Magritte museum reopens after renovations

The artist would have turned 125 years old on 21 November 2023, and the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium spared no expense to spruce up the museum in his honour for such a special occasion.

The renovations included things you might expect, like touch-ups to the floors and walls, but also upgrades to their multimedia systems, security cameras and more.

In other words, you could say that it was a fruitful endeavour. That can be taken quite literally, as the attentive passer-by will spot a giant green apple in the roof of the museum. The apple often recurs in Magritte’s work, so it was only natural for the museum to add “a wink to the creative genius of the world’s most famous painter,” as they put it.

If that doesn’t leave your mouth watering in anticipation of tickets, we don’t know what will...or do we? The museum boasts 29 new works by the beloved Belgian, who is arguably most known for La Trahison des Images, the painting which features the much-interpolated phrase, Ceci n’est pas une pipe (French for ‘This is not a pipe’).

Did you know that Magritte was born in Lessines, also home to the late Lou Deprijck, the brains (and voice) behind the legendary pop song, Ca plane pour moi?