NEW YORK, NY.- This fall, Eykyn Maclean presents Surrealism and the rue Blomet. This is the first exhibition to explore the rue Blomet, one of the founding centers of the Surrealist movement. “In Paris in the 1920s, the rue Blomet was a hotbed of artistic activity," explains the curator, Kristy Bryce, director at Eykyn Maclean. "Nearly all of the major artists and writers associated with Surrealism either lived, worked, or regularly visited there. We are delighted to shine new light on this previously unexplored moment in art history.”

Beginning in 1922 the adjacent studios at 43-45 rue Blomet, occupied by André Masson and Joan Miró, became a daily congregation spot for the leading figures of Surrealism – the artists Jean (Hans) Arp, Jean Dubuffet, Max Ernst, Juan Gris, Georges Malkine, Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, and Yves Tanguy, and the writers Robert Desnos, Paul Éluard, Ernest Hemingway, Michel Leiris, Georges Limbour, and Gertrude Stein. They gathered together to eat, drink, smoke, play cards, and most importantly, to discuss literature and ideas, to write, and to paint.

“The rue Blomet was a decisive place, a decisive moment for me. It was there that I discovered everything I am, everything I would become… More than anything else, the rue Blomet was friendship, an exalted exchange and discovery of ideas among a marvelous group of friends.” -- Joan Miró, 1977

Surrealism and the rue Blomet includes works from museums, institutions, and private collections, presenting a special opportunity to see works that are rarely exhibited publicly and others that have never before been exhibited in the United States. The exhibition explores this period through a variety of media including painting, drawing, and sculpture, as well as documentary photographs, and first edition books. A film by Man Ray and Robert Desnos is being screened, and original tracks of Biguine music from the Bal Nègre dance hall, a favorite of the Surrealists and located just steps away at 33 rue Blomet, adds to this exciting, multimedia presentation.

Highlights include Miró’s exceptional painting Le Cheval de cirque (1927) from the artist’s famous series of ‘dream paintings’ in which images playfully emerge from the subconscious and Masson’s Le tour de cartes (1923, Museum of Modern Art), a painting which depicts his rue Blomet friends relaxing with a game of cards. Masson’s 1925 watercolor Metamorphoses is being exhibited, as well as a group of the artist’s ‘automatic’ drawings from the 1920s. Jean Dubuffet’s painting Frayeur (1924, Fondation Dubuffet) is being shown in the United States for the very first time along with rarely seen paintings by Georges Malkine, and an inscribed first edition of The Night of Loveless Nights, a book of poetry by Desnos with illustrations by Malkine. Miró’s Statue (1926, Museum of Modern Art) is on view, as well as his sculpture Oiseau lunaire (1946), a monumental version of which now marks the site of the artists’ former studios, and which Miró dedicated to this extraordinary group.