Rene Magritte – Surrealist Painter.

Rene Francois Ghislain Magritte was born in Lessines, Belgium, on the 21st of November 1898. He was the eldest child of Regina (nee Bertinchamps) a milliner, and Leopold Magritte, who was a textile merchant and tailor. Little is known about Magritte’s early life but it is known it was beset by tragedy. His mother, Regina had suffered with mental health problems for many years and had attempted suicide on a number of occasions - at one stage her husband, Leopold, in a attempt to stop her from self harming, locked her in the bedroom of the family home. However, Regina eventually succeeded in taking her own life on March 12th 1912 when she threw herself in the River Sambre. Legend has it that young Rene was present when his mother’s body was retrieved from the river but this has since been discredited and attributed to a rumour spread by the family nurse. Rumour also has it that when Regina was found in the river her dress was covering her face and many attribute this as the source for many of the paintings created by Magritte in 1927-1928 which depict people with cloth obscuring their faces. Les Amants is an example of this.

Magritte met Georgette Berger in 1913 and married her in 1922. He served in the Belgian Infantry in Beverlo, a Flemish town close to Leopoldburg from December 1920 to September 1921. After this he worked at a wall paper factory as a draughtsman and poster and advertisement designer. It wasn’t until 1926, when a contract with Galerie le Centaure in Brussels, made it possible for him to take up painting full time. Magritte produced his first surrealist painting, Le Jockey Perdu, in 1927, the same year as he held his first public exhibition in Brussels. The critics were extremely harsh on the exhibition and feeling down heartened by the reviews, Magritte moved to Paris where he met Andre Breton. It was through Breton he became involved with the Surrealist group. For a short time, Edward James, the Surrealist Patron allowed Magritte to stay in his London home and paint whilst living there rent free. Magritte featured James in two of his works from the time, La Reproduction Interdite (also known as Not to be Reproduced), and Le Principe du Plaisir (The Pleasure of Principle).

In 1929 Magritte’s contract with Galerie la Centaure came to an end. With no income and having made little impact in Paris, Magritte returned to Brussels in 1930 and again took up employment in advertising. With his brother Paul, he formed an agency and this brought in enough income to live on.

During the World War II German occupation of Belgium, Magritte remained in Brussels away from the influences of Breton. As a reaction to the sense of abandonment and alienation of living in German occupied Belgium, Magritte adopted a painterly colourful style, a break which became known, as his Renoir Period. In 1946 he renounced the pessimism and violence of his earlier works. Together with other artists he signed the manifesto, Surrealism in Full Sunlight. Between 1947-1948, Magritte’s ‘Vache Period” - he painted in a crude and provocative Fauve style. He supported himself financially by reproducing fake copies of Chircos, Braques and Picassos. During the lean post-war period he was to expand his fraudulent practices in the production of forged banknotes along with his brother, Paul and his ‘surrogate son’. Marcel Marien. It was Marcel’s task to sell the forgeries. Magritte returned to the old theme and style of his pre-war surrealistic art at the end of 1948.

Magritte’s work was exhibited in New York in the United States in 1936 and again in that city in two retrospective exhibitions, one at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1992 and the other at the Museum of Modern Art in 1965. On the 15th of August 1967 Magritte died at home in his bed from pancreatic cancer. He is interred in Schaerbeek Cemetery, Evere, Brussels. Since his death the popularity of Magritte’s works has seen a rebirth and his imagery has influenced conceptual art, minimalist art and pop art.

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