René Magritte Graphics at Pasquale Iannetti Art Galleries

Written by David Shope Thursday, 21 April 2011 22:12

San Francisco, CA - Pasquale Iannetti Art Galleries, Inc. is pleased to announce our major exhibition, René Magritte – The “Art” of Living: An Exhibition of his Graphic Works.  The Surrealist artist René Magritte created a limited number of prints due to the fact that he began printmaking eight years before his death in 1967.  Magritte’s graphic works can be divided into three distinct categories: The first are works conceived by Magritte and drawn on the plate by the artist’s own hand.  The second consists of works drawn on the plate with the help of the master printmaker George Visat, from an original composition submitted by Magritte exclusively for this purpose.

Most of the etchings in the second category were published posthumously and stamped with a facsimile of the artist’s signature.  The third category is lithographs after oil paintings, gouaches or murals by the artist. Prints from this final category were all executed posthumously by the printer Fernand Mourlot.

The exhibition “The ‘Art’ of Living” consists of 24 graphic works, including four impressions hand signed by Magritte, eight impressions with a facsimile of the artist’s signature, and twelve works from the portfolio “Les Enfants Trouvés.” Four of the twelve lithographs were created by Magritte specifically for this project and the rest were after the murals at the Municipal Casino in Knokke-le-Zoute, Belgium.  These lithographs were published with the approval of the artist’s wife, Georgette Magritte, and in collaboration with the printer Fernand Mourlot, who initialed each print.

Magritte’s graphic works, although small in number, are rendered with close attention to detail, a focus on enigmatic compositions, and are consistent with the Surrealist vision that permeates his oeuvre.

Magritte used visual tricks in a painting of an apple: he painted the fruit realistically and then used an internal caption or framing device to deny that the item was an apple.  In these Ceci n'est pas works, Magritte seems to suggest that no matter how closely, through realism-art, we come to depicting an item accurately, we never do catch the item itself, per se, as a Kantian noumenon, but capture only an image on the canvas.

His art shows a more representational style of surrealism compared to the "automatic" style seen in works by artists like Joan Miró. In addition to fantastic elements, his work is often witty and amusing.  He also created a number of surrealist versions of other famous paintings.

René Magritte described his paintings by saying,

My painting is visible images which conceal nothing; they evoke mystery and, indeed, when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question, 'What does that mean?'. It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable.

Visit Pasquale Iannetti Art Galleries, Inc. - 531 Sutter Street - San Francisco, CA. 94102 - www.pasqualeart.com/magritte