Magritte: A Life

Description

A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 'The first significant biography of the artist' - Michael Prodger, The Times'Best art books of 2021' 'Exemplary ... a scintillating read' - Alastair Sooke, Daily Telegraph 'For those who love Magritte and those who do not, Danchev's biography will come as a revelation' -Literary Review Rene Magritte's surreal sensibility, deadpan melodrama, and fine-tuned outrageousness have all become inescapably part of our times. But these groundbreaking subversions all came from a middle-class Belgian gent, who kept a modest house in a Brussels suburb and whose first one-man show sold absolutely nothing. Through a deep examination of Magritte's friendships and his artistic development, Alex Danchev explores the path of an highly unconventional artist who posed profound questions about the relationship between image and reality, challenged the very nature of authenticity and whose influence can be seen in the work of everyone from Jasper Johns to Beyonce.

Alex Danchev, who died as he was finishing this biography, was the author of Georges Braque and Cezanne: A Life, as well as a new translation of The Letters of Paul Cezanne. He was a professor of International Relations at the University of St Andrews, where his archive resides. Sarah Whitfield is an art historian. She is the coeditor of Rene Magritte: Catalogue Raisonne, and she serves on the Rene Magritte authentication committee.

'Diligent and insightful ... Danchev proved an indefatigable researcher, and Sarah Whitfield does full justice to his labours' - Tim Adams 'A virtuosic portrait of a star surrealist ... surely the definitive full-length biography ... immaculately researched, deeply felt' - Kathryn Hughes 'The first significant biography of the artist' - Michael Prodger, 'Best art books of 2021' 'Insightful and broad-reaching' - Alexander C. Kafka 'Offers enthralling insight into the man behind the easel' - Susan Swarbrick and Teddy Jamieson, 'The 50 best books to give this Christmas'