A central discovery that emerged during preparations for the exhibition Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926–1938 is that Magritte's painting techniques and his use of materials were often as innovative and paradoxical as the images themselves. To understand Magritte's art one needs to look beneath its most obvious feature: The clearly identifiable image.

To present these findings, the Menil has organized a day-long symposium, "Magritte: Beyond the Image, Beneath the Paint." Sarah Whitfield, co-author of the Magritte catalogue raisonné, as well as curators and conservators from the Menil Collection, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art will delve beneath the surface of some of the 20th century's most extraordinary paintings.