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Page 19 || Encyclopedia Article || Fantasy Arts || Modern Surrealism Art Observation || World War II

World War II and beyond
As with many artistic movements in Europe, the coming of the Second World War proved disruptive: both because of the rift between Breton and Dalí over Dalí's support for Francisco Franco, and because of a diaspora of the members of the Surrealist movement itself. Dalí said to remain a Surrealist forever was like "painting only eyes and noses", and declared he had embarked on a "classic" period; Max Ernst in 1962 said "I feel more affinity for some German Romantics". Magritte began painting what he called his "solar" or "Renoir" style. The works continued. Many Surrealist artists continued to explore their vocabularies, including Magritte. Many members of the Surrealist movement continued to correspond and meet. (In 1960, Magritte, Duchamp, Ernst, and Man Ray met in Paris.) While Dalí may have been excommunicated by Breton, he neither abandoned the themes from the 1930s, including references to the "persistence of time" in a later painting, nor did he become a depictive "pompier". His classic period did not represent so sharp a break with the past as some descriptions of his work might portray. During the 1940s Surrealism's influence was also felt in England and America. Mark Rothko took an interest in bimorphic figures, and in England Henry Moore, Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon and Paul Nash used or experimented with Surrealist techniques. However, Conroy Maddox, one of the first British Surrealists, beginning in 1935, remained within the movement, organizing an exhibition of current Surrealist work in 1978, in response to an exhibition which infuriated him because it did not properly represent Surrealism. The exhibition, titled Surrealism Unlimited was in Paris, and attracted international attention. He held his his last one man show in 2002, just before his death in 2005. Magritte's work became more realistic in its depiction of actual objects, while maintaining the element of juxtaposition, such as in 1951's Personal Values and 1954's Empire of Light. Magritte continued to produce works which have entered artistic vocabulary, such as Castle in the Pyrenees which refers back to Voix from 1931, in its suspension over a landscape.

Other figures from the Surrealist movement were expelled, Roberto Matta for example, but by their own description "remained close to Surrealism." Many new artists explicitly took up the Surrealist banner for themselves, some following what they saw as the path of Dalí, others holding to views they derived from Breton. Duchamp continued to produce sculpture and, at his death, was working on an installation with the realistic depiction of a woman viewable only through a peephole. Dorothea Tanning and Louise Bourgeois continued to work, for example with Tanning's Rainy Day Canape from 1970. The 1960s saw an expansion of Surrealism with the founding of The West Coast Surrealist Group as recognized by Breton's personal assistant Jose Pierre and also Surrealist Movement in the United States. With the 1970s, Surrealism's desire to be understandable became a point of departure for many artists. Including Mark Tansey, who regard abstraction as fragmented, and incomplete as a tool of artistic conversation. Since Surrealism ceased to have as much cachet in the world of modern art criticism, there has been an explosion of self-identified Surrealists, having no more connection to the original Surrealist movement than an admiration for one or more aspects of it. A sampling of current working artists who identify in one way or another might include Howard Newman, Quentin Shih, Kunihiro Shinohara and Alan Turner. That Surrealism has remained commercially successful and popularly recognized has lead many people associated with the Breton's Surrealist group to criticise more general uses of the term. They argue that many self-identified Surrealists are not grounded in Breton's work and the techniques of the movement. Surrealistic art remains enormously popular with museum patrons. In 2001 Tate Modern held an exhibition of Surrealist art that attracted over 170,000 visitors in its run. Having been one of the most important of movements in the Modern period, Surrealism proceeded to inspire a new generation seeking to expand the vocabulary of art.  

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