Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to leader André Breton, to "resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality, a super-reality", or surreality. It produced works of painting, writing, theatre, filmmaking, photography, and other media.
André Robert Breton was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism".
André-Aimé-René Masson was a French artist.
Joyce Mansour nee Joyce Patricia Adès,, was an Egyptian-French author, notable as a surrealist poet. She became the best known surrealist female poet, author of 16 books of poetry, as well as a number of important prose and theatre pieces.
Paul Nougé was a Belgian poet, founder and theoretician of surrealism in Belgium, sometimes known as the "Belgian Breton".
Louis Scutenaire was a Belgian French-language poet, anarchist, surrealist and civil servant. Born Jean Émile Louis Scutenaire in Ollignies, he died in Brussels.
Eva Švankmajerová was a Czech surrealist artist. She was born Eva Dvořáková. A native of the Czech town of Kostelec nad Černými lesy, she moved to Prague in 1958 to study at the Prague School of Interior Design and later the Academy of Performing Arts. From 1970, she was an active member of the Czech and Slovak Surrealist Group. She was a painter and ceramicist, and her poetry and prose regularly appeared in the journal Analogon. Most recently, her work has appeared in English in Surrealist Women: an International Anthology and Baradla Cave. Švankmajerová was married to the Surrealist filmmaker Jan Švankmajer, with whom she collaborated on such films as Alice, Faust, and Conspirators of Pleasure. They had two children, Veronika and Václav, and lived in Prague until her death from breast cancer in 2005.
Emma Frith Bridgwater, known as Emmy Bridgwater, was an English artist and poet associated with the Surrealist movement.
Vratislav Effenberger was a Czech literature theoretician. He has German Bohemian descent from his paternal side, but has assimilated into Czech.
Paul Păun, born Zaharia Herșcovici and who later in life changed his legal name to Zaharia Zaharia, also signed his work Paul Paon and Paul Paon Zaharia. He was a Romanian and Israeli avant-garde poet and visual artist, who wrote in Romanian and French and produced surrealist and abstract drawings. He was also a medical doctor and surgeon. His work is registered with the ADAGP and the SGDL.
Eduard Ovčáček was a Czech graphic artist, sculptor, lettrist, painter, and professor at the University of Ostrava. His main artistic focus was classical graphic art, visual and concrete poetry, serigraphic art (screen-print), collage, lettrist photography, events and installations, structural and digital graphic art. Paintings, sculptures, and geometrical objects fell within his interest as well.
František Muzika was a Czech artist. He was a prominent representative of avant-garde in Czechoslovakia in the first half of the 20th century.
André Thirion was a French writer, a member of the group of surrealists, a theorist and political activist.
Jacques Hérold was a prominent surrealist painter born in Piatra Neamț, Romania.
The Veveri Madonna, also called the Madonna of Veveri, is an tempera painting by the unknown moravian, bohemian artist generally called Master of Vyšší Brod. The altarpiece was commissioned after 1344 by Margrave John Henry of Luxembourg for the romanesque church of Assumption of Our Lady, In the neighborhood of royal Veveří castle in Brno, Moravia, Czech Republic. Exhibited in Diocesan Museum in Brno. The panel was one of the first Madonnas painted by the artist. Albert Kutal a Czech scholar called it "a truly rare and extraordinary work".
Pierre Roy was a French surrealist painter. He is known for his realistically painted compositions of ordinary objects in unexpected arrangements.
Bedřich Dlouhý is a Czech painter and an Emeritus Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague.
Zbyšek Sion is a Czech painter and printmaker, a co-founder of Czech structural abstraction art. His later works were mostly imaginative and illusionistic paintings, often on general warning theme or bearing a strong political symbolism.
Theodor Pištěk is a Czech painter, costume designer, set designer and former racing driver. His costume designs and film sets are internationally acclaimed. He won an Oscar for his costumes for Amadeus, directed by Miloš Forman. For Forman’s next film, Valmont, Pištěk won a César Award and was nominated for an Oscar. In 2003 he received the Czech Lion Award for Unique Contribution to Czech Film, in 2013 he was awarded the Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema, and in 2017 he received the Golden Slipper for Outstanding Contribution to Films for Children and Young People.
Marcel Jean was a French painter, writer, and sculptor who joined the surrealist movement in 1933.
