Rene Magritte, (1898 – 1967) was born in Belgium, and took art lessons in his early teens. After his mother's suicide - a devastating event in his life, Magritte went to the Acedemie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels where he hob-knobbed with the city's artistic citizens. Eventually he moved to Paris where he met up with Joan Miro and Hans Arp. It was during this time that Magritte began to come into his own - developing his signature style -- combining objects in strange ways and situations on the canvas. Boulders hang in mid air, apples replace heads and images of pipes appear next to captions that say, "This is not a pipe". He especially enjoyed "plays on words".

He was known as a Surrealist painter -- someone who enjoyed making people think when they looked at his work. Quite often the images of apples, bowler hats and men in suits seem to make no sense upon first glance, however, upon further investigation the images do make sense ... or do they?

Magritte was once quoted as saying:
" My painting is visible images which conceal nothing; they evoke mystery and, indeed, when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question "What does that mean"? It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable."