'Passage de l'Opéra', Conroy Maddox

Artwork details

Artist

Conroy Maddox (1912‑2005)

Title

Passage de l'Opéra

Date 1970-1

MediumOil paint on canvas

Dimensionssupport: 1372 x 940 mm Frame 1421 x 992 x 54 mm

Collection

Tate

Acquisition Purchased 1980

Reference

T03052

Not on display

Display caption

British-born Conroy Maddox travelled to Paris in the late 1930s where he came to know the artists and poets of the Surrealist group. This painting was inspired by an arcade in Paris which had been the subject of a long essay by the Surrealist writer Louis Aragon. Maddox later wrote, 'Aragon points out that his wanderings around the Passage de l'Opéra were without purpose, yet he waited for something to happen, something strange or abnormal, so as to permit him a glimpse of a 'new order of things'. Such experiences ... were conducive to Surrealism's attraction to the marvellous.' Maddox painted this scene from memory in England, and based the lion on a sculpture at Montparnasse cemetery.

September 2004