If you are considering buying surrealist artwork, it’s a good idea to know more about the artists and their works. To get an idea of what this genre entails, it’s best to research the work of artists you enjoy and gauge which themes interest you most. Surrealist artwork can be created in many styles and mediums, and can include both formal and abstract elements. The use of bright colour and the unique technique of the artist may also attract you.
Max Ernst
Max Ernst’s Surrealism artwork reflects a wide range of ideas and techniques. In his early work, he used collage to combine various images, but this was not the only medium he used. Other artists of the Dada movement incorporated performance and poetry, as well as innovative exhibition design.
One of the most famous works by Ernst is the iconic painting, “Rain in the Rain”. The resulting painting evokes an apocalyptic world, and the juxtaposition of the sunny sky with the ominous and gruesome devastation on the ground is remarkably effective. Ernst began this work in France, and completed it later in the United States.
In 1939, Ernst’s artwork was displayed in a Hollywood film. He received $2,500 for the painting. Soon after, he and Marie-Berthe fled to hiding, where they remained for several months. The couple later married in the south-west suburbs of Paris.
Joan Miro
In the spring of 1958, Joan Miro began to create paintings of monsters. The human figure became grotesque, complete with teeth and genitals. Nightmarish couplings and the apocalypse appeared frequently in his sketches. Miro was a troubled man, and his paintings often reflect this.
Born in Barcelona in 1893, Miro first studied commerce before entering the art academy. Upon his arrival in Paris, Miro became a part of the Surrealist scene, befriending Andre Breton, Max Ernst, Jean Arp, and Andre Masson. He also influenced Arshile Gorky. He died in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, on December 25, 1983. His artwork is currently held in the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Throughout his life, Miro was attracted to art. As a child, he took an interest in painting. After his move to Paris in 1920, he developed his own unique style. His paintings feature sharp lines, flattened picture planes, and organic forms. Despite his affiliation with Surrealism, Miro experimented with various artistic forms and media, including drawing, painting, and sculpture.
Meret Elisabeth Oppenheim
Meret Elisabeth Oppensheim’s Surrealism artwork often avoided easy categorization. For example, in her 1936 painting “My Nurse,” she placed a pair of high-heeled shoes upside-down on a metal platter. In another work, “Eichhornchen (Squirrel),” she placed a cup of amber beer upside-down on a glass and decorated it with fake foam and a fluffy squirrel tail.
Oppenheim’s artwork has been included in several exhibitions and archives. In 1936, her work was included in the International Surrealist Exhibition at the New Burlington Galleries in London, and in the acclaimed exhibition Fantastic Art Dada Surrealism at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1967, her work was the subject of a major retrospective at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. It subsequently toured to the Museum der Stadt Solothurn in 1974 and the Wilhelm-Lehmbruck Museum in Duisberg, Germany.
Meret Oppenheim’s work reflects her disdain for conventionality and her refusal to follow the prevailing currents. Her friendship with Sierra also reflects her dislike of conformity. The two women like to take people on journeys and often work together.
André Masson
Known for his surreal and surrealist paintings, André Masson studied fine arts during his early life. He grew up in the countryside and surrounded himself with nature, gaining inspiration from it from an early age. He studied under the French artist Constant Montald, who taught him the techniques and styles of the time. He later enrolled at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts to further his artistic training.
The work also explores the connection between nature and human life. Masson often depicts his subjects in violent mythological environments. For example, his 1893 painting Portrait du poet Heinrich von Kleist features a lone man, snakes and fish residing next to the exposed bones and organs of a decaying skeleton. These images hint at the unity between man and nature, and serve as a visual reference to the metaphysical change that occurs within nature.
The amorphous nature of Masson’s paintings suggests that multiple identities are at work. Masson incorporates various forms, such as varying facial features, as well as hands that grasp at nothing. This creates an impression of multiple identities and the conflict that can result from these. The viewer is able to locate these features, but they do not fit together to form a cohesive figure.
Frida Kahlo
Her Surrealist artwork is very symbolic of her life and her experiences. She incorporated visual symbolism of her emotional and physical suffering in her work. In addition to painting the subject of death, she also explored loss and mourning in her artwork. Many Surrealist artists were influenced by her work.
Her life was full of hardship and pain. She suffered a serious bus accident when she was 18 years old. During this period, she was unable to walk for three months. Her injuries damaged her legs, pelvis and spine. During this period, she spent much of her time in bed, painting. Her accident had a profound impact on her artistic career.
Despite her physical suffering, she continued to paint in her later years. One of her last paintings, titled ‘Viva la Vida’, was a still life with watermelons. Inscribed on the watermelons were the words ‘Viva la Vida’. She died in 1954, having exhibited one final time in Mexico. Her body was carried to a gallery in an ambulance. It was placed at the center of the gallery. Frida Kahlo’s death is officially attributed to a pulmonary embolism, but many have speculated that she may have committed suicide.
André Breton
André Breton was a prominent figure of the Surrealism movement in France. After the outbreak of World War II, he and other surrealists sought to preserve the movement and continue pushing its ideas. In the decades following the war, Breton also became a lifelong Marxist. He eventually emigrated to the United States, where he exhibited his work at the Yale University Art Gallery. Many of his works have since been auctioned off.
André Breton’s Surrealism art has a unique quality that sets it apart from other works of art. It shows the artist as a poet, theorist, and collector. His art focuses on the female form and explores how it is a form and how it is used in the human race.
While in his youth, Breton was influenced by the work of Symbolist poets and philosophies. However, he also studied psychology. His studies were interrupted by World War I. During this time, he was expected to kill people in the war. He was subsequently sent to a military hospital, where he spent time studying the psychology of war and its effects on human behavior.
André Matisse
André Matisse’s Surrealism artwork features a surreal world characterized by distorted, unreal, and often bizarre forms and colors. Inspired by the works of Paul Signac and Georges Seurat, Matisse incorporated these ideas into his paintings. The surrealist artist had already been painting landscapes in the south of France during the summer months.
As a child, Matisse grew up in middle-class families and attended school. He was the son of a hardware and grain merchant and a school teacher named Anna Heloise Gerard. He later moved to Paris to study law and returned to Saint-Quentin as a law clerk. During this time, he discovered his artistic side and began to paint.
Matisse’s work began to take shape around the turn of the century. His first pieces featured curvilinear shapes and angular geometry. After being influenced by the cubists, he remained an important member of the Ecole de Paris.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Surrealist art is often associated with the idea of a different reality, which is different from the one of our everyday lives. Its key concept is the existence of a false reality. A false reality is an alternative to our everyday reality, and it is not something that we choose to have, but one that is imposed on us. This false reality is referred to as’surrealism’, and it is often associated with the work of Jean-Paul Sartre.
In his writings, Sartre argued that art should be a form of self-expression. He viewed art as a means of self-expression, and sought to make it accessible to everyone. This philosophy is consistent with Sartre’s definition of “novel” – that it is a work of art that has the power to appeal to the viewer.
Sartre’s work rejects Freud’s model of the human mind. He argued that a person is not a single entity but is composed of person-like parts. This idea eliminates the problem of self-deception but at a price.