Drawing Surrealism at the Morgan Library: The Exquisite Corpse Will Drink the New Wine
Few artistic movements of the twentieth century are as celebrated and studied as surrealism. Many of the works of its best known practitioners — including Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, René Magritte, Joan Miró, and Leonora Carrington — have become touchstones of modern art and some of the most familiar images of the era.
Critical to the development of surrealism was the art of drawing. For those involved in the movement, it was a vital means of expression and innovation, resulting in a rich array of graphic techniques that radically pushed conventional art historical boundaries. Yet the medium has been largely overlooked in visual arts studies and exhibitions as scholars and institutions have focused more on surrealist painting and sculpture.
Francis Picabia (1879–1953) Olga, 1930. Graphite pencil and crayon on paper; Bequest of Mme Lucienne Rosenberg. © 2012 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
Drawing Surrealism is presented chronologically with interwoven thematic sections devoted to the surrealists’ principal drawing techniques and to international developments. Important drawings will be shown from countries beyond the movement’s Western European geographic roots, including sheets from Eastern Europe, Japan, the United States, and Latin America. The exhibit includes works from the Morgan, as well as from the collections of LACMA, Tate Modern, the Musée national d’art moderne at the Pompidou Center, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Menil Collection. It also includes drawings from a number of major private collections in the United States and abroad, which are rarely accessible to the public.
More Articles
- What Should I Read? The New York Public Library Selects Best Books of 2019 for Kids, Teens and Adults
- John Singer Sargent’s Charcoal Portraits, Records of Artistic and Cultural Friendships, as Well as Networks of Patronage
- Spirits by Deborah Masters at the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Macon
- Dickens and His World: Bits and Pieces from From Oxford's Bodleian Library and the Great Dickens Christmas Fair
- Chicago Institute of Art and John Singer Sargent, Georg Jensen and Arms, Armor, Medieval, and Renaissance
- Scout Report ... Pride and Prejudice On Open Bookshelf, Biological Macromolecules, Iranica, Volcanism, Phantom Islands, English Playbooks, Chemistry of Life, Logic Problems and Brain Teasers
- Art Nouveau In the Netherlands, a Quest for the 'Truth', the 'Genuine', the Original; Leaving in Architecture and the Decorative Arts
- Casanova, The Seduction of Europe: “He knew the greatest figures of the age, from monarchs like Louis XV of France and Catherine the Great of Russia, to popes, to intellectuals like Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin”
- The Girl in the Spotlight at the Marvelous Netherlands' Museum's Golden Room
- Edvard Munch, Desire, Mortality, Isolation and Anxiety: Between the Clock and the Bed
