The Early Life of René Magritte Born René François Ghislain Magritte on November 21, 1898, in Lessines, Belgium, the artist entered a world defined by the quiet industry of his family. His father, Léopold Magritte, worked as a tailor and textile merchant, providing a stable, if unremarkable, upbringing. By the age of ten, René Magritte had already begun to seek out formal drawing lessons, discovering an early inclination toward visual expression that would eventually define his life's work. A profound shadow fell over his adolescence in 1912 when his mother, Régina Bertinchamps, died by sui…