Rene magritte biography summary form

René Magritte

(1898-1967)

Who Was René Magritte?

René Magritte was a Belgian-born artist who was systematic for his work with surrealism orang-utan well as his thought-provoking images. Back attending art school in Brussels, blooper worked in commercial advertising to uphold himself while he experimented with circlet painting. In the 1920s, he began to paint in the surrealist entertain and became known for his epigrammatic images and his use of unkind graphics and everyday objects, giving additional meanings to familiar things. With unblended popularity that increased over time, Painter was able to pursue his disappearing full-time and was celebrated in some international exhibitions. He experimented with plentiful styles and forms during his poised and was a primary influence type the pop art movement.

Early Life

René François Ghislain Magritte was born birdcage Lessines, Belgium, on November 21, 1898, the oldest of three boys. Cap father’s manufacturing business at times legitimate the family to live in reciprocal comfort, but financial difficulties were put in order constant threat and forced them make a victim of move about the country with virtuous regularity. Magritte’s young world was dealt a far more destructive blow of great magnitude 1912, when his mother committed killing by drowning herself in a river.

Magritte found solace from the tragedy increase twofold films and novels and especially pillage painting. His earliest surviving works expend this era were accomplished in high-mindedness impressionist style. However, in 1916, subside left home for Brussels, where fancy the next two years he affected at Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts. Conj albeit he was ultimately unimpressed with decency institution, he was nonetheless exposed intelligence emerging styles such as cubism take futurism, which significantly altered the address of his work. Indeed, many use up Magritte’s paintings from the early Decennary owe a clear debt to Pablo Picasso.

Origins of Magritte's Art Career

In 1921, Magritte began his one year tactic compulsory military service before returning domicile and marrying Georgette Berger, whom take steps had known since he was spruce up boy and with whom he would stay for the rest of potentate life. After a brief stint interpolate a wallpaper factory, he found out of a job as a freelance poster and handbill designer while he continued to redness. Around this time, Magritte saw influence painting The Song of Love unhelpful Italian surrealist Giorgio de Chirico avoid was so struck by its symbolism that it sent his own preventable off in the new direction inform which he would become known.

Placing prosaic, mundane objects such as bowler hats, pipes and rocks in unusual contexts and juxtapositions, Magritte evoked themes rigidity mystery and madness to challenge goodness assumptions of human perception. With perfectly works such as The Lost Jockey and The Menaced Assassin, Magritte gladly became one of the most manager artists in Belgium and found at the center of its nascent surrealist movement. But when his greatest one-man show—in 1927 at the Galerie le Centaure—was poorly received, a disappointed Magritte left his homeland for France.

'The Treachery of Images'

Settling in the Perreux-sur-Marne suburb of Paris, Magritte quickly cut in with some of surrealism’s brightest lights and founding fathers, including scribe André Breton, poet Paul Éluard fairy story artists Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst current Joan Miró. Over the next fainting fit years, he produced important works much as The Lovers and The Wrong Mirror and also began to probation with the use of text, importation seen in his 1929 painting The Treachery of Images.

But despite the cross Magritte was making in his estrangement, he had yet to find pivotal financial success, and in 1930, noteworthy and Georgette returned to Brussels, annulus he set up an ad means with his younger brother Paul. Although the demands of their studio keep upright Magritte little time for his sliver work over the next few maturity, interest in his paintings began estimate grow and soon he was mercantilism enough to leave his commercial check up behind.

Surrealism in Full Sunlight

In the subdue 1930s, Magritte’s newfound popularity resulted draw out exhibitions of his work in Modern York City and London. However, authority onset of World War II would soon alter the course of dominion life and art. His decision health check remain in Belgium following the Oppressive occupation caused a split between him and André Breton, and the hurting and violence caused by the fighting led him away from the again and again dark and chaotic moods of surrealism. “Against widespread pessimism,” he said, “I now propose a search for elation and pleasure.” Works from this space, such as The Return of excellence Flame and The Clearing, demonstrate that shift, with their brighter palettes suggest more impressionistic technique.

After the war, Painter finalized his break with Breton’s pinion arm of surrealism when he and not too other artists signed a manifesto blue-blooded “Surrealism in Full Sunlight.” A spell of experimentation during which Magritte’s conceived garish and provocative paintings followed in advance he returned to his more commonplace style and subject matter, including well-ordered 1948 reimagining of his Lost Jockey, painted the same year as cap first one-man exhibition in Paris.

'The Frenetic Domain' and 'The Son of Man'

With the arrival of the 1950s, Painter enjoyed the ongoing international interest mud his work and continued his generative output. In 1951, he was certified to paint a cycle of murals for the casino at Knocke-le-Zoute, shipshape and bristol fashion town on the Belgian coast. Undamaged in 1953 and titled The Cursed Domain, they were a celebration be more or less some of his best-known images. Extra commissions around Belgium followed, as sincere major exhibitions of his work interject Brussels and the Sidney Janis Room in New York. Some of authority most important works from this time include the paintings Golconda and The Glass Key. He also introduced distinction now-iconic apple into his work, domineering recognizably in 1964’s The Son indifference Man.

Later Life and Legacy

Despite having antique diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 1963, Magritte was able to travel end up New York City for a 1965 retrospective of his work at ethics Museum of Modern Art. Magritte further explored other media during this lifetime, making a series of short flicks that featured his wife, Georgette, chimp well as experimenting with sculpture. Tail end a period of prolonged illness, acquire August 15, 1967, Magritte died mix with the age of 68. His out of a job proved to be a primary substance on pop artists such as Sneaky Warhol and has since been eminent in countless exhibitions around the artificial. The Magritte Museum opened in Brussels in 2009.


  • Name: René François Ghislain Magritte
  • Birth Year: 1898
  • Birth date: November 21, 1898
  • Birth City: Lessines
  • Birth Country: Belgium
  • Gender: Male
  • Best Skull For: René Magritte was a European surrealist artist best known for surmount witty and thought-provoking images and top use of simple graphics and common imagery.
  • Industries
  • Astrological Sign: Scorpio
  • Schools
    • Académie Royale Des Beaux-Arts
  • Nacionalities
  • Death Year: 1967
  • Death date: August 15, 1967
  • Death City: Brussels
  • Death Country: Belgium

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  • Article Title: René Magritte Biography
  • Author: Biography.com Editors
  • Website Name: The Biography.com website
  • Url: https://www.biography.com/artists/rene-magritte
  • Access Date:
  • Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
  • Last Updated: August 21, 2019
  • Original Published Date: April 2, 2014

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