When is a pipe not a pipe? When it is the painted paradox of René Magritte

When is a pipe not a pipe? No, this is not a new take on the ‘When is a door not a door?’ joke (when it’s ajar —ha! — for those who haven’t heard it before). This is the question posed by a London gallery's new exhibition dedicated to the Belgian artist René Magritte (1898-1967).

‘Great paintings by Magritte grab you immediately,’ says Jasper Sharp, co-curator of This Is Still Not a Pipe: The Afterlife of Magritte at the Gagosian’s Grosvenor Hill gallery. ‘They have that fast burn, but they also have something that sits beneath that, which rattles around your head. You never forget some of his paintings. He has a tortoise and hare effect with his work — which I think is really fascinating — like all great art does.’

This duality is explored in full throughout the exhibition, which was organised in collaboration with the Fondation Magritte. It features paintings, drawings and sculptures both by Magritte and other artists, which include Jeff Koons, Ed Ruscha and Yoko Ono. Some were made during Magritte’s lifetime, while others were created specifically for the exhibition.

Free to visit, This Is Still Not a Pipe: The Afterlife of Magritte will run until December 12, 2026. The title comes from the well-known Magritte work La Trahison des images. Ceci continue de ne pas être une pipe (The Treachery of Images. This is still not a pipe, 1952). The ink on paper piece revisits Magritte’s earlier, very similar, 1929 work La Trahison des images. Ceci n'est pas une pipe (The Treachery of Images: This is not a pipe).

‘Suddenly you start thinking: “Which one is the pipe here? Is it the word, is it the image?" He’s brilliant, he’s a really great artist,' says Professor Patricia Allmer, a leading expert on Magritte at the University of Edinburgh, of the exhibition’s titular work. She fell in love with the artist’s work as a child after first seeing Le faux miroir (The False Mirror, 1929) and believes that Magritte’s genius lies in exploring the very nature of everyday objects in such a way that leaves the viewer asking questions.

‘It’s very interesting that he still speaks across different generations of artists and people, and I think one of the reasons is that his artworks managed to be, at the same time, simple enough for a child to understand but complex enough for a philosopher to puzzle over,’ Prof Allmer says. ‘There’s also a humour and a certain evocation of the sublime which keeps Magritte endlessly interesting.’

Born in 1898 in Lessines, Belgium, you might know Magritte best for his striking depictions of apples, clouds, men in bowler hats and, of course, pipes (if they are, indeed, really pipes after all), but the Gagosian’s exhibition intends to reveal more about the artist.

A large two-legged lamppost glowing red, that puts me in mind of Louise Bourgeois’s spiders, stands sentry at the door. The sculpture, Streetlamp for Drunk (2018) by Alex Da Corte, is the first of many examples of how Magritte’s uncanny style has lived on. When combined with Georges Thiry’s photograph Enterrement de René Magritte (The Funeral of Magritte, 1967) it plays a clever Magritte-esque mind game. We are at once having his death reinforced, while being reminded of all the ways his legacy is palpably alive.

The first room in the gallery has walls hung with curtains of scarlet and navy, making for a dramatic setting where a brilliant collection of oddities celebrating the artist’s influence take centre stage. Ed Ruscha’s Bird Drinks Creek Dry, Fish Escapes (1965) has all the whimsy and sardonic wit of Magritte’s signature style and Michael Craig-Martin’s An Oak Tree, a glass of water claiming stubbornly to be the former, is a direct homage.

I almost mistake George Condo’s The Apple Picker (2009), a painting which shows a man with an apple for a head, for a work by the artist too, while Allison Katz’s Brussels sprout (and Philip) No.4 and Brussels sprout (and Philip) No.7 (both 2025) captures the artist’s sense of humour almost exactly. Koons’s Snorkel Vest (1985) cast in bronze plays upon Magritte’s theme of something familiar having elements of the unfamiliar and Ono’s Sky TV (1966) shows his a-typical clouds in a whole new light.

The stars however are, of course, the artist's own work. In classic pieces Le Lieu commun (The Commonplace, 1964), Le Bouquet tout fait (The Readymade Bouquet, 1956) and Les Tambours de a mort (The Drums of Death, c.1965), Magritte's iconic man in bowler hat shines in his full glory. Le Chef d’orchestre (The Leader of the Band, 1955) which shows a squirrel isolated in a woodland scene and Le Voyageur (The Traveller, 1937) are particular favourites of mine, although each of Magritte's pieces is striking in its own way.

His distinctive style is best summarised by co-curator Sharp. ‘He had an incredibly deadpan way of painting. Many of his fellow surrealists said he must have just been so bored when painting… his surfaces are almost completely flat. He was quite methodical, almost painted like a surgeon.’ Magritte was formerly a draughtsman in a wallpaper factory, and a film poster and advertisement designer, which may have given rise to this meticulous style. Elements of collage too, Sharp points out, run throughout Magritte's work. ‘I think that playfulness and the deadpan style is something which a lot of painting today is being made like… That’s an aspect of his work which feels incredibly contemporary.

Paolo Vedovi, the co-founder of a gallery in Brussels specialising in works by Magritte, and a board member of Fondation Magritte, agrees. ‘It’s so relevant today in the world of images and Instagram and all that. All of Magritte’s images are very strong.'

‘Also, he is so relevant because he has been such a big influence on the contemporary, and his work is still very contemporary itself.’ Vedovi thinks Magritte’s magic lies in how ‘he shows you things that you think you know, but he shows it differently'.

Magritte put it best, although perhaps most elusively, himself: ‘My painting is visible images which conceal nothing… they evoke mystery and, indeed, when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question: “What does that mean?” It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable.’

‘This Is Still Not a Pipe: The Afterlife of Magritte’ runs until December 12, 2026, at Gagosian’s gallery, 20 Grosvenor Hill, London.