René Magritte: The Fifth Season

The green apple. The bowler hat. The pipe. If you think you know Magritte (1898–1967), think again. A provocateur in a suit and tie and one of the most intriguing painters associated with Surrealism, Magritte didn’t fully find his voice until he broke ties with the movement. Explore his surprising late-career experimentation, from the 1940s to the 1960s, through more than 70 mesmerizing artworks, many gathered together for the first time. Discover how his potent and powerful motifs continue to ripple across art, commerce, and popular culture.

René Magritte (1898–1967) was one of the most intriguing painters associated with Surrealism, but he did not fully find his voice until after breaking ties with the movement. This exhibition, the first to look exclusively at Magritte’s late career, examines his most important bodies of work from the 1940s through the 1960s, and shows how they marked a fundamental shift in painting from Modernism to our own time.

Featuring more than 70 artworks in nine immersive, thematic galleries, René Magritte: The Fifth Season explores how Magritte balanced irony and conviction, philosophy and fantasy, to illuminate the gaps between what we see and what we know. Together, the works reveal Magritte as an artist acutely attuned to the paradoxes at work within reality, and an enduring champion of the role of mystery in life and art.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.    

René Magritte,(Belgian, 1898 - 1967) Empire of Light (L'empire des lumières),1953-54; Oil on canvas, 76 15/16 x 51 5/8 inches (195.4 x 131.2 cm). The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, 1976. © 2018 C. Herscovici, London/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York