Monsters & Myths: Transatlantic Surrealism in the 1930s and 1940s
FAIN: GI-261050-18
Baltimore Museum of Art (Baltimore, MD 21218-3898)
Oliver Shell (Project Director: January 2018 to October 2022)
Implementation of a traveling exhibition, public programs, and a catalog exploring the impact of war and transatlantic exchange on the art of surrealists during the 1930s and 1940s.
The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art (WAMA) are co-organizing Monsters & Myths: Trans-Atlantic Surrealism in the 1930s and 1940s (Monsters & Myths)—the first major exhibition to focus on the relationship between Surrealism and war in both Europe and America. From the rise of totalitarianism during the 1930s, through the Spanish Civil War (1936 - 1939), until the end of World War II (1939--1945), Surrealist artists produced profoundly affecting images that responded in complex ways to the turbulent times. Forced into flight and exile, many carried these images with them as they sought refuge in the New World. The exhibition will feature 90 objects—the experimental range as well as the international scope of Surrealist art produced in these years will be presented with new scholarship and associated interpretive programming.