Exhibitions
THE SURREALIST INTERNATIONAL: FIFTY YEARS OF DREAMS
Frist Art Museum / 919 Broadway May 22, 2026 - August 30, 2026
Drawn from the Tate’s collection in England, The Surrealist International: Fifty Years of Dreams focuses on the long trajectory and broad international reach of surrealism as a state of mind through a captivating selection of paintings, photographs, sculptures, and other art objects, as well as publications and archival material.
The Surrealist International is presented a century after the first exhibition of surrealism, in Paris in November 1925, following the publication of André Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism and Louis Aragon’s A Wave of Dreams a year earlier. Featuring familiar artists such as Jean Arp, Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, René Magritte, Joan Miró, Yves Tanguy, and Dorothea Tanning, the exhibition also includes others whose work deserves to be better known such as Kati Horna, Malangatana Ngwenya, Shiihara Osamu, and Lionel Wendt. As surrealism was made up of individual responses rather than a specific style, the key themes that united their various practices form the structure of the exhibition, which will include sections about the inspiration of dreams and of automatism, desire, mysterious energies of the natural world, and the politics of freedom.
Organized in collaboration with Tate
image: Joan Miró. Women and Bird in the Moonlight, 1949. Tate Modern. © Successió Miró / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris 2025.
About Frist Art Museum:
Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, the Frist Art Museum is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit art exhibition center dedicated to presenting and originating high-quality exhibitions with related educational programs and community outreach activities. Located at 919 Broadway in downtown Nashville, TN, the Frist Art Museum offers the finest visual art from local, regional, national, and international sources in exhibitions that inspire people through art to look at their world in new ways. Housed in Nashville’s former main post office building – the city’s treasured art deco structure that was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984 – the Frist Art Museum is a 124,400-square-foot facility with more than 45,000 square feet of combined exhibition and public space. On site, there is a gift shop, Café Cheeserie, and the award-winning, interactive Martin ArtQuest gallery, where guests can create their own works of art. Information on accessibility can be found at FristArtMuseum.org/accessibility. Gallery admission is free for guests ages 18 and younger and for members, and $20 for adults. For current hours and additional information, visit FristArtMuseum.org or call 615-244-3340.
Press Contact: Buddy Kite, bkite@fristartmuseum.org, 615-744-3351
