René Magritte Museum
The René Magritte Museum ( French: Musée René Magritte , Dutch: René Magritte Museum ) is a museum dedicated to the Belgian painter René Magritte in Jette in the Brussels region . The museum is located at 135 rue Esseghem / Esseghemstraat, in the house where Magritte lived from 1930 to 1954 and where many of his works were created. The museum's collection includes paintings, gouaches and drawings by the artist, parts of the original furniture by Magritte as well as photographs and other documents on the artist's life. This collection was brought together by the art collector André Garitte, who bought the house, had it renovated and opened it as a museum in 1999.
history
Born in the Walloon province of Hainaut , René Magritte moved to Brussels in 1915 at the age of 17 and lived there in seven different apartments until his death in 1967. He only interrupted these Brussels years by staying in the Paris suburb of Le Perreux-sur-Marne , where he spent from 1927 to 1930. After returning from France, Magritte and his wife Georgette rented the ground floor apartment of the house at 135 Rue Esseghem / Esseghemstraat. The couple lived here for almost 24 years and the apartment became the center of the Belgian surrealists . In 1954, Magritte had earned enough money as a successful painter and moved with his wife into their own villa at 97 Rue des Mimosas / Mimosasstraat in Schaerbeek / Schaarbeek . Magritte lived in this villa until his death in 1967 and his wife Georgette also stayed here until she died in 1986.
After the death of Magritte's wife, there were numerous ideas and appeals to convert this last apartment, including inventory and personal belongings, into a Magritte museum, but this failed due to a lack of financial resources and insufficient support from state institutions. The villa in Schaerbeek / Schaarbeek was publicly auctioned, as was the inventory and personal belongings of the Magrittes. In the following years, the Antwerp-born art collector André Garitte began to acquire numerous pieces from the Magrittes' possession with the help of the auction catalog. He eventually bought the tenement house at 135 rue Esseghem / Esseghemstraat, which was still owned by Magritte's former landlord. From 1993 onwards he had the house converted into a museum, until it opened its doors to the public in 1999 as the first Magritte museum in Brussels. It was not until 2009 that the Magritte Museum of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts was followed by a second - this time state-owned - museum in Brussels dedicated to the painter.
The museum
Magritte's apartment
Magritte's former apartment at 135 rue Esseghem / Esseghemstraat is on the ground floor of a terraced house with a brick facade, as can often be found in the Brussels suburb of Jette or other suburbs of the Belgian capital. The house does not impress with any particular architectural features and is typical of this petty bourgeois residential area, in which Magritte spent almost 24 years and in which almost half of his work was created. Some peculiarities of this apartment can be found repeatedly in the artist's paintings. These include the fireplace and the glass doors of the living room, the staircase with the striking stair post and details such as the door fittings and handles. The street lamp in front of the house also appears repeatedly in Magritte's pictures.
André Garitte managed to track down about 70 percent of the Magritte's furniture and acquire it for the museum. Today you can see the Magritte's piano, the original bedroom furnishings and the simple cupboards that Magritte designed for his wife as a wedding present in the museum. The remaining 30 percent of the furnishings are not owned by the Magrittes, but are contemporary additions. With the help of photographs, an almost authentic overall impression was achieved during the reconstruction of the apartment. In addition to the furniture, this also includes the color design of the rooms, such as the blue walls of the living room or the dominant red of the bedroom. In addition, the sash curtains known from Magritte's pictures are again in front of the windows.
Magritte had never had his own painting studio. In 1932, when Magritte could not yet earn a living from selling his paintings, he had a studio-like extension built in the garden of the house at Rue Esseghem / Esseghemstraat No. 135, but used this room as a showroom for his Studio Dongo , in which he did his work exhibited as a commercial artist. His paintings were created during this time in the kitchen of the apartment, where his easel is again today. After the success of his paintings set in, Magritte used the garden studio as a storage room and warehouse for finished pictures. The kitchen remained the place where Magritte's pictures were taken.
The exhibition
In addition to Magritte's apartment on the ground floor, the museum has two exhibition floors. The museum's founder André Garitte has collected numerous private photos of Magritte, personal mementos and extensive documentation here. For example, letters to gallery owners, surrealist brochures or newspaper articles are shown. In addition, there are 30 drawings, gouaches and paintings by Magritte from the Garitte collection. These include works such as La lampe d'Aladin or Lola de Valence . The painting L'Olympia , part of the museum's collection , was stolen on September 24, 2009 by two armed robbers.
One room in the museum is dedicated to Magritte's collaboration with the other Belgian surrealists. They met at 135 rue Esseghem / Esseghemstraat for weekly meetings to discuss joint exhibitions or other projects. In this room, for example, there are works and documents on ELT Mesens , Marcel Mariën , Paul Delvaux , Rachel Baes . A total of 17 of the 19 rooms in the house can be viewed.
literature
- Jan Ceuleers: René Magritte, 135 rue Esseghem, Jette-Brussels . Musée René Magritte and Pandora Verlag, Antwerp 1999, ISBN 90-5325-121-9 .
Web links
- Website of the René Magritte Museum (English / French / Dutch)
Coordinates: 50 ° 52 ′ 36 ″ N , 4 ° 20 ′ 9 ″ E