René Magritte was born on November 21, 1898 in Lessines, Belgium, into a very modest family. From 1916 to 1918, he studied painting at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels and then worked as a graphic designer.

Around 1920, he discovered cubism and futurism, then surrealism, more particularly through the work of Giorgio de Chirico. He exhibited for the first time in Brussels in 1920. Arriving in Paris in 1927, Magritte met André Breton, Max Ernst, Salvador Dalí and Paul Eluard.

There are two periods to be highlighted in Magritte’s work: the “Renoir” period around 1943-1944, so named because he used the technique of the Impressionists, and the “cow” period (1948), during which Magritte provoked art critics by producing canvases in garish colours. Along with his contemporary and fellow citizen, Paul Delvaux, René Magritte is undoubtedly the most important representative of the Belgian surrealist movement.

Throughout his life, the painter collaborated with several art magazines and published theoretical works.

Magritte died on August 15, 1967 in Brussels.

René Magritte created more than a thousand works: canvases, collages, etchings, lithographs, gouaches.

The most important are : Le jockey perdu (1926), Les Amants (1928), Faux miroir (1928), La trahison des images ou Ceci n’est pas une pipe (1929), Le libérateur (1947), L’empire des lumières (1950-1954), La fée ignorante (1957), La grande famille (1963), L’homme au chapeau melon (1964).