Fugue à trois voix

Painted in 1968, Fugue à trois voix exemplifies Graverol’s distinctive contribution to Belgian Surrealism. Three high-backed chairs occupy an otherwise sparse interior, each offering a variation on a shared form, much like the independent yet interconnected voices of the musical fugue evoked by the title. Clouds drift impossibly through the room, dissolving the boundary between interior and exterior and recalling the cloud-filled skies that recur throughout the work of René Magritte. A familiar motif within Belgian Surrealism, the cloud offered a means of introducing the limitless and intangible into precisely rendered, everyday settings. Here, this disruption of ordinary spatial logic, together with the transformation of one chair into a profusion of flowers and foliage, turns a recognisable domestic scene into something mysterious and dreamlike.

Jane Graverol occupied a distinctive position within Belgian Surrealism, emerging as one of the few women to play an active role in the movement’s post-war circles. Closely associated with figures including René Magritte, Louis Scutenaire and Paul Nougé, she developed a highly individual pictorial language in which meticulously rendered, recognisable forms are brought together in unexpected and enigmatic combinations.