Magritte: A Life

Description

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.

'Praise for Alex Danchev's Cezanne: Danchev's Cezanne has... virtues of imaginative sympathy, independence of mind, and wide scholarship. He writes as if Cezanne's life and character are as immediately present before him as is the art.' - Julian Barnes 'A brave new life of Cezanne ... much of this new material successfully illuminates Cezanne's inner life. An important book.' - Sunday Times 'This is the best account of [Cezanne's] astonishing career and Danchev responds to the challenge with great sensitivity and genuine brio. This is a book which will survive the test of time.' - John Golding CBE, Emeritus Professor of the Royal Academy 'The most engrossing biography of an artist that I have read for years. With lightness of touch, depth of thought, a vast cultural hinterland and an assured understanding of painting, Danchev marvellously brings to life Cezanne the man, as well as the pioneering artist called "the father of us all" by Picasso.' - Jackie Wullschlager