When did Surrealism start?

Surrealism officially began in 1924 when Andre Breton published the first Surrealist Manifesto in Paris. However, its roots trace back to the Dada movement of the 1910s and earlier experiments with automatism. Breton and Philippe Soupault’s ‘The Magnetic Fields’ (1920), written using automatic techniques, laid groundwork for the movement. The movement emerged in the aftermath of World War I as artists sought new ways to express the irrationality of human experience and access deeper truths through the unconscious mind. Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theories provided crucial theoretical foundations. The movement spread internationally through the 1930s and 40s, profoundly influencing subsequent art history.