Magritte Author:edited by David Larkin Renee Magritte, a master of fantastic art, was born in Lessines, Belgium in 1898, and despite the age in which he lived - the growth of mass media and mass communication - preferred to live hisl ife in a small suburb of Brussels, painting what he liked to paint and caring little for the theories of his Surrealist contemporaries. — The 40 painting... more »s illustrated in the book need no words - what Magritte did more than anything else was to paint meticulously familiar, even personal objects, in unfamiliar, even startling settings - out of context at first sight in both time and place.« less