NEW YORK, NY.- The photographs and films of René Magritte came to light in the mid-1970s, more than ten years after the Surrealist artist’s death. The discovery of these gem-like treasures has led to a deeper understanding of the close relationship Magritte maintained with photography. They reveal how he used these tools to experiment with his ideas, while providing rare access to an informal side of the artist and those with whom he surrounded himself. These images, which he often executed or collaborated with others to produce, contribute to our overall understanding of this intrepid artist, and provide key visual insight into Magritte’s relationship with the photographic medium, and its role within his greater oeuvre.
Regarded as one of the most important artists of the post-war era in Europe, René Magritte was a leading figure in the Surrealist movement. He sought revolution against the rational mind, stating, “Everything we see hides another thing; we always want to see what is hidden by what we see.” Widely recognized for his stunning, and often haunting paintings which juxtapose common objects within dream-like scenarios, Magritte was a master provocateur. Revisiting motifs of cloth-covered figures, objects in flight, and concealed identity have become a well-known hallmark of his distinct sensibility, often signaling back to trauma of the artist’s past. His Surrealist masterpieces tantalize and distort reality, evoking a singular sense of mystery within the viewer. Magritte’s approach to painting and sculpture avoided stylistic distractions of modern art making. His recently discovered films and photographs reveal how he used these art forms to explore the bounds of his imagination.
His photographs and films were the subject of the major exhibition, René Magritte: The Revealing Image, Photos and Films at the Latrobe Gallery, Victoria, Australia (August 19 - November 19, 2017).
René Magritte (1898–1967) is closely linked to the surrealist movement, which was founded in Paris by French writer André Breton in 1924. Surrealism was shaped by emerging theories of perception, including Sigmund Freud’s theories (though Magritte always denied any Freudian interpretations of his work), such as the psychoanalytic concept of the uncanny — a sense of disquietude provoked by particular objects and situations. The movement’s primary aim was to resolve the contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality — a super-reality — and to revolutionise human existence by freeing people from what the surrealists saw as false rationality and restrictive social customs.
Initially influenced by Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico, Magritte was one of the founders of Belgian Surrealism in 1926. His work from this period frequently places objects in unusual contexts or with unusual words or phrases, thus giving them new and surprising meanings. In 1929, Magritte moved to Paris in order to collaborate with Breton’s group. However, the idiosyncratic Magritte grew tired of their rigidity.
In 1933, he broke from them by stating that the primary aim of his work from that point on would be to reveal the hidden and often personal affinities between objects, rather than juxtaposing unrelated objects. Nevertheless, he would remain associated with surrealism in general throughout his career.
Magritte’s philosophical approach to images and language interested many post-war artists. In 1954, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg saw a ground-breaking exhibition of Magritte’s word-and-image paintings at the Sidney Janis Gallery in New York, and later acquired examples of these works. Magritte’s interests also foreshadowed other post-war artistic pursuits: a generation before the artists involved in pop art began working with images from popular culture, Magritte himself turned to this source. And before his death in 1967, Magritte even lived to see the impact of his own works on advertisements, popular culture, and television [internationally].
