• Original 1976 exhibition invitation for René Magritte, La Fidélité des Images, ARC 2, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, front, showing a black-and-white reproduction of Magritte's photograph L'amour: two figures in an interior, one in a dark swimsuit standing barefoot, the other in a white shirt holding a palette and reaching toward the first, captioned L'amour in small italic type below, on cream card.
  • Reverse of 1976 exhibition invitation for René Magritte, La Fidélité des Images, ARC 2, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, showing in centred bold serif type: La Fidélité des Images / René Magritte / Le cinématographe et la photographie; below in bold caps ARC 2; then vernissage le 5 novembre de 18 à 21 h. / musée d'art moderne de la ville de paris / 11 avenue du président wilson 75116 paris / jusqu'au 5 décembre 1976, all on plain cream card.
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Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris

René Magritte — La Fidélité des Images: Le cinématographe et la photographie, ARC 2, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1976

René Magritte — La Fidélité des Images: Le cinématographe et la photographie, ARC 2, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1976

£120.00 GBP
£120.00 GBP
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12 × 17 cm. Offset print on thin card. Very good vintage condition with light age toning and minor handling wear consistent with age.

Original exhibition invitation issued for La Fidélité des Images: René Magritte – Le cinématographe et la photographie, ARC 2, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 11 avenue du Président Wilson, 75116 Paris. Vernissage: 5 November 1976, 18:00–21:00. Exhibition: 5 November – 5 December 1976.

A printed announcement for an exhibition concerned not with Magritte’s paintings but with the photographs and films that had remained largely outside public view. The invitation precedes the catalogue, the reviews, and the subsequent place these images would occupy within the artist’s history.

The reproduction on the front performs a simple transfer. A private photograph — L’amour, one of Magritte’s staged images — becomes an exhibition image; the exhibition image becomes a mailed object. The invitation does not reproduce the exhibition so much as initiate its circulation.

Organised nearly a decade after the artist’s death in 1967, the exhibition was among the earliest institutional projects devoted specifically to Magritte’s photographic and cinematic activities rather than his paintings. It helped establish photography and cinema as essential components of his surrealist practice and was accompanied by the influential catalogue edited with texts by Louis Scutenaire. This reassessment has since become foundational to understanding Magritte’s broader practice.

Its original function was temporary. Distribution ended when the exhibition closed. What remains is a small administrative support recording the moment Magritte’s photographic practice entered institutional visibility. Examples appear only infrequently on the secondary market, particularly outside institutional archives, making surviving invitations noticeably scarcer than the accompanying catalogue.

Shipping and handling included in the listed price.

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