Sayonara to Philadelphia's super surrealist show

The Philadelphia Museum of Art/photo by Patricia Leslie

It's not too late to get on the train and head north to Philadelphia to celebrate Surrealism and admire the tremendous creativity of 70 artists and 200 works in Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100 closing Presidents' Day, this Monday. 

Giorgio de Chirico's Portrait of Guillaume Apollinaire, 1914, Apollinaire, a poet and critic and the first to describe the artist as an unusual breed. Apollinaire coined the term "Surrealist" to describe his own absurdist stage play.

Kay Sage, Unicorns Came Down to the Sea, 1948

Dorothea Tanning, Birthday, 1948. Not a very happy one, was it? Here Ms. Tanning presents herself in 1700s sorceress's apparel with tiny humans on her skirt. Doors open to the wonderful avenues of Surrealism. According to the label copy, Max Ernst suggested the title, Birthday. 

Enrico Donati, The Evil Eye, 1947, made of painted plaster, acrylic sheet, copper wire, mirrors, and glass, positioned high above other works at the museum's exhibition. 

From Art and Antiques:  Evil Eye (1947), a gruesome orb embedded in flesh, mounted on a glossy black box with circular mirrors and trailing a tuft of electrical wires. With these objects, which could be props in a horror movie, Donati strayed, rather effectively, into more conventionally Surrealist territory—ironically at the very moment when Surrealism was on the verge of coming to an end as an organized movement. 

Donati is sometimes called "the last Surrealist." 

A side glance at Donati's Evil Eye

Philadelphia's Museum of Art (old name, now newly reestablished new old name) is the only place in the U.S. to see the huge show, after its successful world tour and landings in Brussels, Hamburg, Paris, and Madrid.

Remedios Varo, Icon, 1945. The ascending staircase symbolizes the link between the heavens and Earth, according to the label, with a circle at the top reflecting the teachings of the Armenian philosopher and mystic George Gurdjieff.

Remedios Varo, Celestial Pablum, 1958

Jacques Herold, The Great Transparent One, 1971 (replica of 1947 original) made from bronze, mirror and quartz crystal. In 2005 it sold at Christie's for 22,200 euros or $26,418 in today's dollars.

Victor Brauner, Self-Portrait, 1931. Be careful of what you wish for...or think about. Mr. Brauner drew this seven years before he lost an eye in an accident.  He said all his paintings  had an autobiographical link.

Jackson Pollock, Male and Female, 1943-43. The label copy says it brings the two opposites together.

A "content warning" at the entrance to this gallery says it contains sexually explicit images which some may want to skip...and where some may want to linger/photo by Patricia Leslie

Wolfgang Paalen, Articulated Cloud, 2023 replica of 1937 original, consisting of an umbrella covered in sponges, the opposite functions of each. In Mexico City in 1940, Mr. Paalen and Andre Breton organized the first surrealists' exhibition, "International Exhibition of Surrealism," where Mr. Paalen became friends with Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Two years later Mr. Paalen broke with the movement in a "biting" farewell.

Wolfgang Paalen, The Exact Time, 1939-40 consisting of glass eyes, oil, and feathers on wood

What is Surrealism?  

There are about as many definitions as works presented here, but it is not observable realism, but dreams (some artists drawing on Freud's findings), absurdity, the unreal, mental happenings and turmoil.  

Nothing happy about it.  Rather like our world today. (Dreams aren't always negative.)

Frida Kahlo, My Grandparents, My Parents, and I, 1936. Andre Breton thought Ms. Kahlo's work was "an authentic expression of surreality" rooted in Mexico's history and culture. He was first introduced to Ms. Kahlo on a 1938 trip he took to Mexico to meet Leon Trotsky.

In the galleries at the Philadelphia Museum of Art/photo by Patricia Leslie

Rene Magritte, The Secret Double, 1927 seems to show that behind every face is mystery and turmoil. For this work, the "experts" say the artist's mother's death may have impacted him.

Salvador Dali, The First Days of Spring, 1929.  Dali's works are easy to spot, like this one when he moved to Paris from Catalonia and "officially" joined the Surrealists in 1929, according to the label. Amidst a vast wasteland Dali portrays Sigmund Freud's description of childhood sexual initiation and guilt.

Max Ernst, The Forest, 1923. The National Galleries of Scotland says Ernst painted a series of forests to capture his feelings of awe and terror at age three when first seeing one in person one near Cologne. 

In the galleries at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  Here is Giorgio de Chirico's The Soothsayer's Recompense, 1913 with an abandoned Ariadne and Theseus's departing train from the island of Naxos, a work Wikipedia says inspired Philip Guston to become a painter/photo by Patricia Leslie

The original surrealist art developed after World War I responding to the horrible effects of war. The movement lasted about 40 years and originally centered in Paris before it spread around the globe.

Many consider Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450 - 1516) and Italian Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527-1593) to be surrealist harbingers.  

What: Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100

When: Thursday - Monday, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.; open until 8:45 p.m., Friday. 

Where: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia 19130

How much:  Adults, $35; Seniors, $33; Students, $19

For more information:  215-763-8100

patricialesli@gmail.com