Rene Francois Ghislain Magritte (November 21, 1898 - August 15, 1967) was a Surrealist artist, born in Lessines, Belgium. In March 1912 his mother died by drowning, a personal tragedy that affected the artist throughout life.
         From 1916 he studied intermittently at the Academie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels where his family settled in 1918. For income, he designed wallpapers. In the early 1920s he began a long and fruitful collaboration with the Surrealists, first in Brussels where a local group had is own reviews and meetings, and then in Paris where he spent three years from 1927 to 1930. Inspired by the example of Giorgio de Chirico and the collages of Max Ernst, the strange dream-like images in Magritte's pictures, painted in the most matter-of-fact style, had a profound effect on the course of Surrealist painting. In 1930 he returned to Brussels where he remained for the rest of his life. IN 1936 he was represented in the Museum of Modern Art's 'Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism' exhibition and the 'International Surrealist Exhibition' in London. During the 1940s he had a number of solo exhibitions in Brussels, London and Paris, and in 1954 was given a large retrospective at the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels. Two major retrospective exhibitions of his work were held in the 1960s, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and at the Museum Boymans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, and reflect Magritte's growing importance to a new generation of artists. Magritte died in Brussels on 15 August 1967.