Drawn from the Tate’s collection in England, International Surrealism from Tate: Fifty Years of Dreams focuses on the long trajectory and broad international reach of surrealism as a state of mind through a captivating selection of paintings, photographs, sculptures, and other art objects, as well as publications and archival material.
International Surrealism from Tate is presented a century after the first exhibition of surrealism, in Paris in November 1925, following the publication of André Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism and Louis Aragon’s A Wave of Dreams a year earlier. Featuring familiar artists such as Jean Arp, Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, René Magritte, Joan Miró, Yves Tanguy, and Dorothea Tanning, the exhibition also includes others whose work deserves to be better known such as Kati Horna, Malangatana Ngwenya, Shiihara Osamu, and Lionel Wendt. As surrealism was made up of individual responses rather than a specific style, the key themes that united their various practices form the structure of the exhibition, which will include sections about the inspiration of dreams and of automatism, desire, mysterious energies of the natural world, and the politics of freedom.
Organized in collaboration with Tate
Joan Miró. Women and Bird in the Moonlight, 1949. Tate Modern. © Successió Miró / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris 2025.
Exhibition supporters
The Frist Art Museum is supported in part by