Painter on the Mont des Arts
The Musée Magritte in Brussels presents the oeuvre of the Belgian artist
MúzeumCafé 29.
Exhibitions of works by the Belgian painter, graphic designer, sculptor, photographer and film-maker René Magritte (1898–1967) are successful across the world. Specialists regard him as a key figure in 20th-century art history. The Magritte Museum opened in 1999 in a building the artist and his wife moved to in 1930. Almost ten years to the day following the establishment of that apartment museum, Musée Magritte Museum opened in the centre of Brussels on the Mont des Arts (the dual name reflects Belgium’s two main communities, the Walloons and the Flemings). The new institute is an example of the fact that the art of the surrealist painter, considered Belgium’s most significant artist of the last century, is not simply popular in his homeland but is capable of inducing state and private institutes, multinational companies and foundations alike to establish a museum making it possible to exhibit his oeuvre in a fitting manner. The ceremonial opening took place on 20 May 2009. There was a day-long celebration in the Place Royal and the first 4000 people could visit the museum without charge. The collection, comprising about 200 paintings, drawings and works of graphic art, is housed on the three upper floors of the 2500-square-metre museum. The main body of the exhibition is permanent; individual parts, however, are constantly changing. This is mainly thanks to the cooperation initiated in 2010 between the museum and the Menil Foundation in Houston, which has an exceptionally rich collection of Magritte’s work as well as documents relating to him. Since it opened there have been more than one million visitors, which shows that the Magritte Museum has become one of the world’ most successful exhibitions devoted to an individual artist.