The surrealism of Magritte
Anne Umland, the curator of "The Mystery of the Ordinary," an exhibition of Magritte's work at New York's Museum of Modern Art, told CBS News the artist demands his audience to be "active" viewers.
"He's always saying, 'A picture is just a picture, and image is not the same as the thing itself. Question what you see.'"
Left: "Les Amants (The Lovers)," 1928, by Rene Magritte.
By CBSNews.com senior producer David Morgan
Magritte was born in Lessines, a small town in Belgium, in 1898. Not much is known about his childhood. His father was a textile merchant. And when Magritte was 13, his mother committed suicide.
Umland told CBS News' Serena Altschul that what probably had even greater impact on Magritte than his mother's death was being locked in a room with the depressed woman in the years prior. "Look at the type of spaces Magritte is depicting, and think about how claustrophobic they are," she said.
Magritte studied art from a young age, perhaps to escape the harsh reality around him. He was trained in both commercial and fine art. In 1929, like many artists at the time, he decided to move to Paris. Umland said he went there specifically to become part of the conversation emerging at that time among poets and painters, "particularly poets and painters brought together, united, under the banner of Surrealism."
The Museum of Modern Art's exhibition, "The Mystery of the Ordinary," is the first major showing of Magritte's work in the U.S. in two decades, and covers works from 1926 to 1938, which curator Anne Umland says was a vital time for the artist.
"When you look at the works that he created in this moment, it's a time when he makes quantitatively and conceptually more works in more modes, more varieties than he ever had before," she told Altschul. "So it is this period when Magritte becomes Magritte."
He was, like his paintings, a paradox. He was very much part of the Surrealists, but there was none of the artistic bohemia about him. He often painted in a suit, and was married to the same woman, Georgette, for 45 years.
Left: Rene Magritte, photographed in London with "Le Barbare (The Barbarian)," 1938.
For more info:
Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary 1926-1938 - At The Museum of Modern Art (through January 12, 2014); the exhibit will continue to The Menil Collection in Houston (Feb. 14-June 1, 2014), and The Art Institute of Chicago (June 22-Oct. 12, 2014)
"Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926-1938" (Exhibition Catalog) - Edited by Anne Umland, with essays by Stephanie D'Alessandro, Michel Draguet, Claude Goormans and Josef Helfenstein (MoMAStore)
By CBSNews.com senior producer David Morgan