@eduardmsmr
Happy Surrealist Saturday!!
Today I shared an article on how content has turned into fast fashion (check out my pinned post), and in it I discussed the idea that slowing down may be one of the most radical things a creator can do right now, because the thing that will make their work theirs is the texture of their actual experience, which only emerges when they give it time. And today, this is exactly what I wanted to do: take things slower
So I spent time exploring the world of someone who was once called “the father of Surrealism” by critic André Salmon in 1926, and decided to share that exploration with you
The figure I was drawn to today is Pierre Roy
Even though he was once described as a father of the movement, today he occupies what scholars often call “a marginal place” in Surrealism’s history, much like Giorgio de Chirico, the founder of Metaphysical painting and one of Surrealism’s deepest influences
The more I learned about Roy, the more I realized that his story is really about what it means to belong to a movement while refusing to be consumed by it
Pierre Roy was born on August 10, 1880, in Nantes, France, into an artistic family. His father worked at the Musée d'Arts de Nantes, and remarkably, all four of his siblings became amateur painters
His family had connections to Jules Verne (French novelist famous for "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" and other science fiction adventures), whose fantastical stories captivated young Pierre and planted seeds for his later visual explorations of the impossible made real
After studying literature and philosophy, he initially pursued architecture, which explains the precise draftsmanship that would define his work
He moved to Paris in 1904, attending the École des Beaux-Arts before leaving to work on the 1900 Universal Exhibition. In 1905, at 25, he committed fully to painting, initially working in Neo-Impressionist and Fauvist styles
But everything changed around 1920 when he discovered the work of Giorgio de Chirico. That encounter redirected his entire artistic path
Through his close friendship with Guillaume Apollinaire (the Polish-French poet and art critic who actually coined the term "Surrealism" and championed Cubism) and Max Jacob (French poet and painter, close friend of Picasso), Roy entered the inner circle of the Parisian avant-garde
Some scholars even suggest Roy may have facilitated de Chirico's first contact with Apollinaire around 1913 AND if true, this would make him a bridge between two foundational figures of metaphysical and Surrealist art
In 1925, at age 45, Roy participated in the first exhibition of Surrealist painters at Galerie Pierre alongside de Chirico, Max Ernst (German Surrealist painter known for collage techniques), and Picasso
His work appeared in the magazine La Révolution surréaliste. His first solo exhibition followed in 1926, with Louis Aragon (French poet and novelist, co-founder of Surrealism with André Breton) writing the catalog preface. He connected with Breton himself, Paul Éluard (major Surrealist poet), and other core members of the movement
Where Breton championed automatism and unleashing the unconscious, Roy painted with meticulous, almost architectural precision
His 1919 painting Adrienne pĂŞcheuse (The Fisherwoman Adrienne), with its combination of strange objects and mysterious space, was so admired that the Surrealists reproduced it in their magazine
His most famous work is probably Danger on the Stairs (c. 1927-28), showing a large snake winding down a staircase in an otherwise scrupulously boring middle class interior
Roy represented what's sometimes called "veristic" Surrealism which is the same strain as Salvador DalĂ, RenĂ© Magritte (Belgian Surrealist famous for "The Treachery of Images"), and Paul Delvaux (Belgian painter known for dreamlike scenes). Fully recognizable images removed from normal contexts and reassembled within paradoxical frameworks
But here's where his story becomes complicated as is relationship with the official Surrealist group proved short lived.
By 1928, he'd had his final exhibition with them, and Breton notably omitted him from Le Surréalisme et la Peinture. The split stemmed from Roy's rejection of their “vociferous behavior and revolutionary ideology”, and his fierce desire for independence
In a 1947 questionnaire from MoMA, Roy declared: "As a painter, I have absolutely no philosophy", a statement that would have horrified Breton
Yet this independence didn't stop his success. The American dealer Julien Levy (pioneering New York gallerist who brought Surrealism to America) exhibited his work in 1932, introducing his precisely rendered dreamscapes to American audiences. MoMA bought two of his paintings in the 1930s.
In 1933, the French government appointed him as a naval artist for five years which was an unusual commission for a Surrealist. He traveled extensively, exhibiting in New York, London, and even the Honolulu Academy of Arts in 1939. His work appeared at the 1937 World's Fair in Paris
Beyond painting, Roy designed theater and ballet sets, created covers for Vogue magazine, and produced advertising posters. This commercial work demonstrated his versatility but perhaps contributed to his marginalization within art historical narratives that prefer "pure" artistic careers
His paintings often drew on childhood memories like lost toys, forgotten objects, the kind of things that accumulate mysterious significance in retrospect
This focus on the archaeology of personal experience, rendered with clinical precision, created a unique emotional temperature which was neither hot nor cold, but suspended in the amber of memory
What I love about Pierre Roy's story is what it says about belonging. He was there at the beginning, dubbed the “FATHER” of the movement, his work reproduced in their magazines, his exhibitions prefaced by Aragon BUT he refused to sign Breton's manifestos, rejected their political dogma, and walked away when the movement demanded conformity
Today, scholars say he occupies “a marginal place” in Surrealism's history but I think that Roy showed that you could take what you needed from a movement and leave the rest. That you could paint the dream without living by someone else's rules about what dreams should mean
Pierre Roy died on September 26, 1950, at age 70, having lived long enough to see Surrealism transform from scandal to institution, yet maintaining his independence to the end. His work remains in MoMA, the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Musée des Beaux-Arts in his native Nantes
Perhaps the most important lesson that Pierre Roy taught me is that sometimes the most important figures in a movement are those who stand at its edges, who show that there are multiple ways to make reality strange
You don’t have to shout to reshape the world as much as you don't have to surrender your independence to contribute something essential
Thank you for reading!🌹
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