The Art Gallery has developed the exhibition with the close collaboration of the Magritte Foundation, Brussels, and in cooperation with the Menil Collection, Houston, which is home to the most comprehensive Magritte collection outside Europe. The exhibition also features loans from numerous public collections, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels; Musée d’Ixelles, Brussels; Kawamura DIC Museum of Art, Sakura; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; as well as works from numerous important private collections, many of which have never been seen outside Europe.
Magritte is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW’s Blockbusters Funding initiative and its tourism and major events agency, Destination NSW. The exhibition is presented as part of the Sydney International Art Series 2024–25 alongside the Art Gallery’s upcoming summer blockbuster Cao Fei: My City is Yours (opens 30 November).
Minister for the Arts, Music and the Night-time Economy, and Minister for Jobs and Tourism John Graham said: ‘René Magritte is one of the most recognised and influential artists of modern times. I’m pleased that art lovers will be able to enjoy his incredible work in Sydney this summer.
‘With Cao Fei, also at the Art Gallery, and Julie Mehretu at the MCA, the three exhibitions in the Sydney International Art Series 2024–25 program reflect our ambition to ensure Sydney is a global cultural hub where art and creativity is celebrated – a place where locals and visitors can experience the most exciting and cutting-edge cultural offerings from around Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and the world,’ said Minister Graham.
Art Gallery of New South Wales director Dr Michael Brand said: ‘Many years in the making and drawing upon our unsurpassed international network of collaborative partners, Magritte considers the towering artist’s innovative contributions to the broader surrealism movement, while also highlighting the uniqueness and individuality of his artistic vision.
‘Fundamental to this exhibition is our anticipation to share not only the well-known paintings you would expect to see in a Magritte retrospective but also to shine a light on some surprising aspects of his 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,’ said Brand.
Exhibition curator and Art Gallery of New South Wales senior curator of modern and contemporary international art Nicholas Chambers said: ‘Magritte was ahead of his time. He saw himself as a “painter of ideas” and his legacy extends far beyond the world of art. 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.’
The exhibition is accompanied by a beautiful publication that features reproductions of the works on display, as well as essays by curators and experts on surrealism that consider Magritte’s capacity for innovation and reinvention, the social and artistic context of his practice, and his remarkable use of the absurd. Contributors to the catalogue include Xavier Canonne, Nicholas Chambers, Natalie Dupêcher, Tai Spruyt and Julie Waseige.
Magritte is exclusively on show at the Art Gallery of New South Wales until 9 February 2025. A Gallery Pass providing entry to both Magritte and Cao Fei exhibitions is available, as well as an Art Pass, which also grants entry to the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia’s Julie Mehretu: A Transcore of the Radical Imaginatory.
The Sydney International Art Series is a NSW Government initiative through its tourism and major events agency, Destination NSW, in collaboration with the Art Gallery of New South Wales and Museum of Contemporary Art Australia to bring the world’s most outstanding international artists and their works exclusively to Sydney.
Photos of the exhibition by Ben Apfelbaum
