René Magritte, Man Ray, Roberto Matta, and more – the must-see works of the show’s main sector

Gallerists on the Surrealist treasures on view at Art Basel Miami Beach

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Galleries often go to great lengths to track down the very best works for fairs. Their quest for exceptional pieces is without a doubt a complex one, but it makes the stories behind them all the more fascinating. Here, gallerists give insight into the trajectories of four rare Surrealist treasures they will be showing at Art Basel Miami Beach.


	‘When you see it, you’ll understand why I wanted to buy it’ gallerist Robert Landau, of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1602/Landau-Fine-Art" target="_blank">Landau Fine Art</a> (C7), says of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7987/Ren%C3%A9-Magritte" target="_blank">René Magritte</a>’s&nbsp;La corde sensible&nbsp;(1960). ‘I’ve known the painting for many years; it hung in the Magritte Museum in Brussels for a long time. It’s one of the very best Magrittes I ever saw,’ he continues, adding that both the scale and the year of production of the painting make it particularly special. Having shown the work previously, the Montreal-based gallerist has witnessed its effect on viewers: ‘People gravitate towards it. Everyone wants to photograph it. It just creates an instant impression.’ But how does one end up able to offer&nbsp;a work such as this one? No doubt that patience is required. Nowadays, galleries specialized in Modern art offer works&nbsp;consigned to them&nbsp;by collectors in most cases. Landau, however, purchases the works he offers directly, in a long-held secondary market tradition. After many years of wanting to do so, he was finally able to acquire La corde sensible, having convinced the family who originally owned it and had lent it to the museum. An exciting addition to the fair not only for visitors but also for Landau himself: ‘It feels good to show works of that caliber. We love to show great paintings,’ he says. The gallery has done so since 1987, and is known to be a go-to destination for exceptional works by masters of the early to mid-twentieth century such as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7552/Fernand-L%C3%A9ger" target="_blank">Léger</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/6746/Pablo-Picasso" target="_blank">Picasso</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/6737/Alberto-Giacometti" target="_blank">Giacometti</a>, and of course, Magritte.

To find the right work, timing is key, veteran gallerist&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1107/Edwynn-Houk-Gallery" target="_blank">Edwynn Houk</a> says. ‘Sometimes we track things for almost a generation; with others, we’re in the right place at the right time, and it’s all done just within minutes.’ In Miami Beach, his eponymous gallery (A8), founded in 1980 and specialized in vintage photography, will present a 1946 rayograph by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7171/Man-Ray" target="_blank">Man Ray</a> (1890–1976), an artist at the cornerstone of the New York City gallery’s program. Rayographs, also known as photograms, are photographic images made by placing objects on a light-sensitive surface, such as photographic paper, without using a camera. When first introduced,&nbsp;‘they were immediately praised by the Surrealists, and in fact&nbsp;were photography's main contribution to the movement,’&nbsp;Houk states. He discovered the work only recently and&nbsp;says he is excited to bring it to Miami Beach, alongside several other pieces by the American photographer. The gallery persistently looks for opportunities to find works like these, and the monitoring ‘becomes more intense before a fair like Art Basel,’ says&nbsp;Houk. He&nbsp;adds that sourcing high-level photographic works is different than, say, painting or sculpture: ‘With photography, many great things are still in private hands and aren’t yet in museum possession; a rayograph like this one, which is unique in nature, is very desirable.’&nbsp;

At New York City’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1156/Hirschl-Adler-Modern" target="_blank">Hirschl &amp; Adler Modern</a> (C4), the staff also recently discovered an exceptional Surrealist work they will show at the fair. The piece, an 18-ft long, 7-ft high mural by American Surrealist&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/38452/James-Guy" target="_blank">James Guy</a> (1910-1983), executed in 1939 on six pannels, is ‘a bit of a mystery’ says the gallery’s Tom Parker. ‘This is an incredibly rare mural by an artist known for smaller works,’ he adds. What has ensued, says Parker, is akin to detective work. ‘We have some clues to go by and we hope that they will bear fruit. We are trying to find out more about it and where it had been all the time, reaching out to family members and doing our due diligence.’ Context, in this case, is also key: Similarly to Guy’s smaller paintings, the mural is a ‘fantastical yet inscrutable’ comment on the disillusion in 1930's&nbsp;America, which was still suffering from the devastating effects of the Great Depression.&nbsp;The gallery found a related painting which was exhibited at the 1939 New York World's Fair. They think it will help them learn more about the piece. Founded in 1981 as an offshoot of Hirschl &amp; Adler, Hirschl &amp; Adler Modern is no stranger to thorough research, accompanying most of its exhibitions with scholarly publications. With the work still undergoing restoration, no photo of it is available yet.&nbsp;‘It’s going to be a revelation to a lot of people,’ says Parker.&nbsp;&nbsp;

New York City gallery&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/2972/Di-Donna" target="_blank">Di Donna</a> (C6) will also exhibit a work from the late 1930s in Miami Beach:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7367/Roberto-Matta" target="_blank">Roberto Matta</a>’s&nbsp;Esa Guerra Desnuda (1937). Jeremiah Evarts, one of the gallery’s directors, highlights the historically significant&nbsp;context in which the work was produced. ‘In 1937, Matta is in Paris, working in dialog with the Surrealists of that time in a very difficult moment. Picasso was working on Guernica, of which you can see echoes in Esa Guerra Desnuda. It’s a figure in a landscape of war. Miro is looking at that motif as well during that period.’ The drawing was included in a show at Di Donna’s in 2015, and Chilean-born Matta is ‘an artist that has been very important to our program since the gallery opened [in 2010],’ Evarts says. Surrealism is the gallery's specialty, and he adds that in order to offer a piece like this, ‘real knowledge of history and art history is vital, in addition to knowing the market of that artist.’ All artworks tell a story, of course; but as Evarts put it, ‘foregrounding the history of these objects in an engaging way’ is what ultimately reveals their magic.

Discover more artworks to be presented&nbsp;at Art Basel&nbsp;Miami Beach in our Online Catalog&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/artworks?atozLetter=all&amp;showIds=851&amp;sortBy=random" target="_blank">here</a>.&nbsp;Top image:&nbsp;James Guy, Capital Minus Labor (detail), 1939. Oil on canvas board, 35.5 x 45.7cm. Courtesy of Hirschl &amp; Adler Modern, New York City.

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René Magritte, Man Ray, Roberto Matta, and more – the must-see works of the show’s main sector