Surrealism in Paris - Fondation Beyeler

Press Release 

Surrealism in Paris 

October 2, 2011 – January 29, 2012 

The Fondation Beyeler is devoting the first-ever comprehensive exhibition in Switzerland to 

Surrealism in Paris. On view will be major works by artists such as Salvador Dalí, René 

Magritte, Joan Miró, and many more who either belonged to the movement or were 

associated with it. Surrealism was one of the most crucial artistic and literary movements of 

the twentieth century and had a lasting influence on it. After emerging in Paris in 1924, the 

movement unfolded a worldwide impact. Influenced by the writings of Sigmund Freud and 

under the leadership of its chief theoretician, André Breton, the Surrealists set out to change 

life and society by means of a new brand of art and poetry. Tapping the unconscious mind 

and world of dreams was to trigger an entirely unprecedented kind of creativity. "Dalí, 

Magritte, Miró – Surrealism in Paris" comprises about 290 masterworks and manuscripts by 

about 40 artists and authors. 

The highlights will include a presentation of the legendary Surrealist private collections 

amassed by Peggy Guggenheim and by Breton’s first wife Simone Collinet. In addition to 

famous paintings and sculptures, objects, photographs, drawings, manuscripts, jewelry and 

films await discovery. 

The loans to the exhibition stem from renowned private collections and public museums, in 

Europe and the United States. 

The exhibition is curated by Philippe Büttner, Fondation Beyeler curator. 

The exhibition is accompanied by an abundantly illustrated scholarly catalogue, published in 

a German and English edition by Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern. It contains essays by 

Quentin Bajac, Philippe Büttner, Julia Drost, Annabelle Görgen, Ioana Jimborean, Robert 

Kopp, Ulf Küster, Guido Magnaguagno, Philip Rylands, Marlen Schneider, Jonas Storsve 

und Oliver Wick, and a chronology of Surrealism by Valentina Locatelli; 289 pages and 304 

full-color illustrations. 

ISBN: 978-3-7757-3161-4, CHF 68.00. 

A second exhibition venue is planned, at the Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique in 

Brussels (March to July 2012). 

Press images available at: http://pressimages.fondationbeyeler.ch 

Further information: 

Catherine Schott, Head of Public Relations 

Tel. + 41 (0)61 645 97 21, presse@fondationbeyeler.ch, www.fondationbeyeler.ch 

Fondation Beyeler, Beyeler Museum AG, Baselstrasse 77, CH-4125 Riehen 

Fondation Beyeler opening hours: 10.00 am to 6.00 pm, Wednesdays to 8.00 pm

Press Release 

Surrealism in Paris 

October 2, 2011 – January 29, 2012 

The Fondation Beyeler is devoting the first-ever comprehensive exhibition in Switzerland to 

Surrealism in Paris. On view will be major works by artists such as Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, 

Max Ernst, and many more who either belonged to the movement or were associated with it. 

The show will focus on the innovative forms of expression developed and employed by the 

Surrealists – especially object art, collage, photography and film. 

Surrealism was one of the most crucial artistic and literary movements of the twentieth 

century. After emerging in Paris in 1924, it unfolded a worldwide effect that continues to this 

day. Major modern artists belonged to the movement, were associated with it, or inspired by 

it. Its aim was radical change and expansion of the expressive means of art and poetry and 

their impact on society. Aspects of the psyche and creativity that had previously lay fallow 

were to be made fertile for artistic activity and human life as a whole. 

Profoundly shaken by the experience of the First World War and under the leadership of its 

chief theoretician, André Breton, the Surrealists developed innovative approaches and lent 

form to an art that tapped poetic imagination, the world of dreams, and the unconscious 

mind. Their idols included Sigmund Freud and many writers, such as the scandalous Marquis 

de Sade, the poets Charles Baudelaire, Comte de Lautréamont, and Arthur Rimbaud, Edgar 

Allan Poe, and the German Romantics. 

"Dalí, Magritte, Miró – Surrealism in Paris" comprises about 290 masterworks and manuscripts 

by about 40 artists and authors. These include approximately 110 paintings, 30 

objects and sculptures, 50 works on paper, 50 photographs, 30 manuscripts and original 

editions, 15 pieces of jewelry and four films. The exhibits are arranged in the exhibition 

spaces partly by artist, partly by theme. The introduction is provided by Giorgio de Chirico, a 

pioneering predecessor of Surrealism whose cityscapes and interiors of the 1910s can be 

considered decisive forerunners of the movement. On view as well are valuable manuscripts 

and editions of Surrealist texts, including manuscript versions of Breton's manifestos. 

A further emphasis is placed on two major artists of the movement, Joan Miró and Max Ernst. 

Miró, who opened out entirely new spaces for modern art with his hovering dreamlike colored 

configurations, is represented by works such as Painting (The Circus Horse), 1927, from the 

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and Ernst by superb works such as the renowned 

Wavering Woman (The Slanting Woman), 1923, from the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein- 

Westfalen, Düsseldorf. Then follows a room devoted to Yves Tanguy, whose imaginary 

spaces populated by mysterious objects – as in the monumental The Last Days, 1944, from 

a private collection – represent one of the most poetic evocations in all Surrealism. The next 

space is devoted to a key Surrealist medium – the object. The works on view include Meret 

Oppenheim's famous Ma gouvernante - My Nurse - Mein Kindermädchen, 1936/1967, from 

the Moderna Museet Stockholm, and Hans Bellmer's major object The Doll, 1935-36, from 

the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. Also brought together here are major drawings and 

paintings by Victor Brauner.

A special feature of the exhibition is the inclusion of two superb private collections of 

Surrealism. The presentation of that of André Breton and his first wife, Simone Collinet, 

represents a premiere. The couple amassed the collection in the 1920s, and after they 

separated Collinet expanded her share. Among the works in the collection are Francis 

Picabia's large-scale painting Judith, 1929, and de Chirico's The Evil Genius of a King, 1914- 

15, now in the Museum of Modern Art, New York. On view in a second room are outstanding 

works from the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, including Max Ernst's The Antipope, 1941-42, 

which the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice seldom permits to travel. These works 

constitute an ensemble within the exhibition in which the period of the Surrealists' New York 

exile during World War II is virtually distilled. In addition, the presentation of the two collections 

permits us to highlight key aspects of private stagings of Surrealist art. 

The artists prominently represented in further rooms include Hans Arp, and not least Pablo 

Picasso, who for a time was closely associated with Surrealism. On view is his highly 

Surrealist painting The Artist's Studio (The Open Window), 1929. This is followed by an 

outstanding group of works by the visual magician René Magritte. In an inimitable way, 

Magritte's art captures visual reality only to subvert it again. Fine examples are the early The 

Interpretation of Dreams, 1930, and later major works such as The Dominion of Light, 1962, 

both from private collections. 

A concise selection of outstanding Surrealist photographs, including works by Man Ray, 

Raoul Ubac, Dora Maar, and Eli Lotar rounds off the picture. A screening room presents key 

works of Surrealist cinematic art, including ones by Luis Buñuel and Man Ray. 

The exhibition concludes with the artist who is likely the most famous Surrealist of all, 

Salvador Dalí. A spectacular group of his masterpieces on view here includes The Enigma of 

Desire, 1929, from the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, the outstanding Metamorphosis of 

Narcissus, 1937, from the Tate London, and Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a 

Pomegranate, one Second before Awakening, 1944, from the Museo Thyssen Bornemisza in 

Madrid. 

The exhibition links up with previous Galerie Beyeler and Fondation Beyeler projects. Ernst 

Beyeler early on devoted various exhibitions to Surrealism in his Basel gallery, including the 

1947 "Surréalisme et peinture" and the 1995-96 "Surrealismus: Traum des Jahrhunderts," as 

well as to individual representatives of the movement, bringing his unique eye for this art into 

play. Accordingly, the Beyeler Collection now boasts key works by such artists as Arp, Ernst, 

Miró and Picasso. The Fondation Beyeler can likewise look back on shows of Surrealist art, 

including "Calder, Miró", 2004, "Picasso surreal," 2005, "René Magritte: The Key to Dreams", 

2005, and, with some Surrealist works, "Giacometti", 2009. These were supplemented by 

thematic exhibitions in which Surrealist art prominently figured. The current extensive Surrealism 

exhibition provides a panoramic view of the movement as a whole. 

The exhibition is curated by Philippe Büttner, Fondation Beyeler Curator. 

In addition to private lenders, the most important institutional lenders are: The Peggy 

Guggenheim Collection, Venice (The Solomon R. Guggenheim Fondation, New York); the 

Centre Georges Pompidou; Musée national d’art moderne, Paris; das Musée d’Art moderne 

de la Ville de Paris; Tate, London; Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich – 

Pinakothek der Moderne; Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf; Museum 

Ludwig, Cologne; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie; Museo Nacional Centro de 

Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid; das Museu Coleccao 

Berardo, Lisbon; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Menil Collection, Houston; 

The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington; the 

Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Kunstmuseum Basel and Kupferstichkabinett and the 

Kunsthaus Zürich and Alberto Giacometti-Stiftung.

The catalogue, published by Beyeler Museum AG and edited by Philippe Büttner, provides 

an introduction to the movement, presents the works on exhibit, and gives special attention 

to the question of the presentation of Surrealist art – both by the Surrealists themselves and 

in private collections. It contains essays by Quentin Bajac, Philippe Büttner, Julia Drost, 

Annabelle Görgen, Ioana Jimborean, Robert Kopp, Ulf Küster, Guido Magnaguagno, Philip 

Rylands, Marlen Schneider, Jonas Storsve und Oliver Wick, and a chronology of Surrealism 

by Valentina Locatelli. The lavishly illustrated exhibition catalogue is published in a German 

and English edition by Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern, 289 pages and 304 full-color 

illustrations. ISBN: 978-3-7757-3161-4, CHF 68.00. 

A second exhibition venue is planned, at the Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique in 

Brussels (March to July 2012). 

The exhibition has been generous supported from kulturelles.bl. 

Press images available at: http://pressimages.fondationbeyeler.ch 

Further information: 

Catherine Schott, Head of Public Relations 

Tel. + 41 (0)61 645 97 21, presse@fondationbeyeler.ch, www.fondationbeyeler.ch 

Fondation Beyeler, Beyeler Museum AG, Baselstrasse 77, CH-4125 Riehen, Switzerland 

Fondation Beyeler opening hours: 10.00 am to 6.00 pm, Wednesdays to 8.00 pm

01 Hans Bellmer 

La poupée, 1935 / 36 

The Doll 

Painted wood, papier mâché, 

and mixed media, 61 × 170 × 51 cm 

Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée 

national d’art moderne, Paris 

Photo: © Collection Centre Pompidou, 

dist. by RMn, Paris / Georges 

Meguerditchian 

© 2011, ProLittteris, Zurich 

06 Salvador Dalí 

Cygnes réfléchis en éléphants, 1937 

Swans Reflecting Elephants 

oil on canvas, 51 × 77 cm 

Private collection, Switzerland 

© 2011, Fundació Gala-Salvador dalí / 

ProLitteris, Zurich 

11 Alberto Giacometti 

Femme égorgée, 1932 / 1940 

Woman with Her Throat Cut 

Bronze, 23.2 × 89 cm 

Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice 

(Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 

new York) 

Photo: david Heald © the Solomon 

R. Guggenheim Foundation 

© 2011, Fondation Giacometti / 


02 Alexander Calder 

Dancers and Sphere, 1936 

Painted wood, sheet metal, wire, and 

110 volt motor, 10 × 64.5 × 29 cm 

Courtesy Galerie natalie Seroussi, Paris 

© 2011, Calder Foundation, new York / 



Rêve causé par le vol d‘une abeille 

autour d‘une pomme-grenade, 

une seconde avant l‘éveil, 1944 

Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee 

around a Pomegranate, one Second 

before Awakening 

oil on wood, 51 × 41 cm 

Museo thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid 

Photo: © Museo thyssen-Bornemisza, 

Madrid 



12 rené Magritte 

L’esprit comique, 1928 

The Spirit of Comedy 


Ulla and Heiner Pietzsch Collection, Berlin 

Photo: Jochen Littkemann, Berlin 

© 2011, ProLitteris, Zurich 

Fondation Beyeler 

03 Giorgio de Chirico 

Le mauvais génie d’un roi, 1914 –15 

The Evil Genius of a King 

oil on canvas, 61 × 50.2 cm 

the Museum of Modern art, new York 

Photo: © 2011, the Museum of Modern 

art, new York / dist. by Scala, Florence 


08 Paul Delvaux 

Pygmalion, 1939 

oil on wood, 117 × 148 cm 

Royal Museums of Fine arts of Belgium, 

Brussels 

Photo: © Royal Museums of Fine arts 

of Belgium, Brussels / J. Geleyns 

© 2011, Fond. P. delvaux S. idesbald, 

Belgien / ProLitteris, Zurich 


La clef des songes, 1930 

The Interpretation of Dreams 


Private collection 



L’énigme du désir, 1929 

The Enigma of Desire 

oil on canvas, 110.5 × 150.5 cm 

Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, 

Munich – Pinakothek der Moderne 

Photo: © Blauel / Gnamm – aRtotHEK 



09 Max ernst 

La ville entière, 1935 – 36 

The Entire City 


Kunsthaus Zürich 

Photo: Kunsthaus Zürich 



La voix des airs, 1931 

Voice of Space 




new York) 




October 2, 2011 to January 29, 2012 


Construction molle avec haricots bouillis – 

Prémonition de la guerre civile, 1936 

Soft Construction with Boiled Beans – 

Premonition of Civil War 


Philadelphia Museum of art, the Louise 

and Walter arensberg Collection, 1950 

Photo: Philadelphia Museum of art 



10 Max ernst 

L’antipape, 1941– 42 

The Antipope 




new York) 





La grande guerre, 1964 

The Great War 


Private collection, Switzerland 

Photo: Robert Bayer, Basel 


Press images http://pressimages.fondationbeyeler.ch 

this visual material may be used for press purposes only. Reproduction is permitted for the duration of the exhibition only. 

Please employ the captions as given and the relevant copyrights. We kindly request you to forward us a voucher copy.

16 Joan Miró 

Peinture (Le cheval de cirque), 1927 

Painting (The Circus Horse) 

tempera on canvas, 130.5 × 97.2 cm 

the Metropolitan Museum of art, 

new York, the Muriel Kallis Steinberg 

newman Collection 

Photo: bpk, Berlin / the Metropolitan 

Museum of art, new York 

© 2011, Successió Miró / 


21 Man ray 

Indestructible Object, 1923 / 1933 / 1965 

Metronome and photograph, 

22.5 × 11 × 11.5 cm 

Gallery Marion Meyer contemporain, Paris 

Photo: Marc domage 

© 2011, Man Ray trust, Paris / 


25 yves Tanguy 

Earrings, c. 1938 

Silver, gold, pearls, and oil on shell 

Blue-green earring: 7 × 3.7 × 1.6 cm 

Pink earring: 7.1 × 3.7 × 1.6 cm 

Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 

Venice 

Photo: Sergio Martucci 


17 Joan Miró 

Peinture (« escargot, femme, fleur, 

étoile »), 1934 

Painting (“Snail, Woman, Flower Star”) 


Museo nacional Centro de arte Reina 

Sofía, Madrid 

Photo: archivo fotográfico Museo 

nacional Centro de arte Reina Sofía, 

Madrid 

© 2011, Successió Miró / 


22 Man ray 

Members in the Bureau central de 

recherches surréalistes, 1924 

Gelatin silver print, 8.2 × 11.2 cm 

(From left to right, standing: 

Jacques Baron, Raymond Queneau, 

Pierre naville, andré Breton, Jacquesandré 

Boiffard, Giorgio de Chirico, 

Roger Vitrac, Paul Eluard, Philippe 

Soupault, Robert desnos, and Louis 

aragon; seated: Simone Breton, 

Max Morise, Marie-Louise Soupault) 

Private collection 

Photo: Jean-Louis Losi, Paris 



26 yves Tanguy 

Les jeux nouveaux, 1940 

New Games 

oil on canvas, 33 × 40.7 cm 

natalie and Léon Seroussi Collection, Paris 


Fondation Beyeler 

18 Meret Oppenheim 

Ma gouvernante – my nurse – mein 

Kindermädchen, 1936 / 1967 

Shoes, paper, string, and metal, 

14 × 33 × 21 cm 

Moderna Museet, Stockholm 

Photo: Moderna Museet, Stockholm 


23 Man ray 

Erotique-voilée, 1933 –34 

Veiled Eroticism 

Gelatin silver print, 12 × 9 cm 

Private collection, courtesy 

Galerie 1900–2000, Paris 



19 Francis Picabia 

Dresseur d’animaux, 1923 

The Animal Tamer 

Ripolin on canvas, 250 × 200 cm 

Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée 

national d’art moderne, Paris 

Photo: © Collection Centre Pompidou, 

dist. by RMn, Paris / Georges 

Meguerditchian 


24 Man ray 

Les larmes, 1933 / 1959 

The Tears 

Later print, 48 × 58.5 cm 

Städtisches Museum abteiberg, 

Mönchengladbach 



October 2, 2011 to January 29, 2012 

20 Pablo Picasso 

L’atelier du peintre (La fenêtre 

ouverte), 1929 

The Artist’s Studio (The Open Window) 


Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Steegmann 

Collection 

Photo: © Staatsgalerie Stuttgart 

© 2011, Succession Picasso / 


Press images http://pressimages.fondationbeyeler.ch 

this visual material may be used for press purposes only. Reproduction is permitted for the duration of the exhibition only. 

Please employ the captions as given and the relevant copyrights. We kindly request you to forward us a voucher copy.

Biographies 

HANS BELLMER (Kattowitz, Upper Silesia, now Poland, 1902-1975) 

German sculptor, draftsman and photographer 

Hans Bellmer's authoritarian, rigorously puritan father forced him to work in coal mines and steel 

works from an early age. He found succor in the world of his mother, the loving opposite of his 

strict father. Already in childhood he transformed his toys, and later took drawing courses at Berlin 

Technical College. 

In 1932 Bellmer began creating what he called an "artificial daughter" -- The Doll -- after seeing 

The Tales of Hoffmann, an opera about the mechanical doll Olympia and the young Nathaniel's 

despairing love for her. Several themes intrigued Bellmer: the motifs of the doppelgänger, 

deception, passion and demise. He photographed The Doll in various poses and published a book 

of the images that went through several editions. 

From May 1935 onwards he participated in every Surrealist group exhibition, showing primarily his 

photos of The Doll, which triggered horror and delight among the audience. The artist's work 

fascinated the Surrealists, as they viewed the metamorphosis of the human body as a stage in the 

cycle of life and death. 

ANDRÉ BRETON (Tinchebray, Brittany, 1896 - Paris, 1966) 

French poet and writer, founder and theoretician of Surrealism 

In 1900, Breton's bourgeois, originally Breton family moved to Paris. Devoting himself to poetry 

from his senior year on, Breton was principally influenced by Symbolism, which he preferred to 

Zola's Naturalism. In 1915 he began to study medicine, something he would later term a "pure 

alibi." 

On the outbreak of war Breton was still apolitical, yet already critical of the militaristic spirit of the 

age. As an intern in a neuropsychiatric ward at the front he was confronted by the mental sufferings 

of shell-shocked soldiers. He discovered the writings of Freud and developed a great interest in the 

unconscious mind and the threshold between dreams, imagination and reality. 

Back in Paris, Breton and his poet friends Aragon and Soupault immersed themselves in the dark, 

phantasmagorical realm of Isidore Ducasse's Chants of Maldoror, 1874. In 1916 he met the poets 

Guillaume Apollinaire and Jacques Vaché, whose works enchanted him. After their death, he 

became engaged in the journal Littérature in 1919. Together with Soupault, he developed "écriture 

automatique" and participated in Dada demonstrations in Paris. He married Simone Kahn in 1921. 

The two worked in the Office of Surrealist Research and supported themselves, among other 

things, by dealing in art. Breton discovered and furthered artists such as de Chirico, Ernst, Man 

Ray, and others. 

In 1924 Breton wrote the first Surrealist Manifesto, establishing the premises and orientation of the 

movement. 

Due to his desire for social and political change, Breton established ties with the French 

Communist Party in 1927. Yet detesting any kind of dogmatism, he distanced himself from it again 

as early as 1935. In a second Surrealist Manifesto, 1930, he defined the task of Surrealism as 

revolutionizing society, from social conditions to aesthetic attitudes. There followed lectures,

exhibitions, and new periodicals (after La révolution surréaliste, 1924, Le surréalisme au service de 

la révolution, 1930-33, Minotaure, 1933-39). 

After the outbreak of World War II, Breton and many other Surrealists fled to the U.S. He returned 

to France in 1946, continuing his publishing activities and efforts on behalf of Surrealism until his 

death in 1966. 

SALVADOR DALÍ (Figueres, Catalonia, 1904-1989) 

Spanish painter, sculptor and set designer 

Born in 1904, Dalí was confronted by life-shaping events in early childhood. The death of his 

brother and the love lavished on him by his parents led to a precocious involvement with life and 

death. A veritably narcissistic concern with his own identity set in as well. His attendance from 1921 

at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes in Madrid was interrupted by Dalí's provocative behavior, and 

from then on he continued to teach himself art. 

His first show, in Barcelona, took place in 1925. In 1927 he met Picasso in Paris, and in 1929 Miró, 

Breton, Éluard, and his muse, Gala Éluard, who would later become his wife. Breton, for his part, 

was initially unsure about Dalí, and later indignant at what he considered his fascist tendencies. In 

1934 began a series of attempts orchestrated by Breton to throw Dalí out of the group, but this did 

not ultimately happen until 1939. Thus Dalí still contributed illustrations to the Surrealist journal 

Minotaure in 1936 and figured prominently in Duchamp's (and Breton's) legendary 1938 exhibition 

in Paris. 

Dalí's art revolves around psychic states to which the artist lent form by means of a visionary 

approach. His technique was worthy of an Old Master, enabling him to anchor the states of dream, 

ecstasy, despair and agony convincingly in an objective and figurative reality. Basic elements, such 

as the human body and landscapes, as well as objects, became the scene of hallucinatory 

metamorphosis. 

GIORGIO DE CHIRICO (Volos, Greece, 1888 - Rome, 1978) 

Italian painter 

The son of an Italian engineer, Giorgio de Chirico took drawing classes at the Polytechnical 

College in Athens as a child. In 1906 his family settled in Munich, where he discovered the art of 

Arnold Böcklin at the Academy of Arts. In 1909 Giorgio and his brother Alberto Savinio moved to 

Florence and Turin, whose urban architecture shaped the settings of his paintings. 

In 1911 he befriended Apollinaire and Picasso in Paris. After 1915 he lived again in Italy, but 

retained contact with Breton and Éluard, who in 1924 began regularly publishing his paintings in 

the Surrealist journals. De Chirico was a member of the Office of Surrealist Research. 

In the modern tradition, de Chirico's urban views combined temples, palaces, arcades, towers, 

factories, studios into a mysterious and tragic stage for lonely figures. His interiors of 1914-15 

likewise posed riddles and suggested a voyage of discovery through unreal spaces, an aspect that 

deeply inspired the Surrealists. After 1925 a break with Surrealism occurred when de Chirico's 

style turned to a neoclassical romanticism. 

MAX ERNST (Brühl, Germany, 1891 - Paris, 1976) 

German painter, printmaker and sculptor 

In 1909 Ernst was a student of philology, philosophy and art history in Bonn. During this period he 

befriended August Macke, Robert Delaunay and Guillaume Apollinaire, and in 1914 met Hans Arp

in Cologne. Ernst was inducted into the army in 1914. For him, the devastating experience of 

World War I represented a "break from life," to which he returned in 1918. 

Together with Baargeld and Arp, Ernst established the Cologne Dada movement in 1918. This 

period also saw him developing his first collages, which over the following years and decades he 

would ramify and collect in extensive volumes. À l'intérieur de la vue, 8 poèmes visibles, would be 

published in 1931. 

In 1922 Ernst moved to Paris and joined the Surrealist group. He participated in every important 

exhibition they held. Beginning in 1925, based on the technique of "écriture automatique", he 

developed a painterly version, a rubbing method known as frottage, used for the portfolio Histoire 

Naturelle of 1926. Further inventive techniques followed, a scraping method known as grattage (La 

grande fôret, 1927) and a transfer method known as decalcomania (Swampangel, 1940). Ernst 

adopted historical, sacred and mythological motifs, but always subjected them to a modern 

interpretation. 

At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Ernst was interned in France. In 1940, with the 

aid of Peggy Guggenheim, whom he would later marry, he fled to the U.S. After separating from 

her, he lived from 1943 onwards with the artist Dorothea Tanning, who became his wife in 1946. 

The couple moved to the Arizona desert. In 1953 they returned to France. 

ALBERTO GIACOMETTI (Borgonovo, Bergell, Switzerland, 1901 - Chur, 1966) 

Swiss sculptor, printmaker and painter 

After studying classical sculpture in Paris, Giacometti increasingly turned to tribal art, which 

inspired him to reduce his works to fundamental forms. Femme, 1927, is an example of his striving 

to represent his "image of reality." 

Around 1929 he approached the Surrealist circle, sparking a dialogue that led to his idea of the 

Surrealist object. The result was in part mobile yet invariably emotionally charged sculptures that 

often provoked indignation. Giacometti had his first one-man show at Galerie Pierre Colle in 1932 

and participated, among other things, in the groundbreaking "Exposition surréaliste d'objets" in 

1936 at Galerie Charles Ratton. 

He addressed themes of importance to Surrealism – sexuality, violence, instinctual drives, fetishes 

(Objet desagréable à jeter, 1931), representations of actual and dreamlike spaces, and 

(dis)equilibrium. Transformations of the body were depicted through associations with everyday 

shapes, such as the spoon as a metaphor for the female body with a cello volute as head. 

After breaking with the Surrealists in 1934, Giacometti returned to a figurative style. 

RENÉ MAGRITTE (Lessines, Belgium, 1898 - Brussels, 1967) 

Belgian painter 

After studying painting at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels from 1916-21, Magritte 

became involved in Dada, de Stijl, and other avant-garde groups. In 1925, influenced by Ernst and 

de Chirico, he executed his first Surrealist paintings. Following his first one-man show in Brussels 

in 1927, Magritte participated in every Surrealist exhibition in Paris, London and New York from 

1930-40. He lived in Paris from 1927 to 1930. 

Back in 1926, the Belgian Surrealists Mesens, Nougé, Goemans and others had formed their own 

movement. It was not until 1928 that Breton finally accepted Magritte. There followed, in 1929, a 

quarrel with Breton on account of his wife, Georgette's, wish to wear a crucifix; Magritte's expulsion 

from the group lasted until 1933. In an animated dialogue with Breton concerning the principles of 

Surrealism, Magritte always sided with his Belgian fellow artists, who were sceptical of psychic and

artistic automatism. 

Characteristic of Magritte's art is an oscillation between an image of reality and reality per se. He 

himself spoke in 1938 of an "existence in two different spaces." 

ANDRÉ MASSON (Balagny-sur-Thérain, Picardy, 1896-1987) 

French painter and printmaker 

Born into a farming family, Masson was awarded the Grand Prize of the Academy at the age of 

sixteen, which enabled him to establish his own studio in Paris. In 1914 he received a travel 

stipend for Italy. Back in France, he volunteered for war service. By the time he returned he was 

seriously wounded and mentally shaken by his experience of war. 

Again in Paris around 1922, Masson supported himself by accepting various commissions. Around 

1923-24 emerged his first "automatic drawings", a counterpart to Breton's automatic writing.The 

method involved rapid drawing and painting, letting the hand outstrip conscious thought. It stood 

opposed to collage, which, as Clébert noted, attempted to capture the permanence of the image. 

Masson's drawings were published in La révolution surréaliste, and he became a member of the 

journal's staff. 

After going into American exile in 1941, he was already back in France in 1945. Masson would 

later explain that with the end of the war, Surrealism had collapsed. He distanced himself from 

Breton and retired to Provence. 

JOAN MIRÓ (Barcelona, 1893 - Palma, Majorca, 1983) 

Spanish (Catalonian) painter and sculptor 

Scion of a bourgeois family, Miró entered the La Llotja Art School in Barcelona at age fourteen. 

From 1912-15 he studied at Francesc Galí's Escola d'Art, where Galí opened his students' eyes to 

modern Spanish and French art and architecture. 

Miró's first, unsuccessful, show was held in 1918 at the Dalmau Gallery in Barcelona. An 

acquaintance with Francis Picabia encouraged him to move in 1919 to Paris, where he found a 

neighbor and friend in Masson. 

The artist's earliest paintings were still strongly shaped by the rural Catalan tradition. Despite their 

richly detailed, well-nigh naive style, a quite irrational interpretation of landscape is recognizable. 

The separate figures, animals, plants are divorced from their natural circumstances and become 

surrealistic creatures. 

In 1925 Miró altered his style, adding script to his compositions, turning objects into signs, and 

reducing human figures, animals and heavenly bodies to poetic abbreviations. 

He met Breton as early as 1924. Breton was enthusiastic about Miró's "spontaneity of expression", 

acquired numbers of his works, and reproduced his paintings in the Surrealist journals. One of the 

most significant artists of modernism, along with Max Ernst Miró can be called one of the major 

painters in the orbit of Surrealism. It was also characteristic of him that throughout his life he 

remained too independently-minded to associate himself entirely with any movement and always 

retained a certain distance. He participated in key Surrealist exhibitions, including the first 

important postwar show at Galerie Maeght in Paris in 1947.

MERET OPPENHEIM (Berlin, 1931 - Basel, 1985) 

German-Swiss painter and sculptor 

On behest of Alberto Giacometti, Meret Oppenheim joined the Surrealist group in Paris in 1932, 

and participated in 1933 in the "Salon des surindépendants." She was one of the very few women 

who was accepted and respected as an artist in this male-dominated movement. Oppenheim's 

legendary Surrealist objects include Déjeuner en fourrure, 1936, and Ma gouvernante - My Nurse - 

mein Kindermädchen, 1936/1967, both of which were included that same year in the "Exposition 

surréaliste d'objets" at Galerie Charles Ratton in Paris. 

In the course of the Second World War she distanced herself from the Paris group. Around 1956 

Oppenheim returned to Surrealist themes and, in 1959-60, participated in the large "Exposition 

inteRatiOnal du Surréalisme" (EROS) at Galerie Daniel Cordier, Paris. As a young Surrealist she 

also played an important role as a model, as in Man Ray's 1933-34 photo sequence Erotique 

voilée. 

FRANCIS PICABIA (Paris, 1879 - Paris, 1953) 

French painter and graphic artist 

Picabia attended the École des Arts Décoratifs from 1895-97. In the early 1910s he shared 

Duchamp's enthusiasm for "the mechanical." After a brief stay in Barcelona, where he founded the 

Dada journal 291, Picabia settled in Paris in 1917. Influenced by the Dada aesthetic, he created 

portraits in the form of collages of diverse materials, such as toothpicks, buttons, etc. on canvas. In 

1924 Picabia began to devote himself entirely to painting and developed a series titled 

Transparences. In these surrealistically alienated compositions he superimposed portraits of 

individuals and figures, including some from the history of art. At the same time he turned to the 

technique of automatic painting. 

As a graphic artist, Picabia contributed to the design of the Surrealist journal Littérature. As early 

as the end of the 1920s he began to withdraw from the inner circle of the group, becoming 

increasingly interested in photography and film. Around 1945 Picabia once again adopted a more 

abstract approach. 

PABLO PICASSO (Málaga, 1881 - Mougins, Provence, 1973) 

Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker and stage set designer 

With his Cubist works Picasso created an essential foundation for modern art, including 

Surrealism. From 1924 to 1934 he was himself intensively involved in the Surrealist movement, an 

involvement attested to in many ways by the art of this period. Yet Picasso never considered 

himself a true member of Breton's group, instead retaining his independence, even during his 

Surrealist phase. One of Breton's demands in particular went too far for him – that the unconscious 

mind become the sole arbiter and motor of artistic activity. Not believing in this sort of 

"automatism", Picasso maintained his own approach to the surreal. As he once said, it was 

important to him "not to lose sight of nature." His concern was with a "deeper resemblance that is 

more real than reality and thus achieves the surreal." In the years 1935 to 1939, in view of the rise 

of fascism, Picasso's Surrealism increasingly took on a new thrust, in which political commitment 

and poetic revolution were combined 

MAN RAY (Emmanuel Radnitsky, Philadephia, 1890 - Paris, 1976) 

American photographer and painter 

A son of Russian immigrants in Philadephia, Man Ray studied architecture and then turned to 

painting. In 1915 he began to photograph his own paintings. He began portraying members of high 

society, at first free of charge then professionally, and became a fashion photographer with Poiret.

In 1915 he befriended Duchamp, and followed him to Paris in 1921. 

From 1918 to 1920 Man Ray formulated his ideas with the aid of objects, transforming human 

bodies into mechanical constructions and, vice versa, animating everyday things. Beginning in 

1922 he developed "rayography", a process for which no camera was required, involving placing 

objects on photo paper and exposing thems, creating shadowy forms and patterns. His collection 

of rayograms, Les champs délicieux, is considered a photographic counterpart to Breton's 

"automatic writing." 

Between 1923 and 1929 Man Ray made five films: Anémic Cinéma, Retour à la raison, Emak 

Bakia, L'Etoile de mer, and Le mystère du château de dés. His hoped-for career as a film-maker 

foundered on the Surrealists' lack of recognition and on the predominance of the films of Luis 

Buñuel and Salvador Dalí. Man Ray is viewed as one of the most significant photographers of the 

twentieth century. 

YVES TANGUY (Paris, 1900 - Woodbury, CT, 1955) 

French painter and printmaker 

Tanguy's decision to become an artist was triggered by a 1923 visit to a show of works by Giorgio 

de Chirico at Galerie Paul Guillaume in Paris. By way of the journal La révolution surréaliste, 

published from 1924-29, he found his way to Surrealism. After a few of what Werner Spies has 

termed "pseudo-naive" attempts à la Picabia, the self-taught Tanguy began to work out his own 

language, which brought together visual experiences with set pieces from the realm of dreams. His 

mature period is characterized by imaginary landscapes that recall endless beaches, populated by 

sculptural elements reminiscent of stones or bones by means of which the dreamlike spaces are 

articulated. 

Tanguy emigrated in 1939 to the U.S. and participated in the Surrealists' activities in exile. His new 

homeland not only rescued the artist from the threat of war but brought new perceptions of space 

and light.

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Surrealism in Paris - Fondation Beyeler

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