DRAWING SURREALISM
LACMA Los Angeles County Museum of Art
5905 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles
21 October 2012 – 6 January 2013
Long considered the medium of exploration and innovation through its use for studies and preparatory sketches, drawing was set free from its associations with other media and valued as a predominant means of expression and innovation with the advent of surrealism.
Drawing Surrealism explores the significance of drawing and works on paper to surrealist innovation. Automatic drawings, exquisite cadavers, decalcomania, frottage, and collage, for example, are just a few of the processes invented by surrealists as means to tap into the subconscious realm.
Drawing Surrealism examines the impact of surrealist drawing on a global scale. In addition to surrealist “icons” based in France (like Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, André Masson and Max Ernst), the exhibition will include lesser-known Western European artists as well as artists from countries in Eastern Europe and the Americas, Great Britain, and Japan, where surrealism had a profound and lingering effect. The exhibition includes approximately 200 works representing 90 artists from 16 countries.
This exhibition was co-organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Morgan Library & Museum, New York, and was supported in part by LACMA’s Prints and Drawings Council. Additional funding was provided by Erika Glazer and Myron Laskin. The publication was made possible in part by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
