Eykyn Maclean (NYC) presents Surrealism and the rue Blomet, the first exhibition to explore the rue Blomet, one of the founding centers of the Surrealist movement. Dates: November 1 – December 13, 2013. Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 10 am – 5 pm.
Beginning in 1922, the adjacent studios at 45 rue Blomet, occupied by André Masson and Joan Miró, became a daily congregation spot for the leading figures of Surrealism – the artists Jean (Hans) Arp, Jean Dubuffet, Max Ernst, Juan Gris, Georges Malkine, Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, and Yves Tanguy, and the writers and poets Antonin Artaud, Robert Desnos, Paul Éluard, Ernest Hemingway, Michel Leiris, Georges Limbour, Armand Salacrou, and Gertrude Stein. They gathered together to eat, drink, smoke, play cards, and most importantly, to discuss literature and ideas, to write, and to paint.
The exhibition will explore this period through a variety of media including painting, drawing, and sculpture, as well as documentary photographs, and first edition books. A film by Man Ray and Robert Desnos will be screened, and original tracks of Biguine music from the Bal Nègre dance hall, a favorite of the Surrealists and located just steps away at 33 rue Blomet, will add to this exciting, multimedia presentation.
A fully illustrated, hardcover catalogue will be published to accompany the exhibition. Mary Ann Caws, a leading scholar of Surrealist literature and art, will write a new essay on the topic as well as provide translations of essays by Desnos and Leiris about their time on the rue Blomet, both of which will appear in English for the very first time.
Eykyn Maclean (pronounced EE-kin MA-klain), 23 East 67th Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10065(212) 772 9425 is a private art gallery with locations in New York and London, specializing in museum caliber work by key Impressionist and 20th century European and American artists. Christopher Eykyn and Nicholas Maclean established Eykyn Maclean in New York in 2006, launching their exhibition program in 2010 with the critically acclaimed show In Giacometti’s Studio – An Intimate Portrait, which was followed by Matisse and the Model (2011). Eykyn Maclean opened their London gallery in Mayfair in February 2012 with Cy Twombly: Works from the Sonnabend Collection. Other exhibitions include Andy Warhol Flowers (New York, 2012), Interviews with Artists (London, 2012), Chuck Close Photo Maquettes (New York, 2013) and Van Gogh in Paris (London, 2013).
From an outstanding article in the NY Times: (image added)
The show also includes a painting by Dubuffet, who hung out with the group just before leaving the art world for more than a decade to manage his family’s wine business. Called
“Frayeur” (1924), or “Fright,” it depicts a screaming man and seems to presage the horrors of World War II and the fate that befell some Surrealists...
From Wall Street International:
Surrealism and the rue Blomet will include works from museums, institutions, and private collections, presenting a special opportunity to see works that are rarely exhibited publicly and others that have never before been exhibited in the United States. The exhibition will explore this period through a variety of media including painting, drawing, and sculpture, as well as documentary photographs, and first edition books. A film by Man Ray and Robert Desnos will be screened, and original tracks of Biguine music from the Bal Nègre dance hall, a favorite of the Surrealists and located just steps away at 33 rue Blomet, will add to this exciting, multimedia presentation.
Highlights include Miró’s exceptional painting
Le Cheval de cirque (1927)
from the artist’s famous series of ‘dream paintings’ in which images playfully emerge from the subconscious
and Masson’s Le tour de cartes (1923, Museum of Modern Art),
a painting which depicts his rue Blomet friends relaxing with a game of cards.
Masson’s 1925 watercolor Metamorphoses will be exhibited, as well as a group of the artist’s ‘automatic’ drawings from the 1920s. Jean Dubuffet’s painting Frayeur (1924, Fondation Dubuffet) will be shown in the United States for the very first time along with rarely seen paintings by Georges Malkine, and an inscribed first edition of The Night of Loveless Nights, a book of poetry by Desnos with illustrations by Malkine. Miró’s Statue (1926, Museum of Modern Art) will be on view, as well as his sculpture Oiseau lunaire (1946), a monumental version of which now marks the site of the artists’ former studios, and which Miró dedicated to this extraordinary group.
