Magritte

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 René 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 Beyoncé.

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 René Magritte: Catalogue Raisonné, and she serves on the René Magritte authentication committee.