The Not-Trespassing Tour of SURREALISM

A map of Surrealist spots to celebrate 100 years since (ultimate weirdo) André Breton's manifesto met the world.

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It’s the 100th-year anniversary of SURREALISM!* Writer and poet André Breton published his manifesto about the new writing movement in Paris in the fall of 1924. The movement rapidly spread to other media—primarily painting—and throughout its formal years, the group expanded and minimized frequently to match the moods of incredibly complicated** Breton. He decided whether you were “in” or “out”—Surrealist or completely undeserving. You can imagine that this caused quite a frenzy on its own! Imagine telling Picasso that he can’t be in your club anymore.

We’ll jump into some Surrealism history before I introduce the international tour and its accompanying map. I hope you’ll be able to see one or more of these spots in person someday!

*I intended to post this on the actual anniversary in October, but I’ve been procrastinating…and distracted by seeing Surrealist art in person!

**Breton was racist, sexist, homophobic, and a totally awful person. Frida Kahlo called him an “old cockroach” on record. I think his only redeeming quality is that he created my favorite art movement, so I like to only touch on that part and then dispose of him otherwise. I’m taking the art historian approach by gathering and presenting the facts from his writings, but not getting too close and personal to him or worshipping him.

René Magritte. The Double Secret, 1927. Oil on canvas. 114 x 162 cm (44.8 x 63.7 in). Hannelore Foerster via Getty Images.

Let’s find ourselves at the beginning of Surrealism!

Breton’s Surrealist manifesto of 1924 plays with aspects of the awake versus the dreaming self. “I would like to sleep, in order to surrender myself to the dreamers, the way I surrender myself to those who read me with eyes wide open; in order to stop imposing, in this realm, the conscious rhythm of my thought.” He continues, “Can't the dream also be used in solving the fundamental questions of life? Are these questions the same in one case as in the other and, in the dream, do these questions already exist? Is the dream any less restrictive or punitive than the rest? I am growing old and, more than that reality to which I believe I subject myself, it is perhaps the dream, the difference with which I treat the dream, which makes me grow old.” It’s purely about consciousness and subconsciousness.

Although short, the manifesto, I admit, is a little tough for me to follow. It isn’t a stream of consciousness or too strict in its academic tongue, but it isn’t easy to digest either. Later, Breton lays out more simply a straight definition:

“SURREALISM, n. Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express—verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner—the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by the thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern.”

Then, suddenly, he makes a connection to childhood, which makes me soften to him. It’s known that his childhood was chaotic—perhaps he’s an emotional human after all!

“The mind which plunges into Surrealism relives with glowing excitement the best part of its childhood. . .From childhood memories, and from a few others, there emanates a sentiment of being unintegrated, and then later of having gone astray, which I hold to be the most fertile that exists.

It is perhaps childhood that comes closest to one's ‘real life’; childhood beyond which man has at his disposal, aside from his laissez-passer, only a few complimentary tickets; childhood where everything nevertheless conspires to bring about the effective, risk-free possession of oneself.

Thanks to Surrealism, it seems that opportunity knocks a second time. It is as though we were still running toward our salvation, or our perdition. In the shadow we again see a precious terror.”

Although the movement aimed at literature and poetry initially, it’s easy to see why painters and other artists were drawn to its ideology. It allowed the freedom to float, to whisper or shout unwelcomed thoughts into the public realm. It welcomed being twisted and tormented.

André Breton book cover featuring the Magritte painting Le Viol (Rape), 1934, oil on canvas. Menil Collection, Houston.

The Not-Trespassing Tour of Surrealism

My first Not-Trespassing Tour of Modern Homes, gathered in 2019, covered the grounds of Los Angeles—the city that I feel has defined me the most. Then, I released editions featuring Palm Springs and Seattle. A couple of years later, I created another volume featuring the Mediterranean coasts of France and Spain. The latter was a snippet of a world tour I meticulously crafted for an architectural travel fellowship I applied to and didn't receive—a major life bummer that turned out to be for the best.

Over the years, I keep finding myself gravitating back toward the Surrealist art movement. More than ever, I am hyper-focused on reading about the artists, writers, and photographers who flowed in and out of the group. It makes total sense to me that the Not-Trespassing Tour would mesh well with these artists and writers.

While my usual Not-Trespassing Tour focuses on a smaller geographic area and is always done by car, this map of Surrealism-related places boasts architecture found all over the world. Most of the spots will naturally be in Paris because it was the birthplace of the movement, but you may be surprised by the other locations on the map. Spain! Mexico! The UK! Belgium! …Connecticut!

We’re going everywhere and we’re doing it BIZARRELY.

Dora Maar

The Prized Google Map:

Salvador Dali’s ‘Trilogy of the Desert: Mirage’ (1946) with a little 2024 geographic update.

Click here to open Google Maps.

The characters we’ll follow

Below, you’ll find a quick snippet of some of the artists involved in the movement (and in this tour). Of course, Surrealism was an enormous part of the canon of art, so this list is just the tip of the lobster-shaped iceberg.

Man Ray ❥ Dorothea Tanning ❥ Lee Miller and Roland Penrose ❥ Salvador Dalí ❥ Leonora Carrington ❥ Max Ernst ❥ Marcel Duchamp ❥ Peggy Guggenheim ❥ Hans (Jean) and Sophie Arp ❥ André Breton ❥ Joan Miró ❥ René Magritte ❥ Alberto Giacometti ❥ Pablo Picasso ❥ Yves Tanguy ❥ Arshile Gorky ❥ Méret Oppenheim ❥ et Jean Cocteau !

Man Ray

Left: À l’Heure de l’Observatoire: les Amour; Right: Man Ray in his Paris studio, 1923 © Man Ray Trust / ADAGP 2006 All Rights Reserved.

Dorothea Tanning

Left: Dorothea as photographed by Lee Miller in 1946 © Lee Miller Archives; Right: Hospitalité (1958) by Dorothea Tanning

Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning in the gardens of her house at Seillans 1966. He holds the painting Schmetterling-Steuerzahler (papillon contribuable), for which he has used a piece of wallpaper, a fly swatter and a note from an accountant concerning his tax return, via Edward Quinn.

Lee Miller

Left: Lee Miller self portrait; Right: Lee Miller and Roland Penrose's home at Farley's House and Gardens, as photographed by Karen Walker.

Exercises, triple exposure, Limbering up for the big push, London, UK, 1942.

Roland Penrose

Roland Penrose and his shared home with Lee Miller, photographs c/o the Farleys House & Gallery.

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Salvador Dalí

The perfectly hectic Dalí collage via Historia © Imageselect/Wikimedia Commons

Interior of Gala and Salvador Dalí’s house in Cadaqués, Spain. Photographed by Oscar Tusquets Blanca for House and Garden UK.

Leonora Carrington

Leonora Carrington And Then We Saw the Daughter of the Minotaur, 1953, MoMA; Her home in Mexico City, which was long-time preserved as a house museum. Now private, sadly!

Max Ernst and Leonora Carrington, plus their home in Ardèche.

Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp, Fontaine, 1917. Photographié par Alfred Stieglitz. ; Henri Pierre Roché, Marcel Duchamp’s First Studio, c. 1916-18. © 2009 Artists Right Society (AGP), New York / ADAGP, Paris / Succession Marcel Duchamp. Courtesy Jean-Jacques Lebel.

André Breton

André Breton’s apartment in Paris

Joan Miró

JOAN MIRÓ | PEINTURE (FEMME AU CHAPEAU ROUGE); Joan Miró portrait via Hauser & Wirth

René Magritte

René Magritte's L'art de vivre, 1967; Musée Magritte in Brussels, which holds the largest collection in the world by the artist.

Alberto Giacometti

Alberto Giacometti in his 32 square meter studio in Paris; Giacometti and his sculptures, as photographed by Gordon Parks.

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. 1907. Oil on canvas, 8' × 7' 8" (243.9 × 233.7 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York.; Picasso in his normal painting outfit (his underwear) in his studio, photo by Douglas Duncan.

Arshile Gorky

BLUE FIGURE IN CHAIR c. 1934 – 1935 Oil on canvas, via Hauser & Wirth; Arshile Gorky, smoking a cigarette - Photo by Gjon Mili.

Meret Oppenheim

Object (1936); Méret Oppenheim in the studio, photographer unknown.

Jean Cocteau

Jean Cocteau in Paris, 1944, photographed by Lee Miller.; Fresco created by Cocteau.

Related notes:

• If you want to step outside of Surrealism, Vogue France lists other artists’ houses that are worth visiting. I’m taking notes!

• Two memorable quotes from Meret Oppenheim via MoMA:

  

  “‘There is one thing I do not want you to ask me,’ Meret Oppenheim told an interviewer in 1978. It was spring in New York, and the Swiss artist’s latest work was on display at an uptown gallery. Meanwhile, her most famous work—about which she flatly refused to answer questions—was installed 20 blocks south, in MoMA’s galleries on 53rd Street. ‘I have been asked so often,’ Oppenheim complained, ‘‘How did you have the idea of the fur cup?’ It bores me.’”

• The New Yorker on the Insurrection of Surrealism at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as written by the late and great Peter Schjeldahl.

• “Seeing Miró’s Majorca Studio, Just the Way He Kept It” via the New York Times.

• Exquisite Dreams: The Art and Life of Dorothea Tanning firstly because the cover of this makes me absolutely love her style. I feel like she may have enjoyed Peggy Guggenheim’s Alexander Calder-created bead frame.

  

• I saw Yves Tanguy’s The Sun in its Jewel Case (1937) at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice this fall, and the painting will visually stay with me forever.

Yves Tanguy’s The Sun in its Jewel Case (1937) at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection

If you have a place to add to the map—one that you’ve visited or want to visit—please let me know in the comments!

**

May you tour and bizarrely twirl your way through the enthralling world of the Surrealists!

Kelsey Rose

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