Exhibition
Dreamworld
Surrealism at 100
The Secret Double (detail), 1927, by René Magritte (Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris) © 2025 C. Herscovici / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
When
Opens November 8
Where
Main Building, Dorrance Galleries
About
In his Manifesto of Surrealism of 1924, André Breton celebrated the unbridled imagination as the key to freedom in all aspects of life. Artists responded by inventing a wide variety of new expressive forms designed to stir up the human capacity for wonder and amazement. Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100 will feature approximately two hundred works by more than seventy artists associated with the international Surrealist movement.
The Philadelphia Art Museum will be the only U.S. venue for this traveling exhibition, following distinct iterations at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, which launched this project to celebrate Surrealism’s centenary, and three other European museums. Philadelphia Art Museum highlights will include Joan Miró’s Dog Barking at the Moon (1926), Salvador DalĂ’s Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) (1936), and Dorothea Tanning’s Birthday (1942).
Curators
In Philadelphia, the exhibition is curated by Matthew Affron, Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art, with Danielle Cooke, Exhibition Assistant.
Sponsors
Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100 is made possible by the Annenberg Foundation Fund for Major Exhibitions, the Robert Montgomery Scott Endowment for Exhibitions, the Kathleen C. and John J. F. Sherrerd Fund for Exhibitions, the Lois G. and Julian A. Brodsky Installation and Exhibition Fund, the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Fund for Exhibitions, The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, Audrey Escoll, Mr. and Mrs. Orlando C. Esposito, James and Susan Pagliaro, Barbara A. Podell and Mark G. Singer, and Andrew S. Teufel.
Sponsored by:
All exhibitions at the Philadelphia Art Museum are underwritten by the Annual Exhibition Fund. Generous support is provided by Andrea Baldeck, M.D.; Julia and David Fleischner; Mrs. Henry F. Harris; Robert Hayes; and Mark W. Strong and Dana Strong.
On View
The Pleasures of Dagobert, 1945, by Leonora Carrington (British, 1917–2011). Courtesy of the collection of Eduardo F. Costantini.
Aphrodisiac Telephone, 1938, Salvador Dalà (Spanish, 1904–1989). Lent by the Minneapolis Institute of Art, The William Hood Dunwoody Fund.
The Exact Time II, 1940, Wolfgang Paalen (Austrian, 1905–1959). Courtesy of Mark Kelman, New York.