Surrealism through Réne Magritte and Les Lalanne’s
by Jayde Belser
October 30, 2025
Bridging a conversation between prominent figures in the surrealist art scene, Magritte and Les Lalanne: In the Mind’s Garden, brings together the perspectives of Belgian artist René Magritte and the French-artist duo François-Xavier Lalanne and Claude Lalanne (widely known as Les Lalanne). Their pieces push viewers to question nature, change, perceptions, and reality, with each work appearing lifted from a dream. Surrealism began around the 1920s after World War 1. Artists sought to turn a tangible subject into something that requires the brain to redirect and expand to a place of imagination.
French artist couple Claude Lalanne and François-Xavier Lalanne became famous for blending the surreal with design, creating sculptures and nature-inspired functional objects doubling as decor and furniture. François specialized in animal forms, creating his signature work Hippopotame I, a life-size blue hippopotamus that opens into a bathtub. The hippo’s semi-aquatic nature inspired François to transform a river into the water of the bathtub. With this, he explores the animal kingdom as architecture, creating strong, rounded shapes that invite the viewer to live with art rather than merely look at it.
French artist couple Claude Lalanne and François-Xavier Lalanne became famous for blending the surreal with design, creating sculptures and nature-inspired functional objects doubling as decor and furniture. François specialized in animal forms, creating his signature work Hippopotame I, a life-size blue hippopotamus that opens into a bathtub. The hippo’s semi-aquatic nature inspired François to transform a river into the water of the bathtub. With this, he explores the animal kingdom as architecture, creating strong, rounded shapes that invite the viewer to live with art rather than merely look at it.
Blue laminated molded polyester resin and brass, 1968/98, 126 x 283 x 88 cm
https://elephant.art/francois-xavier-lalanne-hippopotame-i-1968-29032020/
https://elephant.art/francois-xavier-lalanne-hippopotame-i-1968-29032020/
Claude Lalanne specialized in botanical forms and hybrid creatures. She developed a unique electroplating technique to cast real plants, leaves, and cabbages. By running a current through a bath of copper sulfate, Claude transformed the organic material into copper, creating a perfect replica of the subject. Her piece “Choupatte” is a hybrid of flora and fauna, sculpted with a stitch of humor. The top half of the piece is an impression of a cabbage, while the bottom mimics the feet of a chicken. By turning natural matter into mythic objects, the artist breathes life into a static medium. Together, Les Lalannes’ shared vision of nature and imagination turns the familiar into the bizarre.
Bronze, 2014/2017, 57.5 x 63.5cm
Both Les Lalanne and Magritte demand viewers reconsider their perceptions and expectations of the world around them. Réne Magritte, in particular, plays with the human mind’s craving for conciseness and meaning. The subjects of his paintings aren’t as abstract as Lalanne’s sculptures, yet the placement of these mundane objects attaches a strangeness to each piece. Magritte once described his work as “visible images which conceal nothing,” saying, “It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing, it is unknowable.”
Oil on canvas, 1958, 73 x 64.5 cm
https://www.didonna.com/exhibitions/magritte-and-les-lalanne-in-the-minds-garden?view=slider
In L’Ami Intime (The Intimate Friend), Magritte depicts a recurring figure in his other paintings: a conspicuous man in a bowler hat. The man is turned away from the viewer, seemingly gazing at a green landscape and perfect white clouds. He stands completely unaware of the levitating baguette and wine glass directly behind him at the center of the canvas. These simple objects become unexpected and extraordinary through their strange placement, creating a shroud of enigma and possibility, or the why of the piece. As the public projects its own interpretations onto the piece, which Magritte insists “conceals nothing,” the mind itself becomes the most whimsical and interpretive part of the viewing experience, unique and confined to the individual. Ultimately, encounters with mystery often reveal more about the viewer than the work itself.
Magritte & Les Lalanne: In the Mind’s Garden is on display until December 13, 2025, at DiDonna Gallery.