Mark Polizzotti is publisher and editor-in-chief at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The slippery Surrealism of Pierre Roy

The French artist was largely ignored by his peers, but his uncanny painting of a snake is a masterpiece

26 Feb 2024
Waking Dream Seance: Surrealist Group,

The violence and creativity of André Breton’s Surrealism

Underlying the Surrealist leader’s preoccupation with dreams and the unconscious was a very practical desire to change the world. Who’s to say he didn’t succeed?

5 Apr 2022
‘Cirque’ from Jazz (1947), Henri Matisse. Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The bookish pursuits of Henri Matisse

Matisse was already in his 60s when he began to design books – but this new direction would inspire some of his most engaging works

7 Dec 2020
Illustration from César-antechrist (detail; 1895), Alfred Jarry.

Personality cult – Alfred Jarry makes an impression at the Morgan Library

The creator of King Ubu and inventor of pataphysics was deeply attached to the art of the book

25 Feb 2020