René Magritte
Biografie1898 - 1967
Uber den Künstler
René Magritte, in full René-François-Ghislain Magritte (born Nov. 21, 1898, Lessines, Belg.—died Aug. 15, 1967, Brussels) was a Belgian artist and one of the most prominent Surrealist painters. His works were characterized by symbols, including the female torso, the bourgeois “little man,” the bowler hat, the castle, the rock and the window.
Magritte studied at the Brussels Academy of Fine Arts between 1916 and 1918. Afterwards he became a designer for a wallpaper factory and then did sketches for advertisements. In 1922 he saw a reproduction of Giorgio de Chirico’s painting The Song of Love (1914) which had a great influence on Magritte’s style. For the next few years he was an important artist in the Belgian Surrealist movement. He became a full-time painter in 1926, with the support of a Brussels art gallery.
His first solo exhibition was held in 1927, which not well received by the art critics. In the same year he and his wife settled in a suburb of Paris. There he became friends with several of the Paris Surrealists, including poets André Breton and Paul Éluard. He also was introduced to the collages of Max Ernst. In 1930 Magritte moved back to Brussels, where he lived for the rest of his life. During the 1940s he experimented with different of styles, but the paintings he produced were not successful and eventually abandoned the experimental. He carried on with producing his enigmatic and illogical images for the rest of his life. In his last year he supervised the construction of eight bronze sculptures derived from images in his paintings.
The sea and wide skies figure strongly in his paintings. Other subjects were a fish with human legs, a man with a bird cage for a torso, and a gentleman leaning over a wall beside his pet lion. Dislocations of space, time, and scale were usual elements. Two museums in Brussels are dedicated to Magritte: the René Magritte Museum, largely a biographical museum, is located in the house occupied by the artist and his wife between 1930 and 1954; and a new Magritte Museum, featuring some 250 of the artist’s works, opened in 2009 at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts.
Magritte studied at the Brussels Academy of Fine Arts between 1916 and 1918. Afterwards he became a designer for a wallpaper factory and then did sketches for advertisements. In 1922 he saw a reproduction of Giorgio de Chirico’s painting The Song of Love (1914) which had a great influence on Magritte’s style. For the next few years he was an important artist in the Belgian Surrealist movement. He became a full-time painter in 1926, with the support of a Brussels art gallery.
His first solo exhibition was held in 1927, which not well received by the art critics. In the same year he and his wife settled in a suburb of Paris. There he became friends with several of the Paris Surrealists, including poets André Breton and Paul Éluard. He also was introduced to the collages of Max Ernst. In 1930 Magritte moved back to Brussels, where he lived for the rest of his life. During the 1940s he experimented with different of styles, but the paintings he produced were not successful and eventually abandoned the experimental. He carried on with producing his enigmatic and illogical images for the rest of his life. In his last year he supervised the construction of eight bronze sculptures derived from images in his paintings.
The sea and wide skies figure strongly in his paintings. Other subjects were a fish with human legs, a man with a bird cage for a torso, and a gentleman leaning over a wall beside his pet lion. Dislocations of space, time, and scale were usual elements. Two museums in Brussels are dedicated to Magritte: the René Magritte Museum, largely a biographical museum, is located in the house occupied by the artist and his wife between 1930 and 1954; and a new Magritte Museum, featuring some 250 of the artist’s works, opened in 2009 at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts.
