Fabulating collective works, imprints from a car tire, and free pencil strokes. In the autumn of 2025, we will open a major exhibition focusing on the surrealists’ use of drawing.

The Surrealist movement emerged in France in the 1920s as a reaction to the horrors of World War I. The Surrealists wanted a fresh start—to revolutionize society and liberate human instincts and dreams. Drawing became one of their most important tools for unleashing boundless imagination and accessing the subconscious. The exhibition offers insight into how the Surrealists used drawing to explore their artistic project—and to understand themselves, each other, and their time through playful experiments and collective creation processes.

The exhibition features over 100 drawings by artists including Salvador Dalí, André Masson, and Méret Oppenheim. The Centre Pompidou has loaned 75 of its finest Surrealist drawings, which will be shown alongside works from Danish and international collections, as well as from the Royal Collection of Prints and Drawings at SMK.

Top photo: Wilhelm Freddie, Surrealistisk landskab med sommerfugl, 1941, SMK ©Wilhelm Freddie / VISDA