The White Race, René Magritte, 1937
René Magritte, retratoRené MagritteBélgica, 1898–1967

The White Race

1937 · Painting

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Onde está «The White Race» hoje? Coleção: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Não exposta de momento. Verificado 29 de setembro de 2026.

Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, Estados Unidos

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This painting belongs to a series of four works by René Magritte, all titled The White Race. In each he composed sculpturesque figures from isolated body parts and facial features, disrupting how bodies are usually seen. By deconstructing and reassembling human appendages, the artist defamiliarized something so ubiquitous as to be easily overlooked—the female nude, so often white in Western art—to challenge conventional understandings of bodily forms.

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Typically, Magritte’s titles are not descriptive but rather philosophical, raising questions and bringing related ideas to mind poetically. This work’s title suggests a critique of European culture, or what we might now call the social construction of whiteness. In speaking of the painting, however, Magritte focused on the “opportunity. . . to ask questions of the public; I would ask visitors if they couldn’t tell me why I had given the figure two noses.”

Art Institute of ChicagoCC BY 4.0

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2016.84

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Fontes

Na vida de René Magritte

A vida inteira
  1. 1930s

    The patronage of Edward James

    The British Surrealist patron Edward James let Magritte stay rent-free in his London home, where he studied architecture and painted; James is depicted in two paintings of 1937, “The Pleasure Principle” and “Not to Be Reproduced”.

  2. 1930–1954 · Residência

    René Magritte House

  3. 1936

    First solo exhibition in the United States

    In 1936 his first solo exhibition in the United States was held at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York.

  4. 1936–1940

    An affair with Sheila Legge and a marriage in crisis

    In 1936 Magritte met the young performance artist Sheila Legge and began an affair with her; he arranged for his friend Paul Colinet to entertain and distract Georgette, but this led to an affair between Georgette and Colinet. The couple did not reconcile until 1940.

  5. 1938

    Exhibition at the London Gallery

    In 1938 an exhibition of his work was held at the London Gallery, following the New York solo show of 1936.

  6. 1938

    A lecture on the “magical” in art

    In a lecture in 1938 Magritte named the magical in art — which he had met as a child — as his guiding star.

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