Seeking to make the familiar unfamiliar, René Magritte used his art to question the nature of appearances. He devised a number of strategies—displacements and transformations—that unsettle the balance between nature and artifice, truth and fiction, and reality and surreality. Night in Pisa (La nuit de Pise) is a composition the artist explored several times in his later career, including his important commission of a panoramic selection of his favorite themes, painted at the Knokke Casino (1953) in Belgium.
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[Alexander Iolas Gallery, New York, 1958–59; purchased from the artist; sold on December 16, 1959 to Heinz]; Drue Heinz, New York (1959–d. 2018; gift of Drue Heinz Trust to MMA)
Palais des Beaux-Arts Charleroi. "Cercle royale artistique et littéraire de Charleroi. XXXIIme Salon," March 8–27, 1958, no. 150.
New York. Iolas Gallery. "René Magritte," March 2–28, 1959, no catalogue.
New Haven. Yale University Art Gallery. "Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture Collected by Yale Alumni," May 19–June 26, 1960, no. 109 (as "Nuit de Pise," lent by Mr. and Mrs. Henry J. Heinz, II).
Little Rock. Arkansas Arts Center. "Magritte," May 15–June 30, 1964, unnumbered cat. (as "La Nuit de Pise," lent by Mr. and Mrs. H.J. Heinz II, New York City).
London. Tate Gallery. "Magritte," February 14–April 2, 1969, no. 83 (as "Nuit de Pise [Night in Pisa]," lent by Mr. and Mrs. Henry J. Heinz II, New York).
Marlborough Fine Art (London) Ltd. "Magritte: Retrospective Loan Exhibition," October–November 1973, no. 74 (as "La Nuit de Pise [The Night of Pisa]").
Pittsburgh. Carnegie Museum of Art. "Opening of the Heinz Architecture Center," November 1993, not in brochure.
Rome. Complesso del Vittoriano. "Magritte: La storia centrale," March 16–July 8, 2001, unnumbered cat.
Vienna. BA-CA Kunstforum. "René Magritte: Der Schlüssel der Traüme," April 6–July 24, 2005, no. 78 (as "Die Nacht von Pisa [La Nuit de Pise]," lent by Mrs. Henry J. Heinz II).
Basel. Fondation Beyeler. "René Magritte: Der Schlüssel der Traüme," August 7–November 27, 2005, no. 78.
Madrid. Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Spanish Indemnity. "The Magritte Machine," September 14, 2021–January 30, 2022, no. 90.
Stuart Preston. "Current and Forthcoming Exhibitions: New York." Burlington Magazine 101 (May 1959), p. 200, fig. 50.
"A Painter's World of Fantasy." Life 47 (September 7, 1959), p. 8, ill. (color).
Emile Langui. Magritte: Retrospective Loan Exhibition. Exh. cat., Marlborough Fine Art (London) Ltd. London, 1973, p. 47, no. 74, ill. p. 107.
Sarah Whitfield and Michael Raeburn. René Magritte: Catalogue raisonné. Ed. David Sylvester. Vol. 3, Oil Paintings, Objects, and Bronzes, 1949-1967. Houston, 1993, p. 282, no. 867, ill.
René Magritte (Belgian, Lessines 1898–1967 Brussels)
1928
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