Wacky, Mysterious Paintings by This Surrealist Still Influence Contemporary Artists. An Exhibition in London Will Explore the Legacy of René Magritte

The Belgian Surrealist was famous for his playful subversion, like when he created a painting of a pipe and then defiantly declared it wasn’t a pipe, after all

Sonja Anderson | Daily Correspondent

July 23, 2026 1:34 p.m.

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A bowler-hatted man whose face is hidden by a floating green apple. A dollhouse bedroom occupied by a giant comb. A large boulder standing near a window overlooking the sea. These are the dreamlike, incongruously juxtaposed paintings of René Magritte.

This fall, the 20th-century Belgian Surrealist is getting the star treatment in London. International art gallery network Gagosian is staging an exhibition of Magritte’s work, emphasizing his abiding legacy. “This Is Still Not a Pipe: The Afterlife of Magritte” will highlight Magritte’s unique philosophies and techniques, as well as his influence on contemporary creators.

“He’s a rare artist that’s managed to become culturally iconic beyond the art world,” Bernard Lagrange, who co-curated the exhibition with Jasper Sharp, tells Artnet’s Margaret Carrigan. “The darker, stranger underbelly of his aesthetic is what continues to inspire artists today, especially as we live through a moment where there is this return to a figurative and surreal exploration in painting and sculpture.”

The exhibition will display paintings, photography, sculpture and paper artworks from throughout Magritte’s life, according to a statement from Gagosian. The artist was born in 1898 in Lessines, Belgium, to a tailor and a hatmaker. Trained at the Brussels Academy of Fine Arts, Magritte began his artistic career as a wallpaper designer and later sketched for advertisers.

Inspired by the works of Metaphysical painter Giorgio de Chirico, whose 1914 piece The Song of Love depicts a Classical bust hanging next to a large rubber glove, Magritte began creating surreal collages. After moving to the Paris suburbs in the late 1920s—and mingling with Surrealist Max Ernst—Magritte painted some of his first great works, including The Lovers (1928) and The Treachery of Images (1929).

Treachery depicts, unmistakably, a wooden tobacco pipe. But beneath the pipe is a cursive caption: “Ceci n’est pas une pipe,” which translates to “This is not a pipe.” The artwork, whose caption inspired the name of the Gagosian exhibition, cemented Magritte’s reputation as a button-pusher.

“It’s quite simple,” Magritte explained in 1947. “Who would dare to say that the picture of a pipe is a pipe? Who could smoke the pipe in my picture? No one. So it is not a pipe.”

Decades later, the photographer Duane Michals spent five days photographing Magritte and his wife at their home. In a January interview with MoMA magazine’s Samuel Allen, Michals compared Magritte’s philosophy to his own medium. “Photography tells you what you already know, with great fidelity,” Michals said. “[Magritte] painted photographically, yet what he painted were contradictions. He shows a pipe and says, ‘This is not a pipe.’ I liked that challenge.”

Magritte made another pipe-themed painting, The Philosopher’s Lamp, in 1936. This conceptual self-portrait is the star of the upcoming Gagosian exhibition. According to the gallery, it “epitomizes Magritte’s pictorial explorations of paradox and introspection.” It shows Magritte in profile, his nose comically enlarged and literally buried in a tobacco pipe. His face is lit by the light of a single, snake-like candle.

“The meditations of an absent-minded, obsessive philosopher may conjure up the image of a mental world closed in upon itself as, in this case, the smoker is the prisoner of his pipe,” wrote Magritte.

In the 1950s and ’60s, Magritte made Golconda (1953) and The Son of Man (1964), two of his most famous artworks. Both feature men in black coats and neat bowler hats—a common figure in Magritte’s oeuvre. The artist died in 1967.

“This Is Still Not a Pipe” will feature more than 20 Magritte artworks. There will also be a wealth of pieces—some created specifically for the occasion—by “surprising” contemporary artists, Sharp tells Artnet. Some of them are octogenarians; others are new art school graduates. Sharp says the gallery intends not to directly link these artists’ work to Magritte’s, but to emphasize a conceptual throughline.

Apparently, collectors and artists alike are still enamored with the Belgian Surrealist—whose works have auctioned for $21.2 million and $121.2 million in recent years. “You’d be surprised how often Magritte is invoked in studio visits lately,” Sharp tells Artnet. “The thought has crossed our minds that the most contemporary artist in the entire exhibition is probably going to be Magritte himself.”

Art dealer and gallery founder Larry Gagosian says in the statement, “It is difficult to imagine a world today without Magritte. Almost six decades after his death, his influence continues to resonate within contemporary artistic production and beyond into the broader landscape of visual culture. … I am delighted to be presenting his work at the gallery once again and to offer audiences a renewed opportunity to engage with the poetry, wit and mystery that define his vision.”

“This Is Still Not a Pipe: The Afterlife of Magritte” will be on view from September 24 through December 12 at Gagosian in London.

Sonja Anderson | Read More

Sonja Anderson is a daily correspondent for Smithsonian magazine who covers art, archaeology and culture, from newly discovered artifacts to the latest art heists.