In September 1927, Magritte moved to Paris to meet the Surrealist group in France. Under their influence, he created his most original works, including so-called “pictures of words”, such as pipes, not pipes. (I’m amazed at what the air of Paris once was doing.) Still, Magritte remained a nasty intruder among Surrealists. The arrogant poet André Breton, who was the leader of the movement, bought some of Magritte’s works for his collection, but ridiculed him as a French-speaking herd with Walloon accents. Breton made little mention of him in his extensive writings.
Danchev talks about the quarrel that took place during a small party at Breton’s house in 1929. Showing off his contempt for Catholicism, Breton asked Georgette Magritte why she was wearing the cross. He suggested she get rid of it. She and Magritte left the party in a fuss and soon left Paris completely.
“It can be said that Magritt’s artistic biography ended when he left Paris in 1930,” critic Susie Gabrik wrote in an eloquent monograph about the artist, the first book published in English. (1970). Originally from New Yorker, Gabrik lived in Magritte’s attic for eight months from 1959, studying her books and hinting at the charm he conducted among a new generation of Americans.
Indeed, Rrose Sélavy had something to do with Magritte’s new excellence in the United States. Influential Dadaist, self-proclaimed former Frenchman and former painter who lived in Greenwich Village at the time, Duchan praised Magritte’s philosophical winding collector in his direction. Magritte was also praised by various young artists who were exploring the melancholy of the mundane, such as Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol. All of these artists got Magritte’s work in the early 1960s.
In 1965, Magritte, who won a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, flew to New York for the opening. He was accompanied by his wife and their dog, Loulou, a fluffy Pomeranian. During his stay, he was introduced to major artists and critics, but Magritte did not speak English and seemed uninterested in the people he met. He didn’t love the avant-garde of New York in the 1960s more than the avant-garde of France in the 20s.
He died of pancreatic cancer in 1967, just two years later, at the age of 69. Since then, his reputation has grown exponentially, and his image has been absorbed in honor of high culture and popular culture. He is probably the only artist to appeal to a post-modernist who is obsessed with languages and rock’n’roller failures that are obsessed with hallucinogenic visions. He himself would undoubtedly be indifferent to the news, but the rest of us were at least a little impressed by Paul McCartney’s quote of the picture of Magritte from the green apple as the origin of the Beatles’ Apple Corps name. There must be.
