A Short History of Surrealist Painting

Surrealist painting began in Paris in 1924, when the poet André Breton published the Manifesto of Surrealism, and it grew from a group of Paris writers and painters into an international movement. Its first group exhibition opened in Paris on 14 November 1925. The paintings on this page by Max Ernst, Joan Miró, René Magritte and Salvador Dalí date from 1921 to 1937. When the Second World War broke up the group in Europe, Breton and several of its painters moved to New York, where their ideas inspired the abstract painters of the city.

This page goes through that history in date order. For each painting we name, we say which museum holds it, so you can see the real thing. The page is part of our guide to surrealist paintings.

Key takeaways

• Tate records that the word "surrealist" was coined by Guillaume Apollinaire in the preface to a play performed in 1917, seven years before Breton's manifesto.
• The first surrealist exhibition opened at the Galerie Pierre, 13 rue Bonaparte, Paris, on 14 November 1925, according to the André Breton archive.
• The International Surrealist Exhibition at the New Burlington Galleries in London opened in June 1936 and drew more than 23,000 visitors in three weeks, according to Tate.
• The International Exhibition of Surrealism ran at the Galerie Beaux-Arts in Paris from 17 January to 24 February 1938, and Tate Papers records that Marcel Duchamp installed it.
• Peggy Guggenheim opened Art of This Century at 30 West 57th Street, New York, in 1942, with a gallery designed for surrealist art by Frederick Kiesler.

Before the manifesto: de Chirico and the word itself

The word came first. Tate records that the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire coined "surrealist", suggesting "beyond reality", in the preface to a play performed in 1917.

The pictures came from Italy. Giorgio de Chirico had been painting empty city squares in a realist style since the early 1910s, and Tate calls his The Uncertainty of the Poet of 1913, now at Tate, a quintessential example of what became known as metaphysical painting. Tate's display text says the surrealists "enthusiastically embraced" de Chirico's early works, seeing in them "a dream-like parallel existence". The Metropolitan Museum of Art adds that Breton's group held de Chirico, Pablo Picasso, Francis Picabia and Marcel Duchamp in high regard, and treats Duchamp's The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even, made from 1915 to 1923 and now at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, as a precursor of the movement.

Max Ernst was already making surrealist-looking pictures before the movement had a name. His Celebes of 1921, at Tate, turns a photograph of a Sudanese corn-bin into a mechanical creature beside a headless female figure. Tate reads its combinations as images from a dream and from Freud's method of free association.

1924: Breton's manifesto and what it said

Breton published the Manifesto of Surrealism in Paris in 1924. The Met says he and the poets Louis Aragon, Paul Éluard and Philippe Soupault drew on Sigmund Freud's theories and dream studies, and on the political ideas of Karl Marx. Tate quotes the manifesto's central definition: surrealism is "pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation."

In plain words, Breton asked writers and artists to let thoughts out before good sense, taste or morality could edit them. The first method was automatic writing, where the writer puts down words as fast as possible without guiding the hand. The Met notes that the surrealist poets at first doubted that painting could be spontaneous enough, because it is slow work. Within a year, Breton was reproducing painting in the group's journal and organising exhibitions.

1925: the first surrealist painters and the first exhibition

The Met names four visual artists who first worked with surrealist techniques and imagery: Max Ernst, André Masson, Joan Miró and Man Ray. Masson's free-association drawings of 1924 are, in the Met's words, "curving, continuous lines out of which emerge strange and symbolic figures", and Breton saw them as close to his own automatic poetry. Miró painted The Birth of the World in 1925, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York holds it. Ernst, Tate explains, began making frottage drawings in 1925, rubbing soft pencil over paper laid on an old wooden floor, and in 1926 he published a collection of them under the title Natural History.

The Met says that in 1925 Breton reproduced works by artists such as Picasso in the group's journal. The first surrealist exhibition, titled Surrealist Painting, opened at the Galerie Pierre, 13 rue Bonaparte, Paris, on 14 November 1925. The André Breton archive lists work by Jean Arp, Giorgio de Chirico, Max Ernst, Paul Klee, André Masson, Joan Miró, Picasso, Man Ray and Pierre Roy, some of it lent from Breton's own collection.

1927 to 1931: Magritte and Dalí, and the precise dream picture

The Met records that René Magritte moved from Brussels to Paris in 1927 and became a leading figure in the visual side of the movement, influenced by de Chirico's paintings of 1910 to 1920. His The Menaced Assassin of 1927, at MoMA, is one of his largest and most theatrical compositions. His The Treachery of Images of 1929, a pipe above painted words that translate as "This is not a pipe", is at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Salvador Dalí moved from Spain to Paris in 1929 and made his first surrealist paintings there, according to the Met, which owns his The Accommodations of Desire of the same year. In 1930 Breton praised Dalí's representations of the unconscious in the Second Manifesto of Surrealism, and the two became the main collaborators on the review Minotaure, published in Paris from 1933 to 1939. Dalí painted The Persistence of Memory in 1931. It was given anonymously to MoMA in 1934, and the Dalí catalogue raisonné records its provenance through the Julien Levy Gallery in New York.

The Met describes Magritte's work as marking a split between the visual automatism of Masson and Miró and the "illusionistic Surrealism" of Dalí, Paul Delvaux and Yves Tanguy. The Met owns Tanguy's The Satin Tuning Fork, which it says fills a deep space with objects painted with great precision, under lighting and long shadows that recall de Chirico. Our page on how to read a surrealist painting uses several of these works as examples.

Surrealist paintings named on this page, with date and the museum that holds each

Painter	Painting	Date	Museum
Giorgio de Chirico	The Uncertainty of the Poet	1913	Tate, London
Max Ernst	Celebes	1921	Tate, London
Joan Miró	The Birth of the World	1925	Museum of Modern Art, New York
René Magritte	The Menaced Assassin	1927	Museum of Modern Art, New York
René Magritte	The Treachery of Images	1929	Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Salvador Dalí	The Accommodations of Desire	1929	Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Salvador Dalí	The Persistence of Memory	1931	Museum of Modern Art, New York
Salvador Dalí	Metamorphosis of Narcissus	1937	Tate, London
Max Ernst	The Barbarians	1937	Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1936 to 1938: the international exhibitions

In the second half of the 1930s the movement travelled. In June 1936 the International Surrealist Exhibition opened at the New Burlington Galleries in London. Tate Etc records that it was organised by Roland Penrose, Herbert Read, Henry Moore and the poet David Gascoyne, drew more than 23,000 visitors in its three weeks, and marked the official introduction of surrealism in Britain. Breton, Miró and Dalí travelled to London for the opening, and Dalí gave a lecture wearing a deep-sea diving suit. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection notes that Leonor Fini showed there.

Later that year the Museum of Modern Art in New York opened Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism, which ran from 9 December 1936 to 17 January 1937, according to the exhibition record in the Dalí catalogue raisonné. The Persistence of Memory was in it, and so was work by Fini.

In January 1938 the group returned to Paris for the International Exhibition of Surrealism at the Galerie Beaux-Arts, 140 rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, open from 17 January to 24 February 1938. The André Breton archive's list of exhibitors includes Dalí, Ernst, Magritte, Masson and Miró, and also Eileen Agar, Meret Oppenheim, Toyen and Remedios Varo. Tate Papers records that Marcel Duchamp installed the show and calls it the group's last exhibition in Paris. In the same period, the Met says, Ernst combined decalcomania and grattage in The Barbarians of 1937. Dalí's Metamorphosis of Narcissus, now at Tate, also dates from 1937.

1940s: war, exile and New York

The Met says the organised surrealist movement in Europe dissolved with the start of the Second World War, and that Breton, Dalí, Ernst, Masson and the Chilean painter Matta left Europe for New York. Before that, in 1940, Breton organised the fourth International Surrealist Exhibition in Mexico City, which included Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, although neither joined the movement officially.

In New York the movement had two main venues. Peggy Guggenheim opened Art of This Century at 30 West 57th Street in 1942. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection describes its Surrealist gallery, designed by the architect Frederick Kiesler, and records that Breton was "around a great deal", along with Tanguy, Matta, Duchamp, Robert Motherwell and Jackson Pollock. The Met names the Julien Levy Gallery as the other.

On 14 October 1942 the exiles opened First Papers of Surrealism in a mansion in central Manhattan. Tate Papers calls it the first major exhibition of surrealist art in the United States mounted by the émigré group, with paintings and sculptures by more than thirty artists. Duchamp threaded the rooms with his "mile of string", and at the opening he had a group of children play ball games among the guests.

Women painters did some of their most important work in these years. Tate describes surrealism in Mexico City as shaped by the creative bonds of women artists, and our page on women surrealist painters covers Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, Dorothea Tanning, Leonor Fini and Kay Sage, each with a work you can see in a museum.

What came after: the influence of surrealist painting

The clearest line runs to abstract expressionism. Tate says the abstract expressionists in New York "were inspired by the surrealist idea that art should come from the unconscious mind, and by the automatism of artist Joan Miró". Tate's entry on automatism adds that it "played some part" in the painting of Jackson Pollock and others. The Met names Arshile Gorky, whose work formed a continuum between surrealism and abstract expressionism, and Joseph Cornell among the later artists surrealism influenced.

The dream-image side had its own heirs. LACMA says Magritte's use of text influenced a younger generation of artists that includes John Baldessari, Marcel Broodthaers, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein and Ed Ruscha.

Recent museum exhibitions have widened the history. Surrealism Beyond Borders, organised by Tate and the Met, ran at Tate Modern from 24 February to 29 August 2022 and, in Tate's words, spanned 80 years and 50 countries, from Buenos Aires and Cairo to Mexico City, Prague, Seoul and Tokyo. The Centre Pompidou marked the manifesto's centenary with an exhibition from 4 September 2024 to 13 January 2025, built around Breton's original manuscript. Today's surrealist painters, including those in our surrealism collection, work inside that wider history. One strand that interests many of our collectors, the Persian manuscript tradition, has its own page on surrealism and Persian painting. For short definitions of the terms on this page, see our art glossary.

Frequently asked questions

What did André Breton's Manifesto of Surrealism say?

André Breton's Manifesto of Surrealism of 1924 defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism", the expression of "the real functioning of thought" in the "absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation". In plain words, it asked artists and writers to let thought out before reason, taste or morality could edit it, drawing on Freud's ideas about dreams.

Who were the first surrealist painters?

The first surrealist painters were Max Ernst, André Masson and Joan Miró, whom the Metropolitan Museum of Art names with the American artist Man Ray as the first visual artists to work with surrealist techniques and imagery. Masson made automatic drawings in 1924, Miró painted The Birth of the World in 1925, and Ernst began frottage drawings in 1925.

Was Giorgio de Chirico a surrealist?

Giorgio de Chirico was a forerunner whom the surrealists admired. Tate says the surrealists "enthusiastically embraced" his early works, and his paintings hung in the first surrealist exhibition in November 1925. His own style, metaphysical painting, took shape in the early 1910s, and Tate calls his The Uncertainty of the Poet of 1913 a quintessential example of it.

When did Salvador Dalí join the surrealists?

Salvador Dalí joined the surrealists in 1929, when he moved from Spain to Paris and made his first surrealist paintings, according to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1930 André Breton praised Dalí's representations of the unconscious in the Second Manifesto of Surrealism, and the two became the main collaborators on the review Minotaure, published from 1933 to 1939.

What happened at the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition in London?

The 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition in London opened in June at the New Burlington Galleries and drew more than 23,000 visitors in three weeks, according to Tate Etc. It was organised by Roland Penrose, Herbert Read, Henry Moore and David Gascoyne, and it marked the official introduction of surrealism in Britain. Salvador Dalí lectured there in a deep-sea diving suit.

What was the 1938 International Exhibition of Surrealism in Paris?

The 1938 International Exhibition of Surrealism was the group's last exhibition in Paris, held at the Galerie Beaux-Arts from 17 January to 24 February 1938. Marcel Duchamp installed it, according to Tate Papers. The exhibitors listed by the André Breton archive include Dalí, Ernst, Magritte, Masson and Miró, along with Eileen Agar, Meret Oppenheim, Toyen and Remedios Varo.

Why did the surrealists move to New York?

The surrealists moved to New York because the Second World War broke up the movement in Europe. The Metropolitan Museum of Art says the organised group dissolved when the war began, and that André Breton, Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, André Masson and Matta left Europe for New York, where the movement found new life at Art of This Century and the Julien Levy Gallery.

What was Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century gallery?

Art of This Century was Peggy Guggenheim's museum and gallery at 30 West 57th Street, New York, opened in 1942. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection says it held her collection in rooms designed by Frederick Kiesler, including a Surrealist gallery, and that André Breton, Yves Tanguy, Marcel Duchamp and Jackson Pollock were among the artists who spent time there.

How did surrealism influence abstract expressionism?

Surrealism influenced abstract expressionism through the idea that art should come from the unconscious mind. Tate says the abstract expressionists in New York were inspired by that surrealist idea and by Joan Miró's automatism, and that automatism played some part in Jackson Pollock's painting. The Met describes Arshile Gorky's work as a continuum between the two movements.

Which later artists did René Magritte influence?

René Magritte influenced John Baldessari, Marcel Broodthaers, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein and Ed Ruscha through his use of text in painting, according to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. LACMA owns The Treachery of Images of 1929, in which painted words that translate as "This is not a pipe" sit below a carefully painted pipe.

What was the First Papers of Surrealism exhibition?

First Papers of Surrealism was the exhibition the exiled surrealists opened in a Manhattan mansion on 14 October 1942. Tate Papers calls it the first major exhibition of surrealist art in the United States mounted by the émigré group, with work by more than thirty artists. Marcel Duchamp threaded the rooms with a "mile of string", and children played among the guests at the opening.

References

1. Surrealism. Tate. Undated. Accessed 26 September 2026. Apollinaire's coinage in 1917 and the text of Breton's definition.
2. Surrealism (Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History). James Voorhies, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Published October 2004; Internet Archive copy of 28 January 2025. Accessed 26 September 2026. Breton's circle, the first surrealist painters, Magritte in 1927, Dalí in 1929, Minotaure, Tanguy, Ernst's The Barbarians, the 1940 Mexico City exhibition, the move to New York, and the later influence on Gorky and Cornell.
3. Metaphysical art. Tate. Undated. Accessed 26 September 2026. De Chirico's style from 1911 and The Uncertainty of the Poet.
4. International Surrealism. Tate Modern display text. Undated. Accessed 26 September 2026. The surrealists' embrace of de Chirico and the description of Ernst's Celebes.
5. Metamorphosis of Narcissus, Salvador Dalí, 1937. Tate. Undated. Accessed 26 September 2026. The title, date and Tate's ownership.
6. Frottage. Tate. Undated. Accessed 26 September 2026. Ernst's frottage from 1925 and the 1926 collection Natural History.
7. 1925: the Surrealist Painting exhibition, archive record (French-language page). Atelier André Breton archive, notice by Noémie Zinck. Published 2019. Accessed 26 September 2026. The opening on 14 November 1925, the address and the artists shown.
8. 1938: the International Surrealist Exhibition, archive record. Atelier André Breton archive. Undated. Accessed 26 September 2026. The dates, the address of the Galerie Beaux-Arts and the list of exhibitors.
9. Joan Miró. The Birth of the World. Montroig, late summer-fall 1925. The Museum of Modern Art. Undated; Internet Archive copy of 28 January 2026. Accessed 26 September 2026. The date and MoMA's ownership.
10. René Magritte. The Menaced Assassin. Brussels 1927. The Museum of Modern Art. Undated; Internet Archive copy of 21 June 2026. Accessed 26 September 2026. The date, MoMA's ownership and the description of the composition.
11. René Magritte, The Treachery of Images (This is Not a Pipe), 1929. Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Undated. Accessed 26 September 2026. The date, LACMA's ownership and the artists Magritte's text influenced.
12. The Persistence of Memory (catalogue raisonné, cat. no. P 265). Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí. Undated. Accessed 26 September 2026. The 1931 date, the anonymous gift to MoMA in 1934, the provenance, and the dates of Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism.
13. Miró in London. Iria Candela, Tate Etc. issue 22. Published 1 May 2011. Accessed 26 September 2026. The 1936 London exhibition, its organisers, its visitors and Dalí's diving-suit lecture.
14. Leonor Fini. Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Undated. Accessed 26 September 2026. Fini's participation in the London and New York exhibitions of 1936.
15. Duchamp, Childhood, Work and Play: The Vernissage for First Papers of Surrealism, New York, 1942. David Hopkins, Tate Papers no. 22. Published 3 November 2014. Accessed 26 September 2026. Duchamp's installation of the 1938 show and the 1942 New York exhibition.
16. Art of This Century. Peggy Guggenheim Collection, text by Philip Rylands. Published 2004. Accessed 26 September 2026. The address, the Kiesler galleries and the artists who spent time there.
17. Abstract expressionism. Tate. Undated. Accessed 26 September 2026. The debt of the abstract expressionists to surrealism and Miró.
18. Automatism. Tate. Undated. Accessed 26 September 2026. Automatism in the painting of Jackson Pollock.
19. Surrealism Beyond Borders. Tate press release. Published 14 December 2021. Accessed 26 September 2026. The exhibition dates, the organisers, and its span of 80 years and 50 countries.
20. Surrealism. Centre Pompidou. Undated. Accessed 26 September 2026. The centenary exhibition dates and the manuscript of the manifesto.

Checked 26 September 2026. If something here is out of date, write to us and we will correct it.