Le Déclin de la société bourgeoisie
About this artwork
Best known as a writer and leader of the Surrealist movement, André Breton was, by his own admission, not a gifted artist. However he did experiment with techniques which required a minimum of skill, such as collages and boxed constructions including poems. In this collage he has combined printed material in a humorous and anarchic manner. The Surrealists were committed to the overthrow of bourgeois values and systems, so the phrase pasted onto the picture turns this rare collage into a Bretonian prophecy. It is similar in spirit to the collages of Max Ernst, suggesting a date of the mid to late 1930s for the piece.
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title:Le Déclin de la société bourgeoisie
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accession number:GMA 3945
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materials:Collage on paper
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date created:About 1935 - 1940
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measurements:Paper size: 13.50 x 8.70 cm (framed: 59.00 x 44.00 cm)
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credit line:Bequeathed by Gabrielle Keiller 1995
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copyright:© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2018.
Andre Breton
Andre Breton
André Breton was the founder and chief theorist of the surrealist movement. Through his study of medicine and work with the insane, he became interested in irrational imagery. After serving as a medical auxiliary during the First World War, he discovered the work of Sigmund Freud. The subjects of psychiatry,…