Studio Dongo
A studio was built 1933 at the end of the garden, which could offer to Magritte the space and the light any painter could have dreamt about. This place finally did fulfill this expected function. Magritte went on painting in the dining room where he wouldn't feel cold in the winter and be close to his wife Georgette.
Although no painting was done there, it was still a place for creativity; Magritte settled here with his brother Paul a small advertising agency named 'studio dongo'. It would help him to earn his living when he still couldn't live from his art. This activity was particularly productive between july 1930 and the end of the year 1936. While René designed the advertisements, Paul took care of their address book and the administrative tasks.
The illustration published within the dongo activities covered a various scale of activities. Magritte designed advertisements for consumption products such as cigaret packages, but also worked for the music scene or the Belgian film distributor TOBIS. He rarely signed this bread and butter works with his own name but with nicknames such as DONGO or EMAIR (phonetic spelling of his name initials M.R.).
