young Magritte's interest in the avant-garde was fuelled by a fascination with the works of Giorgio de Chirico and Max Ernst. During the late 1920s, while maintaining an active commercial illustration career in Paris, he became involved with Surrealism, collaborating with André Breton, Paul Éluard and Yves Tanguy.
Today, his works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Musée Magritte Museum in Brussels, and the Tate Gallery in London.
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