René Magritte
Stimulation Objective No. 31939

On view:

Geffen Galleries

Oil painting of a lion and small cub resting on rocky ground, flanked by a gray boulder and a wooden barrel, with pale blue-gray mountains behind

Artist or Maker: René Magritte
Title: Stimulation Objective No. 3
Culture: Belgian
Date Made: 1939
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: Canvas: 21 5/8 × 27 1/2 in. (54.93 × 69.85 cm) Framed: 25 1/2 × 31 1/2 × 2 3/8 in. (64.77 × 80.01 × 6.03 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of A. Jerrold Perenchio
Accession Number: M.2025.64.26
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: European Painting and Sculpture
Curatorial Notes: “To my eyes, my paintings are valid if the objects they represent resist being interpreted in terms of symbols, or being explained by any other means.” This statement, written nearly two decades after he painted Stimulation Objective No. 3, sums up Magritte’s strict pursuit of an art detached from meaning. His rigorously academic approach to painting, in which the artist’s gesture is nearly absent, coupled with the seemingly random conjoining of unrelated everyday objects, constitute an oeuvre of improbable scenarios. Their apparent incoherence, however, is belied by Magritte’s fastidious attention to their making: his technical mastery and exacting compositions together work to make the strange scenes accessible, even believable.

Stimulation Objective No. 3 is the third in a series of four works all assigned the same title. It is the only one in the series created in oil; the rest are gouaches. All are characterized by visual repetitions. Here, a precisely rendered rock, lion, and barrel are placed on a ledge before a great chasm and a mountain ridge looming in the distance. Miniature doubles of the rock, lion, and barrel float impossibly in front of them. Magritte described this doubling device as imbuing the object with “another dimension.” Although admittedly cryptic, his description nevertheless introduces a suggestive temporal-spatial component into the Stimulation Objectives beyond their seeming rootedness in a specific time and place. While the superimposition of objects was unique to this series, it reflects a program of doubling that Magritte staged throughout his mature work from the 1930s onward. His game is a wink and a nod between artist and viewer not unlike that between theatrical performer and audience. But rather than the terms of performance, Magritte’s acknowledged artifice is profoundly engaged with the discipline of painting.

2024
Provenance: Edward James (1907–1984) Foundation, Chichester, from 1939, sold 1979 to;(1) [Acquavella Galleries Inc., New York] and David Geffen (b. 1943), sold 1980 to;(2) David Geffen (b.1943).(3) Anonymous (sale, New York, Christie’s, 15 May 1985, lot 46, to); A. J. Perenchio (1930–2017), Los Angeles, gifted 2025 to; Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Footnotes
(1) Edward James was an English poet, patron, and collector who had inherited the family fortune and properties, which included a country estate in West Dean (West Sussex) and a mid-Georgian townhouse at 35 Wimpole Street, London. The townhouse included works with many Surrealist decorative schemes, including designs by Salvador Dalí, as well as a commission of three paintings by Magritte in 1937 (see also entry for cat. 25).
(2) According to Acquavella Galleries, they purchased this painting on a joint account (half shares) with David Geffen in 1979 from The Edward James Foundation, and they sold their half share to David Geffen in 1980 (email to Casie Kesterson, 27 August and 1 September 2015).
(3) David Geffen made his success as an agent and later record and film producer. His triumphs in the entertainment industry have allowed him to make some of the most generous philanthropic gifts toward medical research and the arts in the country. Geffen has also assembled one of the most prominent postwar American art collections in the world.
Selected Bibliography: Lehmbeck, Leah, ed. Impressionist and Modern Art: The A. Jerrold Perenchio Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich: DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2016.
Copyright: © C. Herscovici/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, photo © Fredrik Nilsen

Related Unframed

A. Jerrold Perenchio Announces Bequest of His Impressionist and Modern Art Collection to LACMA

November 6, 2014
Linda Theung

René Magritte
Stimulation Objective No. 31939

On view:

Geffen Galleries

Artist or Maker: René Magritte
Title: Stimulation Objective No. 3
Culture: Belgian
Date Made: 1939
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: Canvas: 21 5/8 × 27 1/2 in. (54.93 × 69.85 cm) Framed: 25 1/2 × 31 1/2 × 2 3/8 in. (64.77 × 80.01 × 6.03 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of A. Jerrold Perenchio
Accession Number: M.2025.64.26
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: European Painting and Sculpture
Curatorial Notes: “To my eyes, my paintings are valid if the objects they represent resist being interpreted in terms of symbols, or being explained by any other means.” This statement, written nearly two decades after he painted Stimulation Objective No. 3, sums up Magritte’s strict pursuit of an art detached from meaning. His rigorously academic approach to painting, in which the artist’s gesture is nearly absent, coupled with the seemingly random conjoining of unrelated everyday objects, constitute an oeuvre of improbable scenarios. Their apparent incoherence, however, is belied by Magritte’s fastidious attention to their making: his technical mastery and exacting compositions together work to make the strange scenes accessible, even believable.

Stimulation Objective No. 3 is the third in a series of four works all assigned the same title. It is the only one in the series created in oil; the rest are gouaches. All are characterized by visual repetitions. Here, a precisely rendered rock, lion, and barrel are placed on a ledge before a great chasm and a mountain ridge looming in the distance. Miniature doubles of the rock, lion, and barrel float impossibly in front of them. Magritte described this doubling device as imbuing the object with “another dimension.” Although admittedly cryptic, his description nevertheless introduces a suggestive temporal-spatial component into the Stimulation Objectives beyond their seeming rootedness in a specific time and place. While the superimposition of objects was unique to this series, it reflects a program of doubling that Magritte staged throughout his mature work from the 1930s onward. His game is a wink and a nod between artist and viewer not unlike that between theatrical performer and audience. But rather than the terms of performance, Magritte’s acknowledged artifice is profoundly engaged with the discipline of painting.

2024
Provenance: Edward James (1907–1984) Foundation, Chichester, from 1939, sold 1979 to;(1) [Acquavella Galleries Inc., New York] and David Geffen (b. 1943), sold 1980 to;(2) David Geffen (b.1943).(3) Anonymous (sale, New York, Christie’s, 15 May 1985, lot 46, to); A. J. Perenchio (1930–2017), Los Angeles, gifted 2025 to; Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Footnotes
(1) Edward James was an English poet, patron, and collector who had inherited the family fortune and properties, which included a country estate in West Dean (West Sussex) and a mid-Georgian townhouse at 35 Wimpole Street, London. The townhouse included works with many Surrealist decorative schemes, including designs by Salvador Dalí, as well as a commission of three paintings by Magritte in 1937 (see also entry for cat. 25).
(2) According to Acquavella Galleries, they purchased this painting on a joint account (half shares) with David Geffen in 1979 from The Edward James Foundation, and they sold their half share to David Geffen in 1980 (email to Casie Kesterson, 27 August and 1 September 2015).
(3) David Geffen made his success as an agent and later record and film producer. His triumphs in the entertainment industry have allowed him to make some of the most generous philanthropic gifts toward medical research and the arts in the country. Geffen has also assembled one of the most prominent postwar American art collections in the world.
Selected Bibliography: Lehmbeck, Leah, ed. Impressionist and Modern Art: The A. Jerrold Perenchio Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich: DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2016.

Related Unframed

A. Jerrold Perenchio Announces Bequest of His Impressionist and Modern Art Collection to LACMA

November 6, 2014
Linda Theung