BASEL.- Surrealism began as a literary movement, for which reason Max Morise attacked surrealist art in his article “Les yeux enchantés (Enchanted eyes)”, published in the first issue of La Révolution surréaliste (The Surrealist Revolution, 1 December 1924).

Little more than a year later, however, André Breton success¬fully championed the notion that painting and drawing play an important role in Surrealism. In retrospect, drawing being a more spontaneous means of expression than painting can be considered the prototypical surrealist form of art. Works by an illustrious roster of artists will enable visitors to study the techniques (such as automatic drawing, ‘frottage’, collage) and artistic strategies developed by the Surrealists to lend expression to the dreams and unconscious worlds that populate their pictures.

This is the first time that the surrealist holdings in the Kupferstichkabinett have been subjected to extensive research and study. 60 drawings, watercolours and collages and 30 prints and illustrated books will be on view. Due to their fragile condition they are rarely exhibited in fact, some of them are on view for the first time.