By Liz Hobday

A pipe, a green apple, a man in a bowler hat: the visual language of surrealist René Magritte is among the most recognisable of any artist.

It’s so ingrained in our culture that people often experience a sense of deja vu standing in front of his paintings, according to Nicholas Chambers from the Art Gallery of NSW.

“They recognise echoes of his paintings from cinema and advertising – he’s one of the most quoted artists of the 20th century,” said Chambers.

Yet in Australia his work has for the most part only been shown in group exhibitions dedicated to the surrealist movement he was a part of.

That’s finally being remedied, with the first Australian retrospective of his work opening at the Art Gallery of NSW on Saturday, featuring 100 artworks.

A man in a bowler hat, his face obscured by an apple? That’s Magritte.

A image of a pipe, with a label stating it’s definitely not a pipe? An eye, its iris a field of cloudy sky? That’s him too.

The show spans Magritte’s four-decade career, from commercial designs of the 1920s, his contributions to surrealism and provocative work made during World War II, and finally his celebrated later paintings.

Magritte was a key figure in surrealism, an avant-garde art movement that flourished in Europe between the world wars, delving into dreams and the subconscious with the aim of accessing a new kind of reality.

While Magritte spent almost all of his career in Brussels, he did live in Paris for a time, becoming friends with the likes of Salvador Dali and André Breton.

What emerges from the retrospective is not only a front-row look at surrealist painting, but also a sense of Magritte’s irreverent humour.

“There is a strong prankster attitude, it’s there all the way to the end,” said Chambers.

While Magritte is known as a painter, the show also includes some of his experimentation with publishing, film and photography.

About half of the artworks come from private collections in Belgium, and the rest are drawn from institutions including the Menil Collection in Houston.

Three pieces are from Australian collections: the National Gallery of Victoria’s In Praise of Dialectics; the National Gallery of Australia’s The Lovers; and A Variation on Sadness from Kerry Stokes’ private collection.

The show is part of the Sydney International Art Series 2024–25, which includes Cao Fei: My City is Yours, also at the AGNSW, and a Julie Mehretu show at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia.

Magritte runs until February 9.