Surrealism and Its Legacy in the United States

Surrealism and Its Legacy in the United States

The Surrealist movement, launched with André Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism in 1924, has undergone extensive re-evaluation in recent decades. While its origins lay in interwar Europe, contemporary scholarship emphasizes Surrealism’s transnational afterlife, including its profound yet diverse impact on U.S. art, politics, literature, and culture. This essay draws explore Surrealism’s evolving role in the American context.

Global and Multicultural Expansion of Surrealism

Recent studies have challenged the Eurocentric understanding of Surrealism by analyzing its global manifestations. The Journal of Surrealism and the Americas (2023) highlighted how Surrealism developed in Latin America alongside its reinterpretation in the United States (Caro Troncoso, 2023; Foucault, 2023). Additionally, Moretti-Langholz (2024) examined André Breton’s travels in the American Southwest, particularly his engagement with Indigenous cultures and symbols. This broadening of Surrealist scholarship reveals the movement as an evolving, inclusive mode of cultural production, not just an elite Parisian avant-garde.

Surrealism’s Remaking in the United States

Joanna Pawlik’s Remade in America (2021) offers one of the most significant contributions to understanding how Surrealism adapted within American cultural and political frameworks. Pawlik shows how postwar artists and activists repurposed Surrealist ideas to critique imperialism, racism, and capitalism. The Chicago Surrealists, the Beat poets, and feminist and Black Arts Movement figures drew on Surrealist methods to expand its political reach. Far from being an imported style, Surrealism became a flexible ideology of resistance.

From Elite to Popular: Surrealism in Mass Culture

Sandra Zalman’s Consuming Surrealism in American Culture (2017) explores how Surrealism, despite its radical origins, permeated American commercial and popular culture. Salvador Dalí’s collaborations with fashion designers, advertisers, and World’s Fair curators exemplify how Surrealist aesthetics entered the American mainstream. This commercialization of the movement blurred distinctions between avant-garde and kitsch, reshaping its cultural significance.

Artistic and Cross-Media Influence

Surrealist techniques like automatism, juxtaposition, and dream logic deeply influenced American visual culture. Artists such as Jackson Pollock and Arshile Gorky integrated Surrealist automatism into Abstract Expressionism. Photographers including Man Ray, Lee Miller, and Clarence John Laughlin extended Surrealist vision through solarization, montage, and uncanny composition (Conkelton, 1994). In cinema, Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) used dream imagery and disjointed narrative to explore psychological interiority. More recently, artists have turned to digital media to explore Surrealist aesthetics in relation to AI, climate crisis, and global anxieties.

Contemporary Re-Evaluations and Exhibitions

Major exhibitions and scholarly platforms have revisited Surrealism’s legacy through a transnational lens. The 2021–22 exhibition Surrealism Beyond Borders, co-organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Tate Modern and running from 2021 to 2022, (reviewed in the Journal of Surrealism and the Americas, 2021) questioned traditional geographic limits of the movement. This shift in curatorial and academic focus continues to decenter Paris as the epicenter and promotes recognition of marginalized Surrealist practices—from women Surrealists like Dorothea Tanning and Leonora Carrington to Indigenous and Caribbean visual traditions.

Surrealism in the United States was never merely derivative. It was transformed, hybridized, and deployed in uniquely American ways. Recent scholarship shows that Surrealism remains a living methodology, used by artists, filmmakers, and activists to explore subconscious, spiritual, and sociopolitical terrains. The transnational turn in Surrealist studies ensures that the movement continues to evolve as a global phenomenon.

References

Caro Troncoso, P. (Ed.) (2023) Surrealism and the 1960s Americas [Special issue]. Journal of Surrealism and the Americas, 14(1).

Conkelton, S. (1994). American Surrealist Photography. MoMA, 16, 20–22.

Foucault, A. (2023). Surrealist Utopias and the Cuban Revolution. Journal of Surrealism and the Americas, 14(1), 6–26.

Moretti-Langholz, D. (2024). Looking beyond himself: André Breton in the American Southwest. Journal of Surrealism and the Americas, 14(2).

Pawlik, J. (2021). Remade in America: Surrealist Art, Activism, and Politics, 1940–1978. University of California Press.

Zalman, S. (2017). Consuming Surrealism in American Culture: Dissident Modernism. Routledge.

Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100 @ PMA - Philadelphia Museum of Art - A major exhibition celebrating the centenary of the Surrealist movement

Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100

Philadelphia Museum of Art

November 8, 2025 – February 16, 2026

Giorgio de Chirico (Italian, born Greece, 1888–1978) 

The Soothsayer's Recompense, 1913 

Oil on canvas, 53 3/8 × 70 7/8 inches (135.6 × 180 cm) 

Philadelphia Museum of Art: 

The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950, 1950-134-38

André Masson (French, 1896–1987)

The Landscape of Wonders, 1935 

Oil on canvas, 30 1/8 × 25 3/4 inches (76.5 × 65.4 cm) 

Soloman R. Guggenheim Museum, New York 

Bequest, Richard S. Zeisler, 2007, 2007.44

Salvador Dalí (Spanish, 1904–1989) 

Soft Construction with Boiled Beans, 

(Premonition of Civil War), 1936 

Oil on canvas, 39 5/16 x 39 3/8 inches (99.9 x 100 cm) 

Philadelphia Museum of Art: 

The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950, 1950-134-41

Salvador Dalí (Spanish, 1904–1989) 

Aphrodisiac Telephone, 1938 

Plastic and metal, 

8 1/4 × 12 1/4 × 6 1/2 inches (21 × 31.1 × 16.5 cm) 

Lent by the Minneapolis Institute of Art, 

The William Hood Dunwoody Fund, 96.2 

The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) presents Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100, a major exhibition celebrating the centenary of the Surrealist movement. As the final stop in an ambitious  tour organized with the Centre Pompidou in Paris—and the sole venue in the United States—the PMA will tell the story of Surrealist art, spotlighting the makers who sought out new expressive forms to expand the reach of the creative imagination.

The five touring partners are: the Centre Pompidou (Paris), the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (Brussels), the Fundación MAPFRE (Madrid), the Hamburger Kunsthalle (Hamburg), and the PMA. Each  venue was tasked with presenting a distinct story of Surrealism relevant to their own histories and collections. At the PMA, Dreamworld will provide a chronological installation arranged through six thematic sections, including one, unique to Philadelphia, that focuses on artists who fled from Europe to Mexico and the U.S. during World War II.

In his 1924 Manifesto of Surrealism, poet and artist André Breton addressed what he saw as a crisis of consciousness: at around twenty years of age, he said, humans discard their childlike imaginations to adopt adult sense, decorum, and judgement. Breton believed that the only legitimate aspiration is to obtain a state of freedom, achievable solely by reharnessing the imagination. Surrealism, the movement in literature and art that Breton codified with his manifesto, would continually seek new techniques for exploring the human capacity for astonishment.

The first self-described Surrealists working in Paris rejected the representation of objective reality in art as antithetical to a truer, higher beauty, and instead, sought to produce images with a dreamlike character. The first section of this exhibition, “Waking Dream,” traces the development of Surrealist imagery and experimental techniques across mediums in the 1920s, from the found-object constructions of Man Ray and the collages of Max Ernst to hallucinatory canvases by Giorgio de Chirico, René Magritte, and Salvador Dalí.

Jean (Hans) Arp (French, born Germany [Alsace], 1886–1966) 

Growth, modeled 1938; cast by 1949 

Bronze, 31 1/4 × 12 1/2 × 7 3/8 inches (79.4 × 31.8 × 18.7 cm) 

Philadelphia Museum of Art: 

Gift of Curt Valentin, 1950, 1950-78-1

Roberto Matta (Chilean, 1911–2002) 

Morphology (Fantasy Landscape), c. 1939 

Oil on canvas, 12 × 16 1/8 inches (30.5 × 41 cm)

Collection of Andrew S. Teufel

Dorothea Tanning (American, 1910–2012) 

Birthday, 1942 

Oil on canvas, 40 1/4 × 25 1/2 inches (102.2 × 64.8 cm)

Philadelphia Museum of Art: 125th Anniversary Acquisition. 

Purchased with funds contributed 

by C. K. Williams, II, 1999, 1999-50-1

Dreamworld will then journey through sections exploring the themes of “Natural History” and “Desire.” Capturing a sense of wonder in nature was crucial for the development of Surrealist sensibility. Visitors will encounter enigmatic landscapes and fantastic creatures; torn-paper collages by Hans Arp will be displayed alongside Paul Klee’s vibrant painting Fish Magic (1925), the disorienting photographic landscapes by Lee Miller, and Joseph Cornell’s boxes containing found objects. Nearby, works by Hans Bellmer, Claude Cahun, André Kertész, and others will demonstrate the powerful ways in which photography served the Surrealist interest in eros, or desire, and the reinvention of the erotic body.

A through line of the exhibition is the use of mythology to convey the Surrealist world view. A section titled “Premonition of War” features images of monsters and creatures of strange and terrifying shape, which artists such as Dalí, Ernst, André Masson, Joan Miró, and Pablo Picasso used to respond to the devastating rise of totalitarianism and war in Europe in the 1930s.

With the outbreak of World War II, many Surrealists working in France left for North America, taking refuge in Caribbean ports, Mexico, and the United States. This is the focus of a section unique to the PMA, entitled “Exiles.” This section features treasured paintings in the PMA’s collection in addition to major loans such as Frida Kahlo's My Grandparents, My Parents, and I (Family Tree) (1936). In New York, Surrealism’s wartime capital, younger artists developed innovative forms of painting in tune with Surrealist methods. Highlights here will include Jackson Pollock’s Male and Female (1942–1943) and Mark Rothko’s Gyrations on Four Planes (1944).

The exhibition’s concluding section, “Magic Art,” focuses on a new type of esotericism that emerged within Surrealism in the aftermath of World War II. Filled with imagery of magical and alchemical beings, celestial figures, and symbols of the occult, this section will feature Leonora Carrington’s The Pleasures of Dagobert (1945), which materializes the magical, metamorphic imaginings of an early-medieval French monarch, and Remedios Varo’s Creation of the Birds (1957), in which an owl-headed painter uses starlight to bring a painted bird to life.

Remedios Varo (Spanish, 1908–1963) 

Icon, 1945

Oil with mother-of-pearl and gold leaf inlays on wood 

Closed: 23 5/8 × 15 7/16 × 2 1/8 inches 

(60 × 39.2 × 5 .4 cm) 

Open: 23 5/8 × 27 9/16 × 2 1/8 inches 

(60 × 70 × 5.4 cm) 

Colección Malba, 

Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, 1997.02

Illustrated by Arshile Gorky (American, born Van Province, 

Ottoman Empire [present-day Turkey], c. 1904–1948) 

Text by André Breton (French, 1896–1966), 

Dust jacket and cover designed by Marcel Duchamp 

(American, born France, 1887–1968), 

Cover of Young Cherry Trees Secured Against Hares, 1946 

Hardbound book with paper cover design by Marcel Duchamp

Book: 9 3/8 x 6 3/8 inches (23.8 x 16.2 cm)

Philadelphia Museum of Art: 

Gift of an anonymous donor, 1988, 1988-8-2

Victor Brauner (Romanian, 1903–1966) 

The Lovers (Messengers of the Number), February, 1947 

Oil on canvas, 36 1/4 × 28 3/4 inches (92 × 73 cm) 

Centre Pompidou, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris: 

Bequest of Mme Jacqueline Victor Brauner, 1986, AM 1987-1204

Joseph Cornell (American, 1903–1972) 

Untitled (Constellation), c. 1958 

Box construction: wood, metal, cut paper, glass and found objects, 

13 × 19 3/8 × 4 1/4 inches (33 × 49.2 × 10.8 cm) 

Philadelphia Museum of Art: 

Gift of Josephine Albarelli, 2015, 2015-144-5

“Surrealist art has been a focus of our museum since receiving the generous gifts of the Louise and Walter Arensberg collection in 1950 and the bequest of the Albert E. Gallatin collection in 1952,” said Matthew Affron, the museum’s Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art. “Today, our permanent collection features outstanding works by a range of artists associated with Surrealism, including Giorgio de Chirico, Joan Miró, René Magritte, Jean Arp, Salvador Dalí, and Dorothea Tanning. As the main repository of works by Marcel Duchamp, one of Surrealism’s most influential guiding spirits, the PMA is very proud to build on this monumental exhibition and present it to audiences in the U.S.”

“The PMA has an extraordinary collection of modern art, and through this exhibition, we can offer our visitors a new perspective on Surrealism and showcase the strength of our own collection,” said Sasha Suda, the George D. Widener Director and CEO. “I can’t think of a more perfect way to celebrate 100 years of Surrealism.”

In Philadelphia, Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100 is curated by Matthew Affron, the Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art, with Danielle Cooke, Exhibition Assistant. It will be accompanied by an illustrated publication by Matthew Affron, detailing the the key motivations, principles, themes, and techniques of Surrealist art from the early 1920s to the late 1950s.

PMA - PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART

2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, PA 19130

philamuseum.org

Related Posts on this blogzine:

Surrealism and Its Legacy in the United States (Essay, June 2025)

Forbidden Territories: 100 Years of Surreal Landscapes

The Hepworth Wakefield, 23 November 2024 – 27 April 2025

Out of this World: Surreal & Fantastic Art in Photography

Keith de Lellis Gallery, New York, October 3 – November 15, 2024

Mona Kuhn: Between Modernism and Surrealism 

Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York, 4 April - 25 May 2024

Surrealism Beyond Borders

Tate Modern, London, 24 February 2022 – 29 August 2022

Surrealism and the dream

Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, 8 October 2013 - 12 January 2014

Dali. All of the poetic suggestions and all of the plastic possibilities

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, April 27 - September 2, 2013

Marcel Duchamp on Display: Optics, Exhibition Installations, Portable Museums

Zabriskie Gallery, New York, March 22 - May 5, 2001

Dreaming with Open Eyes

Israel Museum, Jerusalem, December 22, 2000 - June 2001

Arshile Gorky: The Breakthrough Years 

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth , January 14 - March 17, 1996 

Surrealism Beyond Borders, Tate Modern, London

Surrealism Beyond Borders

Tate Modern, London

24 February – 29 August 2022

Surrealism was always international. This ground-breaking exhibition opening at Tate Modern reveals the broad scope of this radical movement, moving beyond the confines of a single time or place. Based on extensive research undertaken by Tate and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, it spans 80 years and 50 countries to show how Surrealism inspired and united artists around the globe, from centres as diverse as Buenos Aires, Cairo, Lisbon, Mexico City, Prague, Seoul and Tokyo. Expanding our understanding of Surrealism as never before, Tate Modern will show how this dynamic movement took root in many places at different times, offering artists the freedom to challenge authority and imagine a new world.

A revolutionary idea sparked in Paris around 1924, Surrealism prioritised the unconscious and dreams over the familiar and everyday. While it has often generated poetic and even humorous works – from Salvador Dalí’s Lobster Telephone to René Magritte’s train rushing from a fireplace – it has also been used by artists around the world as a serious weapon in the struggle for political, social, and personal freedom. Featuring over 150 works ranging from painting and photography to sculpture and film, many of which have never been shown in the UK, this exhibition explores the collective interests shared by artists across regions to highlight their interrelated networks. It also considers the conditions under which they worked and how this in turn impacted Surrealism, including the pursuit of independence from colonialism and displacement caused by international conflict. Among the rarely seen works are photographs by Cecilia Porras and Enrique Grau, which defied the conservative social conventions of 1950s Colombia, as well as paintings by exiled Spanish artist Eugenio Granell, whose radical political commitments made him a target for censorship and persecution.

Familiar Surrealist themes such as the exploration of the uncanny and unconscious desires are repositioned from a fresh perspective. Visitors will see iconic paintings such as Max Ernst’s Two Children are Threatened by a Nightingale 1924 alongside lesser known but significant works including Antonio Berni’s Landru in the Hotel, Paris 1932, which appeared in the artist’s first exhibition of Surrealist works in Argentina, and Toshiko Okanoue’s Yobi-goe (The Call) 1954, addressing the daily experience of post-war Japan. Photographs by Hans Bellmer focusing on the female body are contrasted with Ithell Colquhoun’s Scylla 1938 – a double image exploring female desire – and works by both French Surrealist Claude Cahun and Sri-Lankan-based artist Lionel Wendt, whose radical photographs present queer desire outside of a Western context.

The exhibition also considers locations around the world where artists have converged and exchanged ideas of Surrealism. From Paris at the Bureau of Surrealist Research; to Cairo, with the Art et Liberté group; across the Caribbean, where the movement was initiated by writers; in Mexico City, where it was shaped by the creative bonds of women artists; and Chicago, where Surrealism was used as a tool for radical politics. Special loans including the photographs of Limb Eung-Sik and Jung Haechang from Korea and a film by Len Lye from New Zealand, will offer further insight into the adaption of Surrealism across the globe. For the first time in the UK, Ted Joans’ incredible 36-foot drawing, Long Distance 1976-2005 will go on display, featuring 132 contributors from around the world. Accompanying Joans on his travels, this cadavre exquis (exquisite corpse) drawing took nearly 30 years to complete and united artists located as far apart as Lagos and Toronto.

Surrealism Beyond Borders is organised by Tate Modern and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. It is co-curated by Matthew Gale, Senior Curator at Large at Tate Modern, and Stephanie D’Alessandro, Leonard A. Lauder Curator of Modern Art and Senior Research Coordinator in Modern and Contemporary Art at The Met; with assistance at Tate Modern from Carine Harmand, Assistant Curator, International Art; and at The Met from Lauren Rosati, Assistant Curator, Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art, and Sean O’Hanlan, Research Associate in Department of Modern and Contemporary Art.

TATE MODERN

Bankside, London SE1 9TG

www.tate.org.uk