{
"data": {
"id": 156593,
"accession_number": "1992.298",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "The Secret Life, 1928. Ren\u00e9 Magritte (Belgian, 1898\u20131967). Oil on canvas; unframed: 57.2 x 75.9 x 2.9 cm (22 1/2 x 29 7/8 x 1 1/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Lockwood Thompson, 1992.298. \u00a9 C. Herscovici / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York",
"current_location": "225 German Expressionism & Surrealism",
"title": "The Secret Life",
"creation_date": "1928",
"creation_date_earliest": 1928,
"creation_date_latest": 1928,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"Belgium, 20th century"
],
"technique": "oil on canvas",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Modern European Painting and Sculpture",
"collection": "Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960",
"type": "Painting",
"measurements": "Unframed: 57.2 x 75.9 x 2.9 cm (22 1/2 x 29 7/8 x 1 1/8 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"unframed": {
"height": 0.572,
"height_inch": 22,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.5,
"width": 0.759,
"width_inch": 29,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.875,
"depth": 0.029,
"depth_inch": 1,
"depth_inch_fraction": 0.125
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": "\u00a9 C. Herscovici / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York",
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "signed lower left: Magritte [inscribed on back: \"LA VIE SECR\u00c8TE\" (II.) 20P.]",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 311552,
"title": "Selected Acquisitions",
"description": "Selected Acquisitions. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 9-April 11, 1993).",
"opening_date": "1993-02-09T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 182153,
"title": "Monet to Dal\u00ed: Modern Masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"description": "Monet to Dal\u00ed: Modern Masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Beijing World Art Museum (May 26-August 27, 2006); Mori Art Center (September 16-November 26, 2006); Seoul Art Center, South Korea (December 22, 2006-March 28, 2007); Seoul Olympic Museum of Art, South Korea (April 7-May 20, 2007); Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada (June 9-September 16, 2007); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 21, 2007-January 13, 2008); Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN (February 15-June 1, 2008); Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, UT (June 22-September 21, 2008); The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI (October 12, 2008-January 18, 2009).",
"opening_date": "2006-05-27T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 360357,
"title": "The Magritte Machine",
"description": "The Magritte Machine. Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain (organizer) (September 14, 2021-January 30, 2022) https://www.museothyssen.org/exposiciones/maquina-magritte; Fundaci\u00f3 \"la Caixa\", Barcelona, Spain (February 24-June 6, 2022).",
"opening_date": "2021-09-14T04:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "CMA (organizer). Beijing World Art Museum, China, May 26 - Aug. 27, 2006; Mori Arts Center, Tokyo, Japan: Sept. 9 - Nov. 26, 2006; Seoul Arts Center, Seoul, Korea: Dec. 18, 2006 - March 31, 2007; Seoul Olympic Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea: Apr. 7 - May 20, 2007; Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: June 9 - Sept. 16, 2007; Cleveland Museum of Art, Oct. 21, 2007- January 13, 2008; Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, TN, Feb. 21-June 1, 2008; Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, UT, June 22 - September 21, 2008; and the Detroit Institute of Arts, MI, October 12, 2008 - January 18, 2009: \"Modern Masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art\"",
"opening_date": "2006-05-26T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "(Probably Paul-Gustave van Hecke/Galerie L'Epoque/Galerie le Centaure, Brussels)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [
"In his 1992 catalogue raisonn\u00e9, David Sylvester notes that a \u201cGS\u201d label on the back of the painting indicates that was in van Hecke\u2019s stock at the Galerie l\u2019Epoque at the time its takeover by Galerie le Centaure in early 1929. Currently, there are no labels or markings on the back of the painting, likely at least in part because the stetcher appears new, possibly dating to after Sylvester\u2019s catalogue raisonn\u00e9. The path the painting took from van Hecke to Cosyn is unknown. Magritte\u2019s contract was initially with van Hecke and Galerie l\u2019Epoque, and he then remained under contract with Galerie le Centaure until it closed in 1932. On October 21 of that year, it held a liquidation sale of its stock, but the Cleveland picture is not among the works listed. In 1932, E.L.T. Mesens, director, under owner van Hecke, of L\u2019Epoque from 1928, bought up 150 of Magritte\u2019s works at the liquidation sale of Le Centaure and became the artist\u2019s dealer, and so Mesens may have been involved in the painting\u2019s provenance after the dissolution of Galerie le Centaure. Or, because Secret Life does not appear in the catalogue of the liquidation sale, Mesens may also have acquired the painting prior to 1932. However, exhibitions of Magritte\u2019s work mounted by Mesens in 1931 and as late as 1937 do not include the CMA painting.
"
],
"date": "By 1929",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "(Lou Cosyn, Brussels, sold to Lockwood Thompson)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [
"In 1942, Lou Cosyn, along with her husband Camille Goemans, whose relationship with Magritte went back to the late 1920s, opened a gallery in Brussels. Cosyn remained Magritte\u2019s dealer until 1947. In 1943, they held an exhibition in semi-secrecy in order to escape the notice of the occupying Germans. There does not appear to have been a catalogue for this exhibition, so it is not known whether the Cleveland picture was among the exhibited works. Cosyn sold the painting to Lockwood Thompson, an American GI, in November 1945.
"
],
"date": "Until 1945",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "Lockwood Thompson (1901-1992), Cleveland, OH, bequeathed to the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [
"When Thompson purchased the painting, a length of rope looped at the center served as the painting\u2019s \u201cframe.\u201d While there are no other known instances of Magritte\u2019s having used this framing device, it likely originated with the artist.
"
],
"date": "1945-1992\n\n:",
"sortorder": 3
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "1982-",
"sortorder": 4
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "This is the first of many paintings Magritte made with the title The Secret Life.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "An important Surrealist active in Brussels and Paris, Ren\u00e9 Magritte used traditional painting techniques to create images of realistically rendered objects juxtaposed illogically. Magritte and other Surrealists were inspired by the poetry of Isidore Ducasse (1846\u20131870), who wrote under the pseudonym Comte de Lautr\u00e9amont, and defined beauty as \u201cthe chance meeting on a dissection table of a sewing machine and an umbrella.\u201d Magritte\u2019s visual paradoxes, which may seem contradictory or irrational, are designed to undermine our complacent belief in a stable, predictable world.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60476836"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Sylvester, David. Magritte. London: Thames and Hudson, 1992.",
"page_number": null,
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Sylvester, David. Magritte. London: Thames and Hudson, 1992.",
"page_number": null,
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Sylvester, David. Magritte. London: Thames and Hudson, 1992.",
"page_number": null,
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Turner, Evan H. \u201cThe Year in Review for 1992.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 80, no. 2 (February 1993): 38\u201379.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 66",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25161388"
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1992.298",
"images": {},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Bequest of Lockwood Thompson",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 156593,
"creators": [
{
"id": 3173,
"description": "Ren\u00e9 Magritte (Belgian, 1898\u20131967)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": null,
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1898",
"death_year": "1967",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1992-12-07T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1928,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1928",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": true,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-09-15 11:13:05.984000"
}
}