A superb new biography illuminates the life and art of a leading Surrealist. "Magritte: A Life" by Alex Danchev; Pantheon (480 pages, $45) ——— Walk into the Magritte gallery in
Despite creating over a thousand oil paintings, Rene Francois Ghislain Magritte (1898-1967) didn’t consider himself an artist. The surrealist, instead, called himself a “thinker in paint.” A new biography, Magritte, A Life, by Alex Danchev, attempts to demonstrate why.