See how René Magritte’s dreamy paintings evolved over four decades at a new exhibition in Australia

René Magritte is best known for his surrealist masterpieces such as The Son of Man (1964), who bend reality and subvert expectations. However, the Belgian artist experimented with different styles before ever painting his famous one green apples.

Now, the Art Gallery of New South Wales An exhibition dedicated to the varied and experimental career of the 20th century painter opens in Australia. In addition to surrealism, the show highlights Magritte’s attempts at cubism, futurism and impressionism over more than 40 years.

“His art has been contextualized in Surrealist retrospectives in recent decades, but the evolution of his art and the profound impact it had on the culture of the late 20th and even 21st centuries is not widely known,” Nicholas Chambersthe curator of the show, says the Guardian‘S Kelly Burke.

Titled “Magritte”, the exhibition features more than 100 works – including paintings, film and photography – from throughout the artist’s career. They are presented chronologically, starting with Magritte’s early works and following his artistic evolution.

The exhibition opens with a cubist self-portrait from 1923 that “would not be recognizable as a Magritte,” according to the newspaper. Australian Art Review‘s Rhonda Dredge. “We started very early,” Chambers told the publication. ‘I like the first thing you see. It’s not what you would expect. We wanted to tell the whole arc.”

‘Magritte’ is the largest collection of the artist’s paintings ever exhibited in Australia, with loans from major cities including New York, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Brussels and Belgium. The National Gallery of Australia and the National Gallery of Victoria have also contributed important works of art.

In one statement, Michael Brandthe director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, says of the exhibition “[shines] sheds light on some surprising aspects of [Magritte’s] artistic production, especially from the period in which the artist, working from occupied Belgium during and immediately after World War II, created some of the most intriguing and subversive paintings of his career.

In the 1940s the artist went through a two-year ‘Renoir period’. For example, A stroke of luck (1945), which depicts a pig in a suit staring directly at the viewer, is painted in an impressionist style.

“He believed that surrealism could not continue in the form it had been for decades, and that the war had presented artists with very real philosophical challenges,” Chambers tells us. Guardian.

The exhibition also features some of Magritte’s most celebrated works, such as the one from 1928 The lovers. The painting, created at a crucial time when Magritte was refining his surrealist vision, shows two figures trying to embrace each other, separated by fabric covering their faces.

“Everything we see hides something else; we always want to see what is hidden by what we see,” said Magritte ever said. “There is interest in what is hidden and what the visible does not show us. This interest can take the form of a quite intense feeling, a kind of conflict, one might say, between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present.”

Viewers can also see paintings filled with Magritte’s signature motifs – such as apples, pipes and bowler hats – which would have a major influence on contemporary art in the years that followed.

“Magritte was ahead of his time. He saw himself as a ‘painter of ideas,’ and his legacy extends far beyond the world of art,” Chambers said in the statement. “Today we find his work in various creative domains, from fiction and philosophy to film and advertising. We can imagine his delight at the ways in which his images continue to circulate and take on new meanings in the 21st century.”

“Magritte‘is on view at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Australia until February 9, 2025.