André Breton, French

French writer and leader of the Surrealist group in Paris. He was first active with Dada in Paris ca. 1920, then became the chief proponent of Surrealist movement. Generally a writer of poetry and novels that demonstrated the practice of 'automatic writing,' it was his thoughts on aesthetics that may be his lasting legacy. He wrote on and promoted the work of many painters that conformed to his stringent definitions of Surrealism, outlined in the periodically issued "Le Surréalisme et la peinture," as well as his "Manifeste du Surréalisme-Poisson Soluble" (1924). He organized the first group exhibition of surrealist art, "La peinture surréaliste" in 1925.