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Press Release
Surrealism in Paris
October 2, 2011 – January 29, 2012
The Fondation Beyeler is devoting the first-ever comprehensive exhibition in Switzerland to
Surrealism in Paris. On view will be major works by artists such as Salvador Dalí, René
Magritte, Joan Miró, and many more who either belonged to the movement or were
associated with it. Surrealism was one of the most crucial artistic and literary movements of
the twentieth century and had a lasting influence on it. After emerging in Paris in 1924, the
movement unfolded a worldwide impact. Influenced by the writings of Sigmund Freud and
under the leadership of its chief theoretician, André Breton, the Surrealists set out to change
life and society by means of a new brand of art and poetry. Tapping the unconscious mind
and world of dreams was to trigger an entirely unprecedented kind of creativity. "Dalí,
Magritte, Miró – Surrealism in Paris" comprises about 290 masterworks and manuscripts by
about 40 artists and authors.
The highlights will include a presentation of the legendary Surrealist private collections
amassed by Peggy Guggenheim and by Breton’s first wife Simone Collinet. In addition to
famous paintings and sculptures, objects, photographs, drawings, manuscripts, jewelry and
films await discovery.
The loans to the exhibition stem from renowned private collections and public museums, in
Europe and the United States.
The exhibition is curated by Philippe Büttner, Fondation Beyeler curator.
The exhibition is accompanied by an abundantly illustrated scholarly catalogue, published in
a German and English edition by Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern. It contains essays by
Quentin Bajac, Philippe Büttner, Julia Drost, Annabelle Görgen, Ioana Jimborean, Robert
Kopp, Ulf Küster, Guido Magnaguagno, Philip Rylands, Marlen Schneider, Jonas Storsve
und Oliver Wick, and a chronology of Surrealism by Valentina Locatelli; 289 pages and 304
full-color illustrations.
ISBN: 978-3-7757-3161-4, CHF 68.00.
A second exhibition venue is planned, at the Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique in
Brussels (March to July 2012).
Press images available at: http://pressimages.fondationbeyeler.ch
Further information:
Catherine Schott, Head of Public Relations
Tel. + 41 (0)61 645 97 21, [email protected], www.fondationbeyeler.ch
Fondation Beyeler, Beyeler Museum AG, Baselstrasse 77, CH-4125 Riehen
Fondation Beyeler opening hours: 10.00 am to 6.00 pm, Wednesdays to 8.00 pm
Press Release
Surrealism in Paris
October 2, 2011 – January 29, 2012
The Fondation Beyeler is devoting the first-ever comprehensive exhibition in Switzerland to
Surrealism in Paris. On view will be major works by artists such as Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró,
Max Ernst, and many more who either belonged to the movement or were associated with it.
The show will focus on the innovative forms of expression developed and employed by the
Surrealists – especially object art, collage, photography and film.
Surrealism was one of the most crucial artistic and literary movements of the twentieth
century. After emerging in Paris in 1924, it unfolded a worldwide effect that continues to this
day. Major modern artists belonged to the movement, were associated with it, or inspired by
it. Its aim was radical change and expansion of the expressive means of art and poetry and
their impact on society. Aspects of the psyche and creativity that had previously lay fallow
were to be made fertile for artistic activity and human life as a whole.
Profoundly shaken by the experience of the First World War and under the leadership of its
chief theoretician, André Breton, the Surrealists developed innovative approaches and lent
form to an art that tapped poetic imagination, the world of dreams, and the unconscious
mind. Their idols included Sigmund Freud and many writers, such as the scandalous Marquis
de Sade, the poets Charles Baudelaire, Comte de Lautréamont, and Arthur Rimbaud, Edgar
Allan Poe, and the German Romantics.
"Dalí, Magritte, Miró – Surrealism in Paris" comprises about 290 masterworks and manuscripts by about 40 artists and authors. These include approximately 110 paintings, 30
objects and sculptures, 50 works on paper, 50 photographs, 30 manuscripts and original
editions, 15 pieces of jewelry and four films. The exhibits are arranged in the exhibition
spaces partly by artist, partly by theme. The introduction is provided by Giorgio de Chirico, a
pioneering predecessor of Surrealism whose cityscapes and interiors of the 1910s can be
considered decisive forerunners of the movement. On view as well are valuable manuscripts
and editions of Surrealist texts, including manuscript versions of Breton's manifestos.
A further emphasis is placed on two major artists of the movement, Joan Miró and Max Ernst.
Miró, who opened out entirely new spaces for modern art with his hovering dreamlike colored
configurations, is represented by works such as Painting (The Circus Horse), 1927, from the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and Ernst by superb works such as the renowned
Wavering Woman (The Slanting Woman), 1923, from the Kunstsammlung NordrheinWestfalen, Düsseldorf. Then follows a room devoted to Yves Tanguy, whose imaginary
spaces populated by mysterious objects – as in the monumental The Last Days, 1944, from
a private collection – represent one of the most poetic evocations in all Surrealism. The next
space is devoted to a key Surrealist medium – the object. The works on view include Meret
Oppenheim's famous Ma gouvernante - My Nurse - Mein Kindermädchen, 1936/1967, from
the Moderna Museet Stockholm, and Hans Bellmer's major object The Doll, 1935-36, from
the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. Also brought together here are major drawings and
paintings by Victor Brauner.
A special feature of the exhibition is the inclusion of two superb private collections of
Surrealism. The presentation of that of André Breton and his first wife, Simone Collinet,
represents a premiere. The couple amassed the collection in the 1920s, and after they
separated Collinet expanded her share. Among the works in the collection are Francis
Picabia's large-scale painting Judith, 1929, and de Chirico's The Evil Genius of a King, 191415, now in the Museum of Modern Art, New York. On view in a second room are outstanding
works from the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, including Max Ernst's The Antipope, 1941-42,
which the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice seldom permits to travel. These works
constitute an ensemble within the exhibition in which the period of the Surrealists' New York
exile during World War II is virtually distilled. In addition, the presentation of the two collections permits us to highlight key aspects of private stagings of Surrealist art.
The artists prominently represented in further rooms include Hans Arp, and not least Pablo
Picasso, who for a time was closely associated with Surrealism. On view is his highly
Surrealist painting The Artist's Studio (The Open Window), 1929. This is followed by an
outstanding group of works by the visual magician René Magritte. In an inimitable way,
Magritte's art captures visual reality only to subvert it again. Fine examples are the early The
Interpretation of Dreams, 1930, and later major works such as The Dominion of Light, 1962,
both from private collections.
A concise selection of outstanding Surrealist photographs, including works by Man Ray,
Raoul Ubac, Dora Maar, and Eli Lotar rounds off the picture. A screening room presents key
works of Surrealist cinematic art, including ones by Luis Buñuel and Man Ray.
The exhibition concludes with the artist who is likely the most famous Surrealist of all,
Salvador Dalí. A spectacular group of his masterpieces on view here includes The Enigma of
Desire, 1929, from the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, the outstanding Metamorphosis of
Narcissus, 1937, from the Tate London, and Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a
Pomegranate, one Second before Awakening, 1944, from the Museo Thyssen Bornemisza in
Madrid.
The exhibition links up with previous Galerie Beyeler and Fondation Beyeler projects. Ernst
Beyeler early on devoted various exhibitions to Surrealism in his Basel gallery, including the
1947 "Surréalisme et peinture" and the 1995-96 "Surrealismus: Traum des Jahrhunderts," as
well as to individual representatives of the movement, bringing his unique eye for this art into
play. Accordingly, the Beyeler Collection now boasts key works by such artists as Arp, Ernst,
Miró and Picasso. The Fondation Beyeler can likewise look back on shows of Surrealist art,
including "Calder, Miró", 2004, "Picasso surreal," 2005, "René Magritte: The Key to Dreams",
2005, and, with some Surrealist works, "Giacometti", 2009. These were supplemented by
thematic exhibitions in which Surrealist art prominently figured. The current extensive Surrealism exhibition provides a panoramic view of the movement as a whole.
The exhibition is curated by Philippe Büttner, Fondation Beyeler Curator.
In addition to private lenders, the most important institutional lenders are: The Peggy
Guggenheim Collection, Venice (The Solomon R. Guggenheim Fondation, New York); the
Centre Georges Pompidou; Musée national d’art moderne, Paris; das Musée d’Art moderne
de la Ville de Paris; Tate, London; Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich –
Pinakothek der Moderne; Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf; Museum
Ludwig, Cologne; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie; Museo Nacional Centro de
Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid; das Museu Coleccao
Berardo, Lisbon; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Menil Collection, Houston;
The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington; the
Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Kunstmuseum Basel and Kupferstichkabinett and the
Kunsthaus Zürich and Alberto Giacometti-Stiftung.
The catalogue, published by Beyeler Museum AG and edited by Philippe Büttner, provides
an introduction to the movement, presents the works on exhibit, and gives special attention
to the question of the presentation of Surrealist art – both by the Surrealists themselves and
in private collections. It contains essays by Quentin Bajac, Philippe Büttner, Julia Drost,
Annabelle Görgen, Ioana Jimborean, Robert Kopp, Ulf Küster, Guido Magnaguagno, Philip
Rylands, Marlen Schneider, Jonas Storsve und Oliver Wick, and a chronology of Surrealism
by Valentina Locatelli. The lavishly illustrated exhibition catalogue is published in a German
and English edition by Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern, 289 pages and 304 full-color
illustrations. ISBN: 978-3-7757-3161-4, CHF 68.00.
A second exhibition venue is planned, at the Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique in
Brussels (March to July 2012).
The exhibition has been generous supported from kulturelles.bl.
Press images available at: http://pressimages.fondationbeyeler.ch
Further information:
Catherine Schott, Head of Public Relations
Tel. + 41 (0)61 645 97 21, [email protected], www.fondationbeyeler.ch
Fondation Beyeler, Beyeler Museum AG, Baselstrasse 77, CH-4125 Riehen, Switzerland
Fondation Beyeler opening hours: 10.00 am to 6.00 pm, Wednesdays to 8.00 pm
October 2, 2011 to January 29, 2012
01 Hans Bellmer
La poupée, 1935 / 36
The Doll
Painted wood, papier mâché,
and mixed media, 61 × 170 × 51 cm
Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée
national d’art moderne, Paris
Photo: © Collection Centre Pompidou,
dist. by RMN, Paris / Georges
Meguerditchian
© 2011, ProLittteris, Zurich
02 Alexander Calder
Dancers and Sphere, 1936
Painted wood, sheet metal, wire, and
110 volt motor, 10 × 64.5 × 29 cm
Courtesy Galerie Natalie Seroussi, Paris
© 2011, Calder Foundation, New York /
ProLitteris, Zurich
03 Giorgio de Chirico
Le mauvais génie d’un roi, 1914 –15
The Evil Genius of a King
Oil on canvas, 61 × 50.2 cm
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Photo: © 2011, The Museum of Modern
Art, New York / dist. by Scala, Florence
© 2011, ProLitteris, Zurich
04 Salvador Dalí
L’énigme du désir, 1929
The Enigma of Desire
Oil on canvas, 110.5 × 150.5 cm
Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen,
Munich – Pinakothek der Moderne
Photo: © Blauel / Gnamm – ARTOTHEK
© 2011, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí /
ProLitteris, Zurich
05 Salvador Dalí
Construction molle avec haricots bouillis –
Prémonition de la guerre civile, 1936
Soft Construction with Boiled Beans –
Premonition of Civil War
Oil on canvas, 100 × 100 cm
Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Louise
and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950
Photo: Philadelphia Museum of Art
© 2011, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí /
ProLitteris, Zurich
06 Salvador Dalí
Cygnes réfléchis en éléphants, 1937
Swans Reflecting Elephants
Oil on canvas, 51 × 77 cm
Private collection, Switzerland
© 2011, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí /
ProLitteris, Zurich
07 Salvador Dalí
Rêve causé par le vol d‘une abeille
autour d‘une pomme-grenade,
une seconde avant l‘éveil, 1944
Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee
around a Pomegranate, one Second
before Awakening
Oil on wood, 51 × 41 cm
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Photo: © Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza,
Madrid
© 2011, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí /
ProLitteris, Zurich
08 Paul Delvaux
Pygmalion, 1939
Oil on wood, 117 × 148 cm
Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium,
Brussels
Photo: © Royal Museums of Fine Arts
of Belgium, Brussels / J. Geleyns
© 2011, Fond. P. Delvaux S. Idesbald,
Belgien / ProLitteris, Zurich
09 Max Ernst
La ville entière, 1935 – 36
The Entire City
Oil on canvas, 60 × 81 cm
Kunsthaus Zürich
Photo: Kunsthaus Zürich
© 2011, ProLitteris, Zurich
10 Max Ernst
L’antipape, 1941– 42
The Antipope
Oil on canvas, 160.8 × 127.1 cm
Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
(Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation,
New York)
Photo: David Heald © The Solomon
R. Guggenheim Foundation
© 2011, ProLitteris, Zurich
11 Alberto Giacometti
Femme égorgée, 1932 / 1940
Woman with Her Throat Cut
Bronze, 23.2 × 89 cm
Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
(Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation,
New York)
Photo: David Heald © The Solomon
R. Guggenheim Foundation
© 2011, Fondation Giacometti /
ProLitteris, Zurich
12 René Magritte
L’esprit comique, 1928
The Spirit of Comedy
Oil on canvas, 75 × 60 cm
Ulla and Heiner Pietzsch Collection, Berlin
Photo: Jochen Littkemann, Berlin
© 2011, ProLitteris, Zurich
13 René Magritte
La clef des songes, 1930
The Interpretation of Dreams
Oil on canvas, 81 × 60 cm
Private collection
© 2011, ProLitteris, Zurich
14 René Magritte
La voix des airs, 1931
Voice of Space
Oil on canvas, 72.7 × 54.2 cm
Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
(Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation,
New York)
Photo: David Heald © The Solomon
R. Guggenheim Foundation
© 2011, ProLitteris, Zurich
15 René Magritte
La grande guerre, 1964
The Great War
Oil on canvas, 65 × 54 cm
Private collection, Switzerland
Photo: Robert Bayer, Basel
© 2011, ProLitteris, Zurich
Press images http://pressimages.fondationbeyeler.ch
This visual material may be used for press purposes only. Reproduction is permitted for the duration of the exhibition only.
Please employ the captions as given and the relevant copyrights. We kindly request you to forward us a voucher copy.
Fondation Beyeler
October 2, 2011 to January 29, 2012
16 Joan Miró
Peinture (Le cheval de cirque), 1927
Painting (The Circus Horse)
Tempera on canvas, 130.5 × 97.2 cm
The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York, The Muriel Kallis Steinberg
Newman Collection
Photo: bpk, Berlin / The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York
© 2011, Successió Miró /
ProLitteris, Zurich
17 Joan Miró
Peinture (« escargot, femme, fleur,
étoile »), 1934
Painting (“Snail, Woman, Flower Star”)
Oil on canvas, 195 × 172 cm
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina
Sofía, Madrid
Photo: Archivo fotográfico Museo
Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía,
Madrid
© 2011, Successió Miró /
ProLitteris, Zurich
18 Meret Oppenheim
Ma gouvernante – my nurse – mein
Kindermädchen, 1936 / 1967
Shoes, paper, string, and metal,
14 × 33 × 21 cm
Moderna Museet, Stockholm
Photo: Moderna Museet, Stockholm
© 2011, ProLitteris, Zurich
19 Francis Picabia
Dresseur d’animaux, 1923
The Animal Tamer
Ripolin on canvas, 250 × 200 cm
Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée
national d’art moderne, Paris
Photo: © Collection Centre Pompidou,
dist. by RMN, Paris / Georges
Meguerditchian
© 2011, ProLitteris, Zurich
21 Man Ray
Indestructible Object, 1923 /1933 /1965
Metronome and photograph,
22.5 × 11 × 11.5 cm
Gallery Marion Meyer contemporain, Paris
Photo: Marc Domage
© 2011, Man Ray Trust, Paris /
ProLitteris, Zurich
22 Man Ray
Members in the Bureau central de
recherches surréalistes, 1924
Gelatin silver print, 8.2 × 11.2 cm
(From left to right, standing:
Jacques Baron, Raymond Queneau,
Pierre Naville, André Breton, JacquesAndré Boiffard, Giorgio de Chirico,
Roger Vitrac, Paul Eluard, Philippe
Soupault, Robert Desnos, and Louis
Aragon; seated: Simone Breton,
Max Morise, Marie-Louise Soupault)
Private collection
Photo: Jean-Louis Losi, Paris
© 2011, Man Ray Trust, Paris /
ProLitteris, Zurich
23 Man Ray
Erotique-voilée, 1933 –34
Veiled Eroticism
Gelatin silver print, 12 × 9 cm
Private collection, courtesy
Galerie 1900–2000, Paris
© 2011, Man Ray Trust, Paris /
ProLitteris, Zurich
24 Man Ray
Les larmes, 1933 / 1959
The Tears
Later print, 48 × 58.5 cm
Städtisches Museum Abteiberg,
Mönchengladbach
© 2011, Man Ray Trust, Paris /
ProLitteris, Zurich
25 Yves Tanguy
Earrings, c. 1938
Silver, gold, pearls, and oil on shell
Blue-green earring: 7 × 3.7 × 1.6 cm
Pink earring: 7.1 × 3.7 × 1.6 cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation,
Venice
Photo: Sergio Martucci
© 2011, ProLitteris, Zurich
26 Yves Tanguy
Les jeux nouveaux, 1940
New Games
Oil on canvas, 33 × 40.7 cm
Natalie and Léon Seroussi Collection, Paris
© 2011, ProLitteris, Zurich
20 Pablo Picasso
L’atelier du peintre (La fenêtre
ouverte), 1929
The Artist’s Studio (The Open Window)
Oil on canvas, 130 × 162 cm
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Steegmann
Collection
Photo: © Staatsgalerie Stuttgart
© 2011, Succession Picasso /
ProLitteris, Zurich
Press images http://pressimages.fondationbeyeler.ch
This visual material may be used for press purposes only. Reproduction is permitted for the duration of the exhibition only.
Please employ the captions as given and the relevant copyrights. We kindly request you to forward us a voucher copy.
Fondation Beyeler
Biographies
HANS BELLMER (Kattowitz, Upper Silesia, now Poland, 1902-1975)
German sculptor, draftsman and photographer
Hans Bellmer's authoritarian, rigorously puritan father forced him to work in coal mines and steel
works from an early age. He found succor in the world of his mother, the loving opposite of his
strict father. Already in childhood he transformed his toys, and later took drawing courses at Berlin
Technical College.
In 1932 Bellmer began creating what he called an "artificial daughter" -- The Doll -- after seeing
The Tales of Hoffmann, an opera about the mechanical doll Olympia and the young Nathaniel's
despairing love for her. Several themes intrigued Bellmer: the motifs of the doppelgänger,
deception, passion and demise. He photographed The Doll in various poses and published a book
of the images that went through several editions.
From May 1935 onwards he participated in every Surrealist group exhibition, showing primarily his
photos of The Doll, which triggered horror and delight among the audience. The artist's work
fascinated the Surrealists, as they viewed the metamorphosis of the human body as a stage in the
cycle of life and death.
ANDRÉ BRETON (Tinchebray, Brittany, 1896 - Paris, 1966)
French poet and writer, founder and theoretician of Surrealism
In 1900, Breton's bourgeois, originally Breton family moved to Paris. Devoting himself to poetry
from his senior year on, Breton was principally influenced by Symbolism, which he preferred to
Zola's Naturalism. In 1915 he began to study medicine, something he would later term a "pure
alibi."
On the outbreak of war Breton was still apolitical, yet already critical of the militaristic spirit of the
age. As an intern in a neuropsychiatric ward at the front he was confronted by the mental sufferings
of shell-shocked soldiers. He discovered the writings of Freud and developed a great interest in the
unconscious mind and the threshold between dreams, imagination and reality.
Back in Paris, Breton and his poet friends Aragon and Soupault immersed themselves in the dark,
phantasmagorical realm of Isidore Ducasse's Chants of Maldoror, 1874. In 1916 he met the poets
Guillaume Apollinaire and Jacques Vaché, whose works enchanted him. After their death, he
became engaged in the journal Littérature in 1919. Together with Soupault, he developed "écriture
automatique" and participated in Dada demonstrations in Paris. He married Simone Kahn in 1921.
The two worked in the Office of Surrealist Research and supported themselves, among other
things, by dealing in art. Breton discovered and furthered artists such as de Chirico, Ernst, Man
Ray, and others.
In 1924 Breton wrote the first Surrealist Manifesto, establishing the premises and orientation of the
movement.
Due to his desire for social and political change, Breton established ties with the French
Communist Party in 1927. Yet detesting any kind of dogmatism, he distanced himself from it again
as early as 1935. In a second Surrealist Manifesto, 1930, he defined the task of Surrealism as
revolutionizing society, from social conditions to aesthetic attitudes. There followed lectures,
exhibitions, and new periodicals (after La révolution surréaliste, 1924, Le surréalisme au service de
la révolution, 1930-33, Minotaure, 1933-39).
After the outbreak of World War II, Breton and many other Surrealists fled to the U.S. He returned
to France in 1946, continuing his publishing activities and efforts on behalf of Surrealism until his
death in 1966.
SALVADOR DALÍ (Figueres, Catalonia, 1904-1989)
Spanish painter, sculptor and set designer
Born in 1904, Dalí was confronted by life-shaping events in early childhood. The death of his
brother and the love lavished on him by his parents led to a precocious involvement with life and
death. A veritably narcissistic concern with his own identity set in as well. His attendance from 1921
at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes in Madrid was interrupted by Dalí's provocative behavior, and
from then on he continued to teach himself art.
His first show, in Barcelona, took place in 1925. In 1927 he met Picasso in Paris, and in 1929 Miró,
Breton, Éluard, and his muse, Gala Éluard, who would later become his wife. Breton, for his part,
was initially unsure about Dalí, and later indignant at what he considered his fascist tendencies. In
1934 began a series of attempts orchestrated by Breton to throw Dalí out of the group, but this did
not ultimately happen until 1939. Thus Dalí still contributed illustrations to the Surrealist journal
Minotaure in 1936 and figured prominently in Duchamp's (and Breton's) legendary 1938 exhibition
in Paris.
Dalí's art revolves around psychic states to which the artist lent form by means of a visionary
approach. His technique was worthy of an Old Master, enabling him to anchor the states of dream,
ecstasy, despair and agony convincingly in an objective and figurative reality. Basic elements, such
as the human body and landscapes, as well as objects, became the scene of hallucinatory
metamorphosis.
GIORGIO DE CHIRICO (Volos, Greece, 1888 - Rome, 1978)
Italian painter
The son of an Italian engineer, Giorgio de Chirico took drawing classes at the Polytechnical
College in Athens as a child. In 1906 his family settled in Munich, where he discovered the art of
Arnold Böcklin at the Academy of Arts. In 1909 Giorgio and his brother Alberto Savinio moved to
Florence and Turin, whose urban architecture shaped the settings of his paintings.
In 1911 he befriended Apollinaire and Picasso in Paris. After 1915 he lived again in Italy, but
retained contact with Breton and Éluard, who in 1924 began regularly publishing his paintings in
the Surrealist journals. De Chirico was a member of the Office of Surrealist Research.
In the modern tradition, de Chirico's urban views combined temples, palaces, arcades, towers,
factories, studios into a mysterious and tragic stage for lonely figures. His interiors of 1914-15
likewise posed riddles and suggested a voyage of discovery through unreal spaces, an aspect that
deeply inspired the Surrealists. After 1925 a break with Surrealism occurred when de Chirico's
style turned to a neoclassical romanticism.
MAX ERNST (Brühl, Germany, 1891 - Paris, 1976)
German painter, printmaker and sculptor
In 1909 Ernst was a student of philology, philosophy and art history in Bonn. During this period he
befriended August Macke, Robert Delaunay and Guillaume Apollinaire, and in 1914 met Hans Arp
in Cologne. Ernst was inducted into the army in 1914. For him, the devastating experience of
World War I represented a "break from life," to which he returned in 1918.
Together with Baargeld and Arp, Ernst established the Cologne Dada movement in 1918. This
period also saw him developing his first collages, which over the following years and decades he
would ramify and collect in extensive volumes. À l'intérieur de la vue, 8 poèmes visibles, would be
published in 1931.
In 1922 Ernst moved to Paris and joined the Surrealist group. He participated in every important
exhibition they held. Beginning in 1925, based on the technique of "écriture automatique", he
developed a painterly version, a rubbing method known as frottage, used for the portfolio Histoire
Naturelle of 1926. Further inventive techniques followed, a scraping method known as grattage (La
grande fôret, 1927) and a transfer method known as decalcomania (Swampangel, 1940). Ernst
adopted historical, sacred and mythological motifs, but always subjected them to a modern
interpretation.
At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Ernst was interned in France. In 1940, with the
aid of Peggy Guggenheim, whom he would later marry, he fled to the U.S. After separating from
her, he lived from 1943 onwards with the artist Dorothea Tanning, who became his wife in 1946.
The couple moved to the Arizona desert. In 1953 they returned to France.
ALBERTO GIACOMETTI (Borgonovo, Bergell, Switzerland, 1901 - Chur, 1966)
Swiss sculptor, printmaker and painter
After studying classical sculpture in Paris, Giacometti increasingly turned to tribal art, which
inspired him to reduce his works to fundamental forms. Femme, 1927, is an example of his striving
to represent his "image of reality."
Around 1929 he approached the Surrealist circle, sparking a dialogue that led to his idea of the
Surrealist object. The result was in part mobile yet invariably emotionally charged sculptures that
often provoked indignation. Giacometti had his first one-man show at Galerie Pierre Colle in 1932
and participated, among other things, in the groundbreaking "Exposition surréaliste d'objets" in
1936 at Galerie Charles Ratton.
He addressed themes of importance to Surrealism – sexuality, violence, instinctual drives, fetishes
(Objet desagréable à jeter, 1931), representations of actual and dreamlike spaces, and
(dis)equilibrium. Transformations of the body were depicted through associations with everyday
shapes, such as the spoon as a metaphor for the female body with a cello volute as head.
After breaking with the Surrealists in 1934, Giacometti returned to a figurative style.
RENÉ MAGRITTE (Lessines, Belgium, 1898 - Brussels, 1967)
Belgian painter
After studying painting at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels from 1916-21, Magritte
became involved in Dada, de Stijl, and other avant-garde groups. In 1925, influenced by Ernst and
de Chirico, he executed his first Surrealist paintings. Following his first one-man show in Brussels
in 1927, Magritte participated in every Surrealist exhibition in Paris, London and New York from
1930-40. He lived in Paris from 1927 to 1930.
Back in 1926, the Belgian Surrealists Mesens, Nougé, Goemans and others had formed their own
movement. It was not until 1928 that Breton finally accepted Magritte. There followed, in 1929, a
quarrel with Breton on account of his wife, Georgette's, wish to wear a crucifix; Magritte's expulsion
from the group lasted until 1933. In an animated dialogue with Breton concerning the principles of
Surrealism, Magritte always sided with his Belgian fellow artists, who were sceptical of psychic and
artistic automatism.
Characteristic of Magritte's art is an oscillation between an image of reality and reality per se. He
himself spoke in 1938 of an "existence in two different spaces."
ANDRÉ MASSON (Balagny-sur-Thérain, Picardy, 1896-1987)
French painter and printmaker
Born into a farming family, Masson was awarded the Grand Prize of the Academy at the age of
sixteen, which enabled him to establish his own studio in Paris. In 1914 he received a travel
stipend for Italy. Back in France, he volunteered for war service. By the time he returned he was
seriously wounded and mentally shaken by his experience of war.
Again in Paris around 1922, Masson supported himself by accepting various commissions. Around
1923-24 emerged his first "automatic drawings", a counterpart to Breton's automatic writing.The
method involved rapid drawing and painting, letting the hand outstrip conscious thought. It stood
opposed to collage, which, as Clébert noted, attempted to capture the permanence of the image.
Masson's drawings were published in La révolution surréaliste, and he became a member of the
journal's staff.
After going into American exile in 1941, he was already back in France in 1945. Masson would
later explain that with the end of the war, Surrealism had collapsed. He distanced himself from
Breton and retired to Provence.
JOAN MIRÓ (Barcelona, 1893 - Palma, Majorca, 1983)
Spanish (Catalonian) painter and sculptor
Scion of a bourgeois family, Miró entered the La Llotja Art School in Barcelona at age fourteen.
From 1912-15 he studied at Francesc Galí's Escola d'Art, where Galí opened his students' eyes to
modern Spanish and French art and architecture.
Miró's first, unsuccessful, show was held in 1918 at the Dalmau Gallery in Barcelona. An
acquaintance with Francis Picabia encouraged him to move in 1919 to Paris, where he found a
neighbor and friend in Masson.
The artist's earliest paintings were still strongly shaped by the rural Catalan tradition. Despite their
richly detailed, well-nigh naive style, a quite irrational interpretation of landscape is recognizable.
The separate figures, animals, plants are divorced from their natural circumstances and become
surrealistic creatures.
In 1925 Miró altered his style, adding script to his compositions, turning objects into signs, and
reducing human figures, animals and heavenly bodies to poetic abbreviations.
He met Breton as early as 1924. Breton was enthusiastic about Miró's "spontaneity of expression",
acquired numbers of his works, and reproduced his paintings in the Surrealist journals. One of the
most significant artists of modernism, along with Max Ernst Miró can be called one of the major
painters in the orbit of Surrealism. It was also characteristic of him that throughout his life he
remained too independently-minded to associate himself entirely with any movement and always
retained a certain distance. He participated in key Surrealist exhibitions, including the first
important postwar show at Galerie Maeght in Paris in 1947.
MERET OPPENHEIM (Berlin, 1931 - Basel, 1985)
German-Swiss painter and sculptor
On behest of Alberto Giacometti, Meret Oppenheim joined the Surrealist group in Paris in 1932,
and participated in 1933 in the "Salon des surindépendants." She was one of the very few women
who was accepted and respected as an artist in this male-dominated movement. Oppenheim's
legendary Surrealist objects include Déjeuner en fourrure, 1936, and Ma gouvernante - My Nurse mein Kindermädchen, 1936/1967, both of which were included that same year in the "Exposition
surréaliste d'objets" at Galerie Charles Ratton in Paris.
In the course of the Second World War she distanced herself from the Paris group. Around 1956
Oppenheim returned to Surrealist themes and, in 1959-60, participated in the large "Exposition
inteRatiOnal du Surréalisme" (EROS) at Galerie Daniel Cordier, Paris. As a young Surrealist she
also played an important role as a model, as in Man Ray's 1933-34 photo sequence Erotique
voilée.
FRANCIS PICABIA (Paris, 1879 - Paris, 1953)
French painter and graphic artist
Picabia attended the École des Arts Décoratifs from 1895-97. In the early 1910s he shared
Duchamp's enthusiasm for "the mechanical." After a brief stay in Barcelona, where he founded the
Dada journal 291, Picabia settled in Paris in 1917. Influenced by the Dada aesthetic, he created
portraits in the form of collages of diverse materials, such as toothpicks, buttons, etc. on canvas. In
1924 Picabia began to devote himself entirely to painting and developed a series titled
Transparences. In these surrealistically alienated compositions he superimposed portraits of
individuals and figures, including some from the history of art. At the same time he turned to the
technique of automatic painting.
As a graphic artist, Picabia contributed to the design of the Surrealist journal Littérature. As early
as the end of the 1920s he began to withdraw from the inner circle of the group, becoming
increasingly interested in photography and film. Around 1945 Picabia once again adopted a more
abstract approach.
PABLO PICASSO (Málaga, 1881 - Mougins, Provence, 1973)
Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker and stage set designer
With his Cubist works Picasso created an essential foundation for modern art, including
Surrealism. From 1924 to 1934 he was himself intensively involved in the Surrealist movement, an
involvement attested to in many ways by the art of this period. Yet Picasso never considered
himself a true member of Breton's group, instead retaining his independence, even during his
Surrealist phase. One of Breton's demands in particular went too far for him – that the unconscious
mind become the sole arbiter and motor of artistic activity. Not believing in this sort of
"automatism", Picasso maintained his own approach to the surreal. As he once said, it was
important to him "not to lose sight of nature." His concern was with a "deeper resemblance that is
more real than reality and thus achieves the surreal." In the years 1935 to 1939, in view of the rise
of fascism, Picasso's Surrealism increasingly took on a new thrust, in which political commitment
and poetic revolution were combined
MAN RAY (Emmanuel Radnitsky, Philadephia, 1890 - Paris, 1976)
American photographer and painter
A son of Russian immigrants in Philadephia, Man Ray studied architecture and then turned to
painting. In 1915 he began to photograph his own paintings. He began portraying members of high
society, at first free of charge then professionally, and became a fashion photographer with Poiret.
In 1915 he befriended Duchamp, and followed him to Paris in 1921.
From 1918 to 1920 Man Ray formulated his ideas with the aid of objects, transforming human
bodies into mechanical constructions and, vice versa, animating everyday things. Beginning in
1922 he developed "rayography", a process for which no camera was required, involving placing
objects on photo paper and exposing thems, creating shadowy forms and patterns. His collection
of rayograms, Les champs délicieux, is considered a photographic counterpart to Breton's
"automatic writing."
Between 1923 and 1929 Man Ray made five films: Anémic Cinéma, Retour à la raison, Emak
Bakia, L'Etoile de mer, and Le mystère du château de dés. His hoped-for career as a film-maker
foundered on the Surrealists' lack of recognition and on the predominance of the films of Luis
Buñuel and Salvador Dalí. Man Ray is viewed as one of the most significant photographers of the
twentieth century.
YVES TANGUY (Paris, 1900 - Woodbury, CT, 1955)
French painter and printmaker
Tanguy's decision to become an artist was triggered by a 1923 visit to a show of works by Giorgio
de Chirico at Galerie Paul Guillaume in Paris. By way of the journal La révolution surréaliste,
published from 1924-29, he found his way to Surrealism. After a few of what Werner Spies has
termed "pseudo-naive" attempts à la Picabia, the self-taught Tanguy began to work out his own
language, which brought together visual experiences with set pieces from the realm of dreams. His
mature period is characterized by imaginary landscapes that recall endless beaches, populated by
sculptural elements reminiscent of stones or bones by means of which the dreamlike spaces are
articulated.
Tanguy emigrated in 1939 to the U.S. and participated in the Surrealists' activities in exile. His new
homeland not only rescued the artist from the threat of war but brought new perceptions of space
and light.
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