Artists Who Define Surrealism
Surrealism began as a literary movement before it became one of the most influential currents in twentieth-century art.
Luis Buñuel
Un Chien Andalou, 1929
The film's notorious eye-slicing shot was done with a dead calf's eye. Buñuel wrote the whole thing in under a week.
Remedios Varo
Simpatía (La rabia del gato), 1955
Varo fled the Spanish Civil War, then occupied France, and settled in Mexico City for good.
Claude Cahun
Self-Portrait (As a Dandy), 1921-1922
Cahun and her partner made anti-Nazi propaganda on occupied Jersey. Arrested in 1944 and sentenced to death, though the sentence was never carried out.
Eileen Agar
Wandering Minstrel, 1932
The only British woman in the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition, the show that brought the movement to London.
Man Ray
Le Violon d'Ingres, 1924
The print sold for 12.4 million dollars in 2022, the most ever paid for a photograph at auction.
Wifredo Lam
The Jungle, 1942-1943
Born to a Chinese father and an Afro-Cuban mother, Lam brought Santería and African imagery into his painting.
Lee Miller
Portrait of Space, 1937
Shot in Egypt, a torn window screen frames the desert so the photograph looks like it's tearing through itself.
Gertrude Abercrombie
Where or When (Things Past), 1948
The queen of Chicago's bohemian scene, and a close friend of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker.
Ithell Colquhoun
Scylla, 1938
Painted from her own reflection in the bath. The British Surrealist Group expelled her in 1940 when she refused to give up the occult.
Kay Sage
The Instant, 1949
An Italian princess by marriage before she painted. Tanguy said he couldn't tell if the artist was a man or a woman, only that the work was good.
Jacqueline Lamba
Drawing for Life, 1942
She worked as an underwater dancer in a Paris revue before she met Breton. Giacometti was best man at their wedding.
Léonor Fini
Two Women, 1939
Disguised as a boy for the first seven years of her life, so her father couldn't kidnap her.
René Magritte
Son of Man, 1964
Magritte said the apple hides the face the way everything we see hides something else we want to see.
Half of Surrealism's names never made it into the textbooks.
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Image credits:
Un Chien Andalou. Film still, 1929, via Creative Commons
Simpatía (La rabia del gato). Remedios Varo, courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
Self-Portrait (As a Dandy). The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Thomas Walther Collection
Wandering Minstrel. Christie's
Le Violon d'Ingres. Man Ray, courtesy of Christie's
The Jungle. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo: Kent Baldner, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Portrait of Space. © Lee Miller Archives
Where or When (Things Past). Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, gift of the Gertrude Abercrombie Trust
Scylla. Tate
The Instant. Kay Sage
Drawing for Life. © DACS Images, London/ADAGP
Two Women. © ARS, New York / ADAGP, Paris
