See How René Magritte’s Dreamlike Paintings Evolved Over Four Decades at a New Exhibition in Australia

René Magritte is best known for his Surrealist masterpieces like The Son of Man (1964), which bend reality and subvert expectations. However, the Belgian artist experimented with a variety of styles before he ever painted his famous green apples.

Now, the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Australia is kicking off an exhibition dedicated to the 20th-century painter’s diverse and experimental career. In addition to Surrealism, the show highlights Magritte’s attempts at Cubism, Futurism and Impressionism across more than 40 years.

“His art has been contextualized in Surrealist survey exhibitions in previous decades, but the evolution of his art and the profound impact that it’s had on late 20th- and even 21st-century culture is not widely known,” Nicholas Chambers, the show’s curator, tells 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 tracking his artistic evolution.

The show opens with a Cubist self-portrait created in 1923 that “would not be recognizable as a Magritte,” per the Australian Arts Review’s Rhonda Dredge. “We began very early,” Chambers tells the publication. “I do like the first thing you see. It’s not what you’d expect. We wanted to tell the whole arc.”

“Magritte” is the largest collection of the artist’s paintings ever displayed in Australia—with pieces on loan from major cities like New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Brussels and Belgium. The National Gallery of Australia and the National Gallery of Victoria have also contributed significant artworks.

In a statement, Michael Brand, the director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, says the exhibition “[shines] a light on some surprising aspects of [Magritte’s] artistic output, particularly from the period when the artist, working from occupied Belgium during and immediately after the Second World War, 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 the Impressionist style.

“He felt that surrealism couldn’t continue in the form that it had been in previous decades, that the war had presented very real philosophical challenges to artists,” Chambers tells the Guardian.

The exhibition also showcases some of Magritte's most celebrated works, such as 1928's The Lovers. Created during a pivotal time when Magritte was refining his Surrealist vision, the painting depicts two figures attempting to embrace, separated by fabric covering their faces.

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

Viewers can also see paintings full of Magritte’s signature motifs—like apples, pipes and bowler hats—that would become deeply influential to 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,” says Chambers in the statement. “Today we find his work echoed in diverse creative fields, from fiction and philosophy to cinema 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 through February 9, 2025.

Julia Binswanger | READ MORE

Julia Binswanger is a freelance arts and culture reporter based in Chicago. Her work has been featured in WBEZ, Chicago magazine, Rebellious magazine and PC magazine.