André Breton

Andre Breton was born in 1896 in Tinchebray, Normandy, and trained as a psychiatrist before the horrors of World War I turned him permanently toward art and revolution. Working in a neurological ward during the war, he encountered the techniques of free association that would become central to Surrealism. He moved to Paris, immersed himself in Dada, and in 1924 published the first Surrealist Manifesto, declaring the supremacy of the unconscious mind and the marvelous over bourgeois rationality. He became the movement's undisputed leader—and its fiercest gatekeeper, excommunicating members with papal authority. This author hub collects 1 work in the Canon Compass ranking, led by Nadja.