50 Fun Facts About Rene Magritte

In which country was René Magritte born?

He was born in Lessines, Hainaut, and spent most of his career in Brussels.

What does the French caption of The Treachery of Images say?

Magritte's defence: just try to fill it with tobacco.

What hides the face of the bowler-hatted man in The Son of Man?

It is a self-portrait; his left arm appears to bend backwards at the elbow.

In which US city is The Treachery of Images displayed?

Breton and Éluard joked 'Poetry is a pipe' in La Révolution surréaliste in 1929.

What hat do the identical falling men wear in Golconda?

Photographs of WWI parachutists inspired the 1953 lattice of floating men.

Which Houston institution owns Golconda?

John and Dominique de Menil funded the five-volume Magritte catalogue raisonné.

What is paradoxical about the scenes in The Empire of Light series?

He made 27 versions, 17 in oil and 10 in gouache, never planned as a formal series.

How many versions of The Empire of Light did Magritte make?

They have never all been shown together.

What covers the faces of the kissing couple in The Lovers (1928)?

Some link it to his mother's drowned body found with her dress over her face.

Which river did Magritte's mother drown herself in, in 1912?

Her body was found 16 days later; the story that the boy saw it retrieved has been discredited.

Which de Chirico painting moved Magritte to tears in 1922?

He said 'my eyes saw thought for the first time'.

What was Magritte's first surreal painting, made in 1926?

A contract with Galerie Le Centaure let him paint full-time that year.

Where did Magritte work as a draughtsman in 1922–23?

He designed posters and ads until 1926.

Whom did Magritte marry in 1922, having first met her as a child in 1913?

A butcher's daughter from Charleroi, she became his model and muse.

After a failed 1927 Brussels show, Magritte moved where to join the Surrealists?

He befriended André Breton and stayed three years.

With which two artists was Magritte put under contract at Goemans Gallery in 1929?

Galerie Le Centaure closed the same year, ending his income.

What was the title of Magritte's 1929 essay in La Révolution surréaliste?

It appeared in the last issue, No. 12, playing words against images.

Which political movement did Magritte join in 1932, leaving and rejoining over the years?

He still wanted 'mental luxury' for workers, not just bread and water.

Which playwright arranged a monthly stipend for Magritte in the early 1930s?

Between 1930 and 1932 Magritte sold no work at all.

Under what pseudonym did Magritte draw film posters for Tobis Klangfilm in 1934–37?

Seven of the posters survive in the Leuven City Archive.

Which British patron let Magritte stay rent-free in his London home?

He appears in The Pleasure Principle and Not to Be Reproduced, both 1937.

What bursts from a fireplace in Time Transfixed?

Magritte wanted it hung where the train would 'stab' guests climbing to the ballroom.

Which US city's Art Institute bought Time Transfixed from its first owner in 1970?

James was raising money for his Las Pozas sculpture garden in Mexico.

What does the French title La durée poignardée literally mean?

Magritte disliked the accepted English title Time Transfixed.

What is Magritte's colourful 1943–44 wartime interlude called?

It was a reaction to alienation under German occupation; the crude Fauve 'Vache' phase came in 1947–48.

What did Magritte forge to get by in the lean postwar years, besides fake Picassos?

Belgium later put him on a real 500-franc note for his centenary.

Which 1946 manifesto did Magritte sign, renouncing violence and pessimism?

His 'Vache period' of crude Fauve-style painting followed in 1947–48.

Whose Portrait of Madame Récamier did Magritte remake with a coffin in Perspective I?

Perspective II does the same to Manet's The Balcony.

Which recurring object in The Human Condition lets Magritte question representation?

The canvas shows exactly the view it hides, eliminating inside and outside.

Which Beatles company logo of 1968 was inspired by Magritte's Le Jeu de Mourre?

The 1966 painting shows a large green apple.

Which singer's 1983 album Hearts and Bones has a song about Rene and Georgette?

It was inspired by a Lothar Wolleh photograph of the couple.

Which 1973 horror film's poster shot was inspired by The Empire of Light?

Jackson Browne's Late for the Sky cover also borrows from the series.

In which 1999 heist film does The Son of Man feature in the plot?

Bowler-hatted decoys swarm the museum in the finale.

Which Tom Stoppard play of 1970 takes its title from the painter?

Douglas Hofstadter also used Magritte images throughout Gödel, Escher, Bach.

On which Brussels square is the Magritte Museum, opened in 2009?

The Hotel Altenloh holds some 200 works, mostly from his widow's collection.

Which Magritte nude of his wife was stolen at gunpoint from his former home in 2009?

Thieves gave it back in 2012 for 50,000 euros because it was too famous to sell.

At what address did Magritte live from 1930 to 1954, later turned into a house museum?

It sits in Jette, Brussels; the house is distinct from the Place Royale museum.

What killed Magritte in August 1967?

He was 68 and is buried in Schaerbeek Cemetery.

Which denomination of banknote celebrated Magritte's centenary?

An irony, given his own postwar forgeries; it was the last series before the euro.

What surrealist street name exists in Brussels in Magritte's honour?

'This is not a street' borrows the pipe's logic.

Which trade did Magritte's father Léopold follow?

His mother Régina had been a milliner before marrying.

Which performance artist's 1936 affair with Magritte nearly wrecked his marriage?

Georgette then had her own affair with the friend sent to distract her, Paul Colinet.

What instrument does the well-dressed killer listen to in The Menaced Assassin?

Two men with club and net wait in the foyer; the 1927 picture is in MoMA.

Where was Magritte's first US solo exhibition held in 1936?

A London Gallery show followed in 1938.

Which symbolist's The Blind House is cited as a source for The Empire of Light?

Grimshaw's Victorian sunsets and Caspar David Friedrich are also mentioned.

Which New York institution owns the first version of The Lovers?

The Lovers II is in the National Gallery of Australia.

Which Magritte painting shares its name with a 1979 Gary Numan album?

Edward James is depicted in the 1937 original.

Where did Magritte rank in the 2005 Walloon vote for the nation's greatest figure?

In the Flemish version he placed 18th.

Which 1964 variation shows only the torso of The Son of Man's figure?

The Great War on Facades swaps in a woman with flowers over her face.

Which 'surrogate son' sold Magritte's forged Picassos and fake money?

The scheme ran alongside his brother Paul.