The 5 best places to discover René Magritte in Brussels

The Magritte Museum occupies an impressive neoclassical building on Place Royale. It displays a fascinating collection that includes photographs, amateur film footage and surrealist ephemera.

This is not the Magritte Museum. This is the house in Jette where René and Georgette lived from 1930 to 1957. The great Belgian surrealist created some of the most startling images in modern art in the kitchen of this modest home. It was bought by two art enthusiasts and restored to its original state.

An enormous artwork decorates the façade of the 30-floor Cardo Brussels Hotel. Overlooking Place Rogier, it is based on Magritte’s self-portrait Le fils de l’Homme (The Son of Man), a 1964 painting that shows the artist’s face hidden by a green apple. The hotel aims to display a different work of art every three years.

Magritte is rumoured to have sold his first painting to one of the regulars in this ancient bohemian cafe. The three tiny rooms are filled with old furniture, dark paintings and faded newspaper cuttings. Hanging in the shop window next door is an enlarged copy of a photo showing a group of artists and writers standing outside the cafe, including René Magritte.

Magritte died in 1967 while living at the Rue des Mimosas in Schaerbeek. He was buried in Schaerbeek Cemetery under a plain stone slab, located in plot 16, row 2. His fans sometimes leave curious objects on the grave.