Rene Magritte
Rene Magritte was born in Lessines, Belgium in 1898. In 1912, his mother committed suicide by drowning herself
in the River Sambre. He studied at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels for two years until 1918. During
this time he met Georgette Berger, whom he married in 1922.
Magritte worked in a wallpaper factory, and was a poster and advertisement designer until 1926 when a contract
with Galerie la Centaure in Brussels made it possible for him to paint full-time.
In 1926, Magritte produced his first surrealist painting, The Lost Jockey (Le jockey perdu), and held his first
exhibition in Brussels in 1927. Critics heaped abuse on the exhibition. Depressed by the failure, he moved to Paris
where he became friends with André Breton, and became involved in the surrealist group.
When Galerie la Centaure closed and the contract income ended, he returned to Brussels and worked in advertising.
Then, with his brother, he formed an agency, which earned him a living wage. During the German occupation of Belgium
in World War II he remained in Brussels, which led to a break with Breton. At the time he renounced the violence and
pessimism of his earlier work, though he returned to the themes later.
His work showed in the United States in New York in 1936 and again in that city in two retrospective exhibitions,
one at the Museum of Modern Art in 1965, and the other at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1992.
Magritte died of pancreatic cancer on August 15, 1967 and was interred in Schaarbeek Cemetery, Brussels.
|
Realists
