René François Ghislain Magritte was born on November 21, 1898, in Lessines, Belgium. He studied intermittently between 1916 and 1918 at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. Magritte first exhibited at the Centre d’Art in Brussels in 1920. After completing military service in 1921, he worked briefly as a designer in a wallpaper factory. In 1923 he participated with Lyonel Feininger, El Lissitzky, László Moholy-Nagy, and Belgian Paul Joostens in an exhibition at the Cercle Royal Artistique in Antwerp. In 1924 he collaborated with E. L. T. Mesens on the review Oesophage.
In 1927 Magritte was given his first solo exhibition at the Galerie Le Centaure in Brussels. Later that year the artist left Brussels to establish himself in Le Perreux-sur-Marne, near Paris, where he frequented the Surrealist circle, which included Jean Arp, André Breton, Salvador Dalí, Paul Eluard, and Joan Miró. In 1928 Magritte took part in the Exposition surréaliste at the Galerie Goemans in Paris. He returned to Belgium in 1930, and three years later was given a solo show at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. Magritte’s first solo exhibition in the United States took place at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York in 1936 and the first in England at the London Gallery in 1938. He was also represented in the 1936 Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Throughout the 1940s Magritte showed frequently at the Galerie Dietrich in Brussels. During the following two decades he executed various mural commissions in Belgium. From 1953 he exhibited frequently at the galleries of Alexander Iolas in New York, Paris, and Geneva. Magritte retrospectives were held in 1954 at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and in 1960 at the Museum for Contemporary Arts, Dallas, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. On the occasion of his retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1965, Magritte traveled to the United States for the first time, and the following year he visited Israel. Magritte died on August 15, 1967, in Brussels, shortly after the opening of a major exhibition of his work at the Museum Bojmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam.
All images © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2025
Part 2 of a 2-part post on the works of Réne Magritte:
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| 1939 Poison gouache on paper 33.5 x 40.7 cm Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands |
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| 1940-44 A Rose and a Tower graphite on thin, buff drawing paper 15.2 x 10.1 cm LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA) |
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| c1940-44 Phallic Roses graphite on thin, buff drawing paper 15.2 x 10.1 cm LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA) |
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| c1940-44 Head with Flower graphite on thin, buff drawing paper 15.2 x 10.1 cm LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA) |
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| c1940-44 Flower with Head graphite on thin, buff drawing paper 15.2 x 10.1 cm LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA) |
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| 1942 Treasure Island gouache on paper 42.5 x 60.5 cm Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo: Fundación Proa, Buenos Aires |
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| 1943-53 Homesickness watercolour and gouache, over touches of graphite, on cream wove paper 45.5 x 35.1 cm Art Institute of Chicago, IL |
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| c1943 Untitled (Woman-Bottle) oil on glass bottle 37.7 x 7.6 cm Art Institute of Chicago, IL |
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| 1944-54 The Balcony red chalk with stumping on cream wove paper 44.5 x 36.5 cm Art Institute of Chicago, IL Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph R. Shapiro |
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| 1947 The Liberator oil on canvas 99.5 x 79.05 cm LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA) |
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| 1947-48 Seasickness oil on canvas 54 x 65 cm Art Institute of Chicago, IL |
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| 1950 The Labours of Alexander oil on canvas (size not found) Private Collection |
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| 1967 The Labours of Alexander sculpture cast bronze in two pieces: tree trunk 63.5 x 152.4 x 104.1 cm Axe 134.6 cm long Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden, New Orleans |
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| 1950 The Wasted Footsteps oil on canvas 55.9 x 46.5 cm Collection of the Akron Art Museum, Ohio |
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| 1950 The Legend of the Centuries oil on canvas 80.5 x 60.6 cm National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh |
1953-54 Empire of Light:
Numerous versions of which exist (Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Menil Collection, Houston, and the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels).
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| 1950 The Empire of Light oil on canvas 78.8 x 99.1 cm MoMA, New York |
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| 1952 The Listening Room oil on canvas 55 x 45 cm Menil Collection, Houston, TX |
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| 1953 Golconda oil on canvas 100 x 81 cm Menil Collection, Houston, TX |
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| 1953 The Wonders of Nature oil on canvas 108.3 x 128.6 cm Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, IL |
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| 1953-54 Empire of Light oil on canvas 195.4 x 131.2 cm Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice (Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York) |
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| 1954 The Empire of Light oil on canvas Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels |
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| 1955 Memory of a Voyage oil on canvas 162.2 x 130.2 cm MoMA, New York |
1958 The Banquet:
This canvas is the last, largest, and most impressive of four oil paintings of this title; the three other paintings are all dated to 1957. There are also five versions of this image in gouache, starting in 1956 and extending to 1964, Magritte first realised the idea and conceived the title for this series in the first of these gouaches completed in 1956 shortly after he announced to Mirabelle Dors and Maurice Rapin, in a letter of November 9, 1956, that “Le Banquet” was one of his latest “finds”
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| 1958 The Banquet oil on canvas 97.3 x 130.3 cm Art Institute of Chicago, Il Lindy and Edwin Bergman Collection |
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| c1958 Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play… gouache on paper mounted on paperboard Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC |
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| 1961 Empire of Light oil on canvas 114.5 x 146 cm |
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| c1962 “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" (version of 'The legend of the centuries 1950) gouache and pencil on paper mounted on paperboard Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC |
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| 1962 Ceci n'est pas une pipe (version of the 1928 painting) etching on paper 24.1 x 20.1 cm |
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| 1963 Perspective crayon on pape 35.9 x 26.9 cm MoMA, New York |
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| 1963 The Indiscreet Jewels lithograph 23.4 x 30.5 cm MoMA, New York |
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| 1963 The Natural Graces oil on canvas 55 x 40 cm Private Collection |
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| 1967 The Natural Graces bronze with golden brown patina 102.6 x 42.8 cm |
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| 1964 The Tune and Also the Words gouache over traces of graphite on cream wove paper 36.2 x 54.8 cm Art Institute of Chicago, IL Lindy and Edwin Bergman Collection |
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| 1964 The Son of Man oil on canvas 116 x 89 cm Private Collection |
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| 1964 The Great War oil on canvas. 60 x 81 cm |
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| 1965 The Thought Which Sees pencil on paper 40 x 29.7 cm MoMA, New York |
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| 1965 The Idol (Homage to Alexandre Iolas) lithograph 58.4 x 66 cm Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA |
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| 1965 The Blank Signature (Attributed to Magritte) oil on canvas 81.3 x 65.1 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC |
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| 1965 The Blank Signature (Attributed to Magritte) graphite with charcoal, brown ink, and oil paint (?) on wove paper 35.8 x 26.9 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC |
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| 1966 Landscape of Baucis aquatint and lift-ground aquatint in black on wove paper 22.5 x 16.9 cm (plate) National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC |
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| 1966 Decalcomania oil on canvas 81 x 100 cm Centre Pompidou, Paris |
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| 1966 Collage collage, pencil & ink |
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| 1967 The blank page oil on canvas 54 x 65 cm Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, Belgium |
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| 1967 The beautiful relations oil on canvas 41 x 33 cm Private collection |
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| 1967 The Age of Enlightenment oil on canvas (size not found) |
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| 1967 As you will like it etching in black on buff wove paper, laid down on white wove paper 19.7 x 15 cm (plate) Art Institute of Chicago, IL |
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| 1968 (printed) published 1969 Rose and pear colour etching and aquatint 15.6 x 10.6 cm (plate) |
