Rene Francois Ghislain Magritte (21 November 1898 - 15 August 1967), Belgian painter , Surrealist..
Magritte was born in Lessines, Belgium. In 1912 his mother drowned herself and the family then moved to Charleroi. One year later the artist met his future wife, Goergette Berger. In 1914 he enrolled at the Academie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. After the army, he married Georgette on the 28th of June 1922. He worked a lot and managed to sell his first painting, a portrait of the singer Evelyne Brelia, in 1923. Three years later he painted his firs Surrealist composition, titled Le Jockey Perdu. Magritte was already working in the style that would bring his fame, using his juxtaposition of ordinary objects, bringing new meanings to these.
Rene travelled a lot throughout Europe, together with his wife, and met another important Surrealists, such as Dali, Eluard, Andre Breton, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst or Man Ray. His works were presented in the US for the first time in 1936, then again in 1965. By this time he was already sickly and old, and worked with great efforts. After his death he would leave behind a vast collection of nearly 1300 of his works.
