The White Race

1937

René Magritte
Belgian, 1898–1967

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.

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.”

Status: On View, Gallery 396
Department: Modern Art

Artist: René Magritte
Title: The White Race
Place: Belgium (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1937
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Signed, u.r.; Magritte
Dimensions: 81 × 60 cm (31 7/8 × 23 5/8 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of The Leonard and Ruth Horwich Family Foundation
Reference Number: 2016.84
Copyright: © 2018 C. Herscovici, London / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

André Breton and Paul Éluard, Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme, exh. cat. (Paris: Galerie Beaux-Arts, 1938) n.p.
The Sketch (Jan. 26, 1938), p. 173 (installation photograph of Paris 1938).
The Sketch (Dec. 2, 1953), p. 567 (ill.).
Yves Bossut, Gilles Brenta, Marcel Broodthaers, et al., La Partie fondue de l’iceberg (Brussels: Les Lèvres nues, 1979), p. 85 (ill.).
Terry Ann R. Neff, ed., In the Mind’s Eye: Dada and Surrealism (Chicago: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1986), pp. 167 (ill.) and 168.
David Sylvester, Magritte: The Silence of the World (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1992), pp. 153 (ill.) and 345.
David Sylvester, ed., René Magritte: Catalogue Raisonné, v. 2 (Houston: The Menil Foundation, 1993), no. 445, pp. 251 (ill.) and 252.
Donna de Salvo, ed., Staging Surrealism, exh. cat. (Columbus, OH: Wexner Center for the Arts and Ohio State University Press, 1997), 53, no cat. no. (color ill.), 81.
Lewis Kachur, Displaying the Marvelous: Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dalí, and surrealist exhibition installations (Cambridge: MIT, 2001), 77, fig 2.4 (ill.).
Guillermo Solana, La máquina Magritte/The Magritte Machine, exh. cat. (Madrid: Museo Nacional Thyssen¬–Bornemisza; Barcelona: Fundación La Caixa, 2021), 41, 42, fig. 30 [cat. 57] (color ill.), 125, cat. 57 (color ill.), 197.

Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Trois peintres surréalistes: René Magritte, Man Ray, Yves Tanguy, Dec. 11–22, 1937, cat. 16.
Paris, Galerie Beaux-Arts, Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme, Jan.–Feb. 1938, cat. 111, as La race blanche IV.
Les Compagnons de l’art, Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, June – Aug. 1938, cat. 111.
Knokke, Casino Communal, Ve Festival Belge d’Eté, Aug. 2–22, 1952, cat. 18.
London, The Lefevre Gallery, René Magritte, Nov. 1953, cat. 15, as La Race Blanche (IV).
Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, René Magritte, May 7–June 1, 1954, cat. 58
Antwerp, Zaal C.A.W., De vier hoofdpunten van het Surrealisme, Apr. 15–26, 1956, cat. 27, as La race blanche (IV).
Chicago, The Renaissance Society, Magritte, Mar. 1–Apr. 10, 1964, cat. 3.
Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, Dada and Surrealism in Chicago Collections, Dec. 1, 1984–Jan. 27, 1985.
London, Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, Rene Magritte, cat. 78; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sept. 9–Nov. 22, 1992; Houston, Menil Collection, Dec. 15, 1992–Feb. 21, 1993; Chicago, Art Institute, Mar. 16–May 30, 1993 [Chicago only].
Columbus, OH, Wexner Center for the Arts, Staging Surrealism: A Succession of Collections, Sept. 19, 1997-Jan. 4, 1998, no cat. no.
New York, Museum of Modern Art, Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926-1938, Sept. 28, 2013-Jan. 12, 2014, cat. 119; Houston, The Menil Collection, Feb. 14-June 1, 2014; Chicago, Art Institute, June 24-Oct. 13, 2014.
Madrid, Museo Nacional Thyssen–Bornemisza, The Magritte Machine, Sept 14, 2021–Jan. 30, 2022, cat. 57; Barcelona, Fundación La Caixa, Feb. 25–June 6, 2022 (preview Feb. 24).

E. L. T. Mesens, c. 1938-1939, probably acquired directly from the artist [this and the following according to Sylvester 1992]; sold to Marc Hendrickx, Brussels, by 1954. Sold through Hanover Gallery, London, to Leonard J. (1908-1988) and Ruth P. Horwich (1920-2014), Chicago, May 1960 [Sylvester 1992]; the Leonard and Ruth Horwich Family Foundation; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, July 6, 2014.

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