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Lot Essay
"The bicycle is not a subject which inspires me. It is inspiration which gives me the subject to be painted: a bicycle on a cigar" (letter from R. Magritte to A. Bosmans, 23 October 1959; quoted in D. Sylvester et al., op. cit., vol. III, p. 310).
This subject was apparently a difficult one for Magritte, who once said that completing the image demanded two months and two hundred sketches. Among these drawings was a sheet of preliminary ideas for the problem of the bicycle, including a bicycle on top of a giant banana, or on a suitcase, or atop two of Magritte's familiar masked apples.
The solution of a bicycle and a cigar came to Magritte while working on another painting, Melmoth (Sylvester, no. 900; private collection), which shows a bicycle and its rider partially obscured by an owl against a mountainous background. "I [then] went back to the first canvas and realized that the association of the bicycle with the cigar would work" (Elle, Brussels, 14 January 1960, p. 12; quoted in ibid., p. 310).
Magritte commented on his quest for an image in a letter to Suzi Gablik of March 1959. The letter incorporated a sketch of a bicycle and a cigar, with the remark: "I have been searching recently for how to paint a 'window picture' for Harry Torczyner, and how to paint a picture in which one sees a bicycle. I've already come upon this: ...[sketch]...you must be aware dear Suzi Gablik that a bicycle sometimes runs over a cigar that has been dropped in the street."
(quoted in ibid., p. 309)
This subject was apparently a difficult one for Magritte, who once said that completing the image demanded two months and two hundred sketches. Among these drawings was a sheet of preliminary ideas for the problem of the bicycle, including a bicycle on top of a giant banana, or on a suitcase, or atop two of Magritte's familiar masked apples.
The solution of a bicycle and a cigar came to Magritte while working on another painting, Melmoth (Sylvester, no. 900; private collection), which shows a bicycle and its rider partially obscured by an owl against a mountainous background. "I [then] went back to the first canvas and realized that the association of the bicycle with the cigar would work" (Elle, Brussels, 14 January 1960, p. 12; quoted in ibid., p. 310).
Magritte commented on his quest for an image in a letter to Suzi Gablik of March 1959. The letter incorporated a sketch of a bicycle and a cigar, with the remark: "I have been searching recently for how to paint a 'window picture' for Harry Torczyner, and how to paint a picture in which one sees a bicycle. I've already come upon this: ...[sketch]...you must be aware dear Suzi Gablik that a bicycle sometimes runs over a cigar that has been dropped in the street."
(quoted in ibid., p. 309)