Art March 2013
Exhibition note
On “Drawing Surrealism” at The Morgan Library & Museum, New York.
Francis Picabia, Olga (1930); Graphite pencil and crayon on paper; Bequest of Mme Lucienne Rosenberg 1995 CNAC/MNAM/Dist.RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource © 2012 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
If memory serves correctly, it was the critic and artist Sidney Tillim who observed that the Surrealists couldn’t paint well because they were too preoccupied by bad dreams. The point is sardonic, but not off base. In privileging imagery or, to use parlance particular to the style, putrefaction over aesthetics, Surrealism erred on the side of illustration—on rendering, instead of embodying, “bad dreams.” Once an artist begins delineating visions gleaned from the...
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