Exhibitions

MONSTERS & MYTHS: SURREALISM AND WAR IN THE 1930S AND 1940S

Frist Art Museum / 919 Broadway June 21, 2019 - July 29, 2019

Salvador Dalí, Luis Buñuel, Max Ernst, René Magritte, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Dorothea Tanning

Featuring works by Salvador Dalí, Luis Buñuel, Max Ernst, René Magritte, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Dorothea Tanning, and others, this exhibition explores the Surrealists’ portrayals of monsters, fragmented bodies, and other depictions of the grotesque as metaphors for the destabilizing consequences of war and psychological fears and fantasies of unbridled power. Through 79 objects, including paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, and periodicals drawn primarily from the collections of The Baltimore Museum of Art and The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Monsters & Myths highlights the brilliance and fertility of this period, which arose in response to Hitler’s rise to power, the Spanish Civil War, and World War II—events that profoundly challenged the revolutionary hopes that had guided most Surrealist artists in the 1920s. The powerfully disturbing images produced during this period were an effort to engage with psychological forces that propelled history, and the exhibition may inspire comparisons between the turmoil of the 1930s and 1940s and the political instability of today. 

This exhibition was organized by The Baltimore Museum of Art and The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.

Images: Salvador Dalí. Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach, 1938. Oil on canvas, 45 x 56 5/8 in. The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art: The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund, 1938.269. © 2019 Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New
York

André Masson. Tauromachie, 1937. Oil on canvas, 32 x 39 in. The Baltimore Museum of Art: The Cone Collection, formed by Dr. Claribel Cone and Miss Etta Cone of Baltimore, Maryland, 1950.349. © 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris