André Masson (1896-1987) was one of the greatest painters of the 20th century, committed to and sensitive to the historical and intellectual upheavals of his century.

His non-doctrinaire presence among the Surrealists, the invention of automatic drawing and sand paintings, his fruitful complicity with the artists and thinkers of his time, the influence of his drawings and canvases on the beginnings of American abstract expressionism, form the best-known part of a body of work that has yet to be read in the power of its totality.

To mark the 100th anniversary of the Manifesto of Surrealism, the Centre Pompidou-Metz is paying tribute to the exceptional personality of André Masson, whose emancipatory thinking remains powerfully relevant today. The exhibition is retracing the artist's career, painting the portrait of a protean artist, open to collaborations and to the world, in search of incessant experimentation guided by the "dictation of the unconscious" and a desire for infinity.