René François Ghislain Magritte, born on 21 November was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images. His work challenges observers’ preconditioned perceptions of reality. One of the most renowned and popular artists of the 20th century,starting November 9, 2011& untill Feb 2012, the Albertina presents an exhibition of René Magritte. A selection of more than 150 works from around the world cover every creative phase of the artist, retracing Magritte’s artistic career.

Conceived in collaboration with the Tate Liverpool, the exhibition addresses hitherto little-explored aspects of Magritte’s life and artistic activity. It focused on his use of patterns and recurring objects, the subject of covering and unveiling, visual breaks and eroticism in his oeuvre. On the basis of Magritte’s most important works and early commercial pieces, the exhibition examines the connection between the artist’s paintings and his work for the advertising industry as well as the influence of pop culture.

Magritte’s earliest paintings, which date from about 1915, were Impressionistic in style.[2] From 1916 to 1918, he studied at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels.The paintings he produced during the years 1918–1924 were influenced by Futurism and by the offshoot of Cubism. His work was exhibited in the United States in New York in 1936 and again in that city in two retrospective exhibitions, one at the Museum of Modern Art in 1965, and the other at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1992.

“It is a union that suggests the essential mystery of the world. Art for me is not an end in itself, but a means of evoking that mystery. ”  

– René Magritte –

Magritte died of pancreatic cancer on 15 August 1967 in his own bed, aged 68, and was interred in Schaerbeek Cemetery, Evere, Brussels. There was made a permanent museum dedicated to him and the Magritte Museum opened to the public on 30 May 2009 in Brussels.

Posted by : Amal Kiran Jana from Vienna, Austria at 04:15PM