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Now you know a little more about surrealism, what do you think?

Which surrealist artist is your favourite?

What unexpected things would you put together? How about drawing a tree wearing a scarf or a squirrel with a monocle?!

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What is Surrealism? Find out with this art film, includes homework help and facts for kids about Salvador Dali, Joan Miro and Dorothea Tanning.

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Tate glossary definition for surrealism: Movement, which began in the 1920s, of writers and artists who experimented with ways of unleashing the subconscious imagination

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The Art Story - Surrealism Movement Overview

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The Art Story - Surrealism Movement Overview

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Summary of Surrealism

The Surrealists sought to channel the unconscious as a means to unlock the power of the imagination. Disdaining rationalism and literary realism, and powerfully influenced by psychoanalysis, the Surrealists believed the rational mind repressed the power of the imagination, weighing it down with taboos. Influenced also by Karl Marx, they hoped that the psyche had the power to reveal the contradictions in the everyday world and spur on revolution. Their emphasis on the power of personal imagination puts them in the tradition of Romanticism, but unlike their forebears, they believed that revelations could be found on the street and in everyday life. The Surrealist impulse to tap the unconscious mind, and their interests in myth and primitivism, went on to shape many later movements, and the style remains influential to this today.

Key Ideas & Accomplishments

André Breton defined Surrealism as "psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express - verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner - the actual functioning of thought." What Breton is proposing is that artists bypass reason and rationality by accessing their unconscious mind. In practice, these techniques became known as automatism or automatic writing, which allowed artists to forgo conscious thought and embrace chance when creating art.

The work of Sigmund Freud was profoundly influential for Surrealists, particularly his book, The Interpretation of Dreams (1899). Freud legitimized the importance of dreams and the unconscious as valid revelations of human emotion and desires; his exposure of the complex and repressed inner worlds of sexuality, desire, and violence provided a theoretical basis for much of Surrealism.

Surrealist imagery is probably the most recognizable element of the movement, yet it is also the most elusive to categorize and define. Each artist relied on their own recurring motifs arisen through their dreams or/and unconscious mind. At its basic, the imagery is outlandish, perplexing, and even uncanny, as it is meant to jolt the viewer out of their comforting assumptions. Nature, however, is the most frequent imagery: Max Ernst was obsessed with birds and had a bird alter ego, Salvador Dalí's works often include ants or eggs, and Joan Miró relied strongly on vague biomorphic imagery.

Overview of Surrealism

Building upon the anti-rationalism of Dada, the Surrealists made powerful art and offered a new direction for exploration, as Max Ernst said: "creativity is that marvelous capacity to grasp mutually distinct realities and draw a spark from their juxtaposition."

Artworks and Artists of Surrealism

Carnival of Harlequin (1924-25)

Artist: Joan Miró

Miró created elaborate, fantastical spaces in his paintings that are an excellent example of Surrealism in their reliance on dream-like imagery and their use of biomorphism. Biomorphic shapes are those that resemble organic beings but that are hard to identify as any specific thing; the shapes seem to self-generate, morph, and dance on the canvas. While there is the suggestion of a believable three-dimensional space in Carnaval d'Arlequin, the playful shapes are arranged with an all-over quality that is common to many of Miró's works during his Surrealist period, and that would eventually lead him to further abstraction. Miró was especially known for his use of automatic writing techniques in the creation of his works, particularly doodling or automatic drawing, which is how he began many of his canvases. He is best known for his works such as this that depict chaotic yet lighthearted interior scenes, taking his influence from Dutch 17 th-century interiors.

Oil on canvas - Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

The Human Condition (1933)

Artist: René Magritte

The iconic and enigmatic René Magritte's works tend to be intellectual, often dealing with visual puns and the relation between the representation of something and the thing itself. In The Human Condition a canvas sits on an easel before a curtained window and reproduces exactly the scene outside the window that would be behind the canvas, thus the image on the easel in a sense becomes the scene, not just a reproduction of the landscape. There is in effect no difference between the two as both are fabrications of the artist. The hyperrealist painting style often used by Surrealists makes the odd setup seem dreamlike.

Oil on canvas - Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Mama, Papa is Wounded! (1927)

Artist: Yves Tanguy

The most pivotal moment for Tanguy in his decision to become a painter was his sighting of a canvas by Giorgio de Chirico in a shop window in 1923. The next year, Tanguy, the poet Jacques Prévert, and the actor and screenwriter Marcel Duhamel moved into a house that was to become a gathering place for the Surrealists, a movement he became interested in after reading the periodical La Révolution surréaliste. André Breton welcomed him into the group in 1925. Tanguy was inspired by the biomorphic forms of Jean Arp, Ernst, and Miró, quickly developing his own vocabulary of amoeba-like shapes that populate arid, mysterious settings, no doubt influenced by his youthful travels to Argentina, Brazil, and Tunisia. Despite his lack of formal training, Tanguy's mature style emerged by 1927, characterized by deserted landscapes littered with fantastical rocklike objects painted with a precise illusionism. The works usually have an overcast sky with a view thatseems to stretch endlessly.

Mama, Papa is Wounded depicts Tanguy's most common subject matter of war. The work is painted in a hyperrealist style with his distinctive limited color palette, both of which create a sense of dream-like reality. Tanguy often found the titles of works while looking through psychiatric case histories for compelling statements by patients. Given that, it is difficult to know if this work is relevant to his own family history as he claimed to have imagined the painting in its entirety before he began it. His brother was killed in World War I and the bleakness of the landscape may refer generally to losses suffered in the war by thousands of French families. De Chirico's influence on Tanguy's work is obvious here in his use of falling shadows and a classical torso in the landscape.

Oil on Canvas - The Museum of Modern Art, New York

The Accommodations of Desire (1929)

Artist: Salvador Dalí

Painted in the summer of 1929 just after Dalí went to Paris for his first Surrealist exhibition, The Accommodations of Desire is a prime example of Dalí's ability to render his vivid and bizarre dreams with seemingly journalistic accuracy. He developed the paranoid-critical method, which involved systematic irrational thought and self-induced paranoia as a way to access his unconscious. He referred to the resulting works as "hand-painted dream photographs" because of their realism coupled with their eerie dream quality. The narrative of this work stems from Dalí's anxieties over his affair with Gala Eluard, wife of artist Paul Eluard. The lumpish white "pebbles" depict his insecurities about his future with Gala, circling around the concepts of terror and decay. While The Accommodations of Desire is an exposé of Dalí's deepest fears, it combines his typical hyper-realistic painting style with more experimental collage techniques. The lion heads are glued onto the canvas, and are believed to have been cut from a children's book.

Oil and cut-and-pasted printed paper on canvas - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Battle of Fishes (1926)

Artist: André Masson

Masson was one of the most enthusiastic followers of Breton's automatic writing, having begun his own independent experiments in the early 1920s. He would often produce art under exacting conditions, using drugs, going without sleep, or sustenance in order to relax conscious control of his art making so that he could access his unconscious. Masson, along with his neighbors Joan Miró, Antonin Artuad, and others would sometimes experiment together. He is best known for his use of sand. In an effort to introduce chance into his works, he would throw glue or gesso onto a canvas and then sand. His oil paintings were made based on the resulting shapes.

Battle of the Fishes perhaps references his experiences in WWI. He signed up to fight and after three years, was seriously injured, taking months to recover in an army hospital and spending time in a psychiatric facility. He was unable for many years to speak of the things he witnessed as a soldier, but his art consistently depicts massacres, bizarre confrontations, rape, and dismemberment. Masson himself observed that male figures in his art rarely escape unharmed. Battle of Fishes has subdued color, but the fish seem involved in a vicious battle to the death with their razor-like teeth and spilled blood. Masson believed that the use of chance in art would reveal the sadism of all creatures - an idea that he could only reveal in his art.

Oil on canvas - The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Object (1936)

Artist: Meret Oppenheim

Oppenheim was one of the few women Surrealists whose work was exhibited with the group. Like Giacometti she worked primarily with objects. This work, also known under the title Luncheon in Fur, with its unsettling juxtaposition of a domestic object and animality, is a quintessential example of Surrealist ideas. The artist makes strange a teacup, saucer, and spoon purchased at typical department store - objects that were familiar are made disturbingly off-putting as the viewer must imagine drinking tea from a fur-covered cup.

Fur-covered cup, saucer, and spoon - The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Beginnings of Surrealism

Surrealism grew out of the Dada movement, which was also in rebellion against middle-class complacency. Artistic influences, however, came from many different sources. The most immediate influence for several of the Surrealists was Giorgio de Chirico, their contemporary who, like them, used bizarre imagery with unsettling juxtapositions (and his Metaphysical Painting movement). They were also drawn to artists from the recent past who were interested in primitivism, the naive, or fantastical imagery, such as Gustave Moreau, Arnold Bocklin, Odilon Redon, and Henri Rousseau. Even artists from as far back as the Renaissance, such as Giuseppe Arcimboldo and Hieronymous Bosch, provided inspiration in so far as these artists were not overly concerned with aesthetic issues involving line and color, but instead felt compelled to create what Surrealists thought of as the "real."

The Surrealist movement began as a literary group strongly allied to Dada, emerging in the wake of the collapse of Dada in Paris, when André Breton's eagerness to bring purpose to Dada clashed with Tristan Tzara's anti-authoritarianism. Breton, who is occasionally described as the 'Pope' of Surrealism, officially founded the movement in 1924 when he wrote "The Surrealist Manifesto." However, the term "surrealism," was first coined in 1917 by Guillaume Apollinaire when he used it in program notes for the ballet Parade, written by Pablo Picasso, Leonide Massine, Jean Cocteau, and Erik Satie.

Around the same time that Breton published his inaugural manifesto, the group began publishing the journal La Révolution surréaliste, which was largely focused on writing, but also included art reproductions by artists such as de Chirico, Ernst, André Masson, and Man Ray. Publication continued until 1929.

The Bureau for Surrealist Research or Centrale Surréaliste was also established in Paris in 1924. This was a loosely affiliated group of writers and artists who met and conducted interviews to "gather all the information possible related to forms that might express the unconscious activity of the mind." Headed by Breton, the Bureau created a dual archive: one that collected dream imagery and one that collected material related to social life. At least two people manned the office each day - one to greet visitors and the other to write down the observations and comments of the visitors that then became part of the archive. In January of 1925, the Bureau officially published its revolutionary intent that was signed by 27 people, including Breton, Ernst, and Masson.

Surrealism: Concepts, Styles, and Trends

Surrealism shared much of the anti-rationalism of Dada, the movement out of which it grew. The original Parisian Surrealists used art as a reprieve from violent political situations and to address the unease they felt about the world's uncertainties. By employing fantasy and dream imagery, artists generated creative works in a variety of media that exposed their inner minds in eccentric, symbolic ways, uncovering anxieties and treating them analytically through visual means.

Surrealist Paintings

There were two styles or methods that distinguished Surrealist painting. Artists such as Salvador Dalí, Yves Tanguy, and René Magritte painted in a hyper-realistic style in which objects were depicted in crisp detail and with the illusion of three-dimensionality, emphasizing their dream-like quality. The color in these works was often either saturated (Dalí) or monochromatic (Tanguy), both choices conveying a dream state.

Several Surrealists also relied heavily on automatism or automatic writing as a way to tap into the unconscious mind. Artists such as Joan Miró and Max Ernst used various techniques to create unlikely and often outlandish imagery including collage, doodling, frottage, decalcomania, and grattage. Artists such as Hans Arp also created collages as stand-alone works.

Hyperrealism and automatism were not mutually exclusive. Miro, for example, often used both methods in one work. In either case, however the subject matter was arrived at or depicted, it was always bizarre - meant to disturb and baffle.

Surrealist Objects and Sculptures

Breton felt that the object had been in a state of crisis since the early-19 th century and thought this impasse could be overcome if the object in all its strangeness could be seen as if for the first time. The strategy was not to make Surreal objects for the sake of shocking the middle class a la Dada but to make objects "surreal" by what he called dépayesment or estrangement. The goal was the displacement of the object, removing it from its expected context, "defamilarizing" it. Once the object was removed from its normal circumstances, it could be seen without the mask of its cultural context. These incongruous combinations of objects were also thought to reveal the fraught sexual and psychological forces hidden beneath the surface of reality.

A limited number of Surrealists are known for their three-dimensional work. Arp, who began as part of the Dada movement, was known for his biomorphic objects. Oppenheim's pieces were bizarre combinations that removed familiar objects from their everyday context, while Giacometti's were more traditional sculptural forms, many of which were human-insect hybrid figures. Dalí, less known for his 3D work, did produce some interesting installations, particularly, Rainy Taxi (1938), which was an automobile with mannequins and a series of pipes that created "rain" in the car's interior.

Surrealist Sculpture - Movement Page

Surrealist Photography

Photography, because of the ease with which it allowed artists to produce uncanny imagery, occupied a central role in Surrealism. Artists such as Man Ray and Maurice Tabard used the medium to explore automatic writing, using techniques such as double exposure, combination printing, montage, and solarization, the latter of which eschewed the camera altogether. Other photographers used rotation or distortion to render bizarre images.

The Surrealists also appreciated the prosaic photograph removed from its mundane context and seen through the lens of Surrealist sensibility. Vernacular snapshots, police photographs, movie stills, and documentary photographs all were published in Surrealist journals like La Révolution surréaliste and Minotaure, totally disconnected from their original purposes. The Surrealists, for example, were enthusiastic about Eugène Atget's photographs of Paris. Published in 1926 in La Révolution surréaliste at the prompting of his neighbor, Man Ray, Atget's imagery of a quickly vanishing Paris was understood as impulsive visions. Atget's photographs of empty streets and shop windows recalled the Surrealist's own vision of Paris as a "dream capital."

Dada & Surrealist Photography - Movement Page

Surrealist Film

Surrealism was the first artistic movement to experiment with cinema in part because it offered more opportunity than theatre to create the bizarre or the unreal. The first film characterized as Surrealist was the 1924 Entr'acte, a 22-minute, silent film, written by Rene Clair and Francis Picabia, and directed by Clair. But, the most famous Surrealist filmmaker was of course Luis Buñuel. Working with Dalí, Buñuel made the classic films Un Chien Andalou (1929) and L'Age d'Or (1930), both of which were characterized by narrative disjunction and their peculiar, sometimes disturbing imagery. In the 1930s Joseph Cornell produced surrealist films in the United States, such as Rose Hobart (1936). Salvador Dalí designed a dream sequence for Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945).

The Rise and Decline of Surrealism

Though Surrealism originated in France, strains of it can be identified in art throughout the world. Particularly in the 1930s and 1940s, many artists were swept into its orbit as increasing political upheaval and a second global war encouraged fears that human civilization was in a state of crisis and collapse. The emigration of many Surrealists to the Americas during WWII spread their ideas further. Following the war, however, the group's ideas were challenged by the rise of Existentialism, which, while also celebrating individualism, was more rationally based than Surrealism. In the arts, the Abstract Expressionists incorporated Surrealist ideas and usurped their dominance by pioneering new techniques for representing the unconscious. Breton became increasingly interested in revolutionary political activism as the movement's primary goal. The result was the dispersal of the original movement into smaller factions of artists. The Bretonians, such as Roberto Matta, believed that art was inherently political. Others, like Yves Tanguy, Max Ernst, and Dorothea Tanning, remained in America to separate from Breton. Salvador Dalí, likewise, retreated to Spain, believing in the centrality of the individual in art.

Later Developments - After Surrealism

Abstract Expressionism

In 1936, the Museum of Modern Art in New York staged an exhibition entitled Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism, and many American artists were powerfully impressed by it. Some, such as Jackson Pollock, began to experiment with automatism, and with imagery that seemed to derive from the unconscious - experiments which would later lead to his "drip" paintings. Robert Motherwell, similarly, is said to have been "stuck between the two worlds" of abstraction and automatism.

Largely because of political upheaval in Europe, New York rather than Paris became the emergent center of a new vanguard, one that favored tapping the unconscious through abstraction as opposed to the "hand-painted dreams" of Salvador Dalí. Peggy Guggenheim's 1942 exhibition of Surrealist-influenced artists (Rothko, Gottlieb, Motherwell, Baziotes, Hoffman, Still, and Pollock) alongside European artists Miró, Klee, and Masson, underscores the speed with which Surrealist concepts spread through the New York art community.

Abstract Expressionism Movement Page

Feminism and Women Surrealists

The Surrealists have often been depicted as a tightly knit group of men, and their art often envisioned women as wild "others" to the cultured, rational world. Work by feminist art historians has since corrected this impression, not only highlighting the number of women Surrealists who were active in the group, particularly in the 1930s, but also analyzing the gender stereotypes at work in much Surrealist art. Feminist art critics, such as Dawn Ades, Mary Ann Caws, and Whitney Chadwick, have devoted several books and exhibitions to this subject.

While most of the male Surrealists, especially Man Ray, Magritte, and Dalí, repeatedly focused on and/or distorted the female form and depicted women as muses, much in the way that male artists had for centuries, female Surrealists such as Claude Cahun, Lee Miller, Leonora Carrington, and Dorothea Tanning, sought to address the problematic adoption of Freudian psychoanalysis that often cast women as monstrous and lesser. Thus, many female Surrealists experimented with cross-dressing and depicted themselves as animals or mythic creatures.

British Surrealism

Interestingly, many notable female Surrealists were British. Examples include Eileen Agar, Ithell Colquhoun, Edith Rimmington, and Emmy Bridgwater. Particular to the British interpretation of Surrealist ideology was an ongoing exploration of human relations with their surrounding natural environment and most prominently, with the sea. Alongside Agar, Paul Nash developed an interest in the object trouvé, usually in the form of items collected from the beach. The focus on the border where land meets the sea, and where rocks anthropomorphically resemble people struck a cord with British identity and more generally, with Surrealist principles of reconciling and uniting opposites.

The International Surrealist Exhibition (1936) held in London was a particular catalyst for many British artists. Headed by Roland Penrose and Herbert Read, the movement thrived in Britain, creating the international icons Leonora Carrington and Lee Miller, and also spurring on the practice of another important circle of artists surrounding Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth, and Henry Moore. Overall, the privileging of an eccentric imagination and essential rejection of standardized and rational modes of doing things resonated well from the outset. This golden period for art in general in the UK, and more specifically the legacies of British Surrealism continue to influence the country's art practice today.

Useful Resources on Surrealism

Similar Art

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The Surrealists unlocked images of the unconscious exploring worlds of sexuality, desire, and violence. Iconic art and ideas of Dali, Magritte, Oppenheim+

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International intellectual movement, which was centred mainly in Paris and occupied with the problems of thought and expression in all their forms. The Surrealists perceived a deep crisis in Western culture and responded with a revision of values at every level, inspired by the psychoanalytical discoveries of Freud and the political ideology of Marxism. In both poetry and the visual arts this revision was undertaken through the development of unconventional techniques, of which Automatism was paramount. The Parisian poets who formulated Surrealist theory and orientation were officially identified by André Breton's Manifeste du surréalisme (1924), the essay 'Une Vague de rêves' (October 1924) by Louis Aragon and the periodical La Révolution surréaliste, published two months later. Under Breton's guidance, the movement remained potent up to World War II, surviving until his death in 1966.

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International intellectual movement, which was centred mainly in Paris and occupied with the problems of thought and expression in all their forms. The Surrealists perceived a deep crisis in Western culture and responded with a revision of values at every level, inspired by the psychoanalytical discoveries of Freud and the political ideology of Marxism.

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Widewalls Magazine - 10 Famour Surrealist Artists You Must Know

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Widewalls Magazine - 10 Famour Surrealist Artists You Must Know

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10 Famous Surrealist Artists You Must Know | Widewalls

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Who were exactly the Surrealists? Artists in the surrealism movement channeled their dreams and the unconscious in order to unlock their imagination.

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Artland Magazine - Surrealism and Surrealist Artists

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Artland Magazine - Surrealism and Surrealist Artists

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By Shira Wolfe

Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory, 1931. Photo courtesy MoMA

"Surrealism is based on the belief in the omnipotence of dreams, in the undirected play of thought." - André Breton

In 1915, the young André Breton was already well versed in literature, contemporary art, anarchism and medicine. The First World War was raging in Europe and he was assigned as a nurse in a Nantes military hospital. The horrors of the war made a deep impression on Breton and he wrote his first poems there. He also met two men who were to become his mentors - Guillaume Apollinaire and Jacques Vache. Both had been admitted to the hospital due to war wounds. Apollinaire was a French Avant-Garde poet who had coined the word "surrealist" in his play, which was performed in 1917. However, it was André Breton who really defined surrealism as an artistic movement in his 1924 Surrealist Manifesto. To him, Surrealism was "psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern."

What is Surrealism?

Dalí's melting clock, Magritte's figures composed from clouds, Frida Kahlo's self-portrait as a hunted stag... These are just a few of the familiar images that come to mind when we speak of Surrealism. The art movement, which blossomed in the 1920s with André Breton at the helm, rejected the society's oppressive rationality. Instead, the movement's followers explored the irrational and the subconscious mind, which they deemed superior to oppressive rationality. Breton was also influenced by the psychoanalytical writings of Sigmund Freud. Freud posited that the unconscious mind (which expressed itself, for example, through dreams) was the source of creativity. Surrealist artists deployed automatic drawing or writing to unlock ideas from their subconscious, often depicting elements from their dreamscapes.

Key dates: 1924 - 1966
Key regions: Paris, New York
Key words: surrealist, subconscious, irrational, automatism, dreams
Key artists: André Breton, Salvador Dalí, André Masson, Rene Magritte, Joan Miró, Yves Tanguy, Max Ernst, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Meret Oppenheim, Jean Arp, Man Ray, Wifredo Lam

Man Ray, A l'Heure de l'Observatoire: les Amoureux, 1932-1934. Photo courtesy Art Basel

"Surrealism: Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern." - André Breton, Surrealist Manifesto

Famous Surrealist Artworks

Salvador Dalí's The Persistence of Memory (1931)

Arguably Dalí's most famous artwork, The Persistence of Memory portrays clocks, otherwise hard objects, becoming inexplicably limp and bendable. Here, time literally bends, and the creature draped across the centre of the canvas seems to be simultaneously melting, sleeping and dying. Dalí's "hand-painted dream photographs" present his absurd visions and dreams in an unbelievably tangible and realistic manner.

Rene Magritte's The Treachery of Images (1928)

Magritte's realistic painting of a simple wooden pipe has become one of the most iconic paintings of the Surrealist movement. Beneath the pipe is the inscription "Ceci n'est pas un pipe" (This is not a pipe). Magritte was inspired by metaphysical philosophy, offering the viewer a paradox. What can be seen is a pipe, but his words contradict this immediate understanding of the painting. If it is not a pipe, then what is it? Magritte inspires the viewer to think about the relationship between language and everyday objects, as well as art versus reality.

Joan Miró's The Hunter (Catalan Landscape) (1924)

Miró's The Hunter depicts a surrealist landscape inspired by Catalonia, where his family was from. The landscape is saturated with strange triangular shapes, orbs, and disembodied human and animal forms. In fact, the only truly recognisable organisms on the painting are the birds. The forms and figures hover, float, and seem to be in constant motion. In the foreground, the word "sard" is written, short for "Sardana", Catalonia's national dance. The shortened word was inspired by the fragmented words of Dadaist and Surrealist poetry.

Frida Kahlo's The Wounded Deer (1946)

This iconic painting depicts Frida Kahlo as a wounded deer, punctured by multiple arrows. She painted the painting after an unsuccessful spinal surgery in New York in 1946. By presenting this self-portrait of herself as a hunted half-stag, half-human, she shares her suffering with the viewer. Her choice to represent herself as a stag, a male deer, might refer to her bisexuality.

Meret Oppenheim's Object (1936)

Meret Oppenheim's Object, a fur-covered cup and saucer, was inspired by a conversation with Pablo Picasso and Dora Maar. Picasso was admiring Oppenheim's fur-covered bracelet and remarked that one could cover anything with fur. Oppenheim then replied: "Even this cup and saucer." When André Breton asked her to participate in the first Surrealist exhibition of objects, she bought a cup, saucer and spoon and covered them in the fur of a Chinese gazelle. Thus, Oppenheim transformed the delicate, dainty objects into something sensual and sexual.

Man Ray's l'Heure de l'Observatoire: les Amoureux (1932-1934)

René Magritte, The Treachery of Images, 1928. Photo courtesy LACMA

Man Ray's famous painting depicts the sensual red lips of Lee Miller, his former lover and protégé. Ray painted it after their relationship ended in 1932. The giant lips float in the sky and also represent the two bodies of Man Ray and Lee Miller.

Surrealism in Europe and America

Wifredo Lam, Rumblings of the Earth, 1950. Photo courtesy Guggenheim

Surrealism was born in Paris, France, and this remained the main hub for the movement throughout the '20s and '30s. The main artists associated with the movement in Europe were André Breton, Salvador Dalí, André Masson, Rene Magritte, Joan Miró, Yves Tanguy, Max Ernst, Meret Oppenheim, Jean Arp, Man Ray and Wifredo Lam. Initially, André Breton formed a connection to the Dada movement through correspondence with Tristan Tzara. However, the two severed ties due to various differences and Breton then founded Surrealism in 1924 with his Surrealist Manifesto. During World War II, many Surrealist artists (including André Breton and Max Ernst) fled Europe. Many ended up in the United States, where they influenced a whole host of American artists. The chance elements central to surrealist art contributed to the development of a new type of art in America. In particular, the Abstract Expressionists, with their anti-war, spontaneous, unscripted art, owes a great deal to the Surrealists.

Surrealism in Central and Latin America

Frida Kahlo, The Wounded Deer. Photo courtesy The Art Story

Although the great Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera were never officially part of the Surrealist movement, they are often associated with Surrealism. Kahlo said: "They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn't. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality." Still, André Breton visited Kahlo and Rivera in Mexico. He also organised the Fourth International Surrealist Exhibition in Mexico City, which included works by the two artists. Though not officially tied to the movement, they certainly worked with many Surrealist topics, like the subconscious, dreams, and symbolism. The Cuban-born artist Wifredo Lam (who was of mixed Afro-Chinese-Cuban descent), was another important artist in the Surrealist movement. Lam studied in Madrid and Paris, where he became close friends with Picasso and was introduced to Surrealism. Lam's paintings reflected on social injustices and spirituality.

Surrealism in Film and Literature

Surrealism was not just limited to the visual arts. On the contrary, since Breton started out as a poet, Surrealism naturally became influential in literary circles. Important proponents of Surrealist literature were André Breton, Paul Eluard, Robert Desnos, Georges Bataille, Philip Soupalt, Louis Aragon and Antonin Artaud. In cinema, Luis Buñuel made waves with his Surrealist films like Un Chien Andalou (1929, made with Salvador Dalí). The Surrealists in cinema used new techniques and approaches to free the art of cinema from traditional storytelling. Instead, they wanted to transform the medium into one that could explore and reveal the inner workings of the subconscious.

The Influence of Surrealism

Rene Magritte, La Decalcomanie, 1966. Photo courtesy Phototeque R. Magritte

Surrealism had a profound influence on Abstract Expressionism, and on the unscripted Happenings in the 1950s promoted by Allan Kaprow. The Situationist International in the 1960s is also indebted to Surrealist ideas and methods. Surrealism is considered to have ended with the death of André Breton in 1966. However, the movement continues to inspire countless contemporary artists today. Artists like David Lynch, Julie Curtiss and Mary Reid Kelley, to name but a few, work with a great deal of Surrealist imagery and techniques. Image

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Art Movement: Surrealism and Surrealist Artists | Artland Magazine

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By Shira Wolfe "Surrealism is based on the belief in the omnipotence of dreams, in the undirected play of thought." - André Breton In 1915, the young André Breton was already well versed in literature, contemporary art, anarchism and medicine. The First World War was raging in Europe and he was assigned as a nurse in a Nantes military hospital.

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Artsper Magazine - 10 Surrealist Paintings you should know 

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Artsper Magazine - 10 Surrealist Paintings you should know 

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10 Surrealist Paintings you should know - Artsper Magazine

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Surrealism revolutionised the approach to art and reality in the 20th century. Discover the eerie atmospheres of 10 iconic Surrealist paintings.

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Once you have finished reading and collecting information, take the virtual tour!

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Once you have finished reading and collecting information, take the virtual tour!

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Dulwich Picture Gallery - British Surrealism Virtual Exhibition 

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Dulwich Picture Gallery - British Surrealism Virtual Exhibition 

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We've teamed up with The Net Gallery to bring you a virtual experience of our acclaimed British Surrealism exhibition.

Marking 100 years since the birth of surrealism, British Surrealism champions the British artists that contributed to the iconic movement with over 70 eclectic works from the likes of Leonora Carrington, Francis Bacon, Henry Moore, Paul Nash, Ithell Colquhoun, Conroy Maddox, and many more.

Click the play button below to enter. We recommend using a mobile phone or tablet for the best viewing experience - for more information read our handy tips. The virtual exhibition is free, but if you can, we welcome your donations to help support the Gallery at this challenging time. You can find more information on how to support below.

The virtual walkthrough of British Surrealism was scanned and produced by The Net Gallery

Support the Gallery with a donation today

In March, as the coronavirus crisis hit, Dulwich Picture Gallery was forced to close the British Surrealism exhibition just three weeks after it opened. As a result, the Gallery has lost a third of its projected visitor income for 2020 at over £390,000. We want to ensure as many people as possible can experience this fantastic exhibition, which is why we have made the virtual experience free and accessible to all. However, if you feel able to, we would be so grateful if you would consider donating the cost of your ticket (£15 standard entry) to help support Dulwich Picture Gallery through this incredibly challenging time.

Donate now

Shop the range, now on sale!

No exhibition experience is complete without a visit to the shop! Our British Surrealism range is inspired by the themes and artists of the movement, and includes the beautifully designed exhibition catalogue alongside a vibrant selection of gifts, homeware and accessories that you won't find anywhere else.

Visit the shop

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Marking 100 years since the birth of surrealism, British Surrealism champions the British artists that contributed to the iconic movement with over 70 eclectic works from the likes of Leonora Carrington, Francis Bacon, Henry Moore, Paul Nash, Ithell Colquhoun, Conroy Maddox, and many more. Click the play button below to enter.