DRAWING TOGETHER

Fold it, draw it,
pass it on.

One sheet of paper, several people, no peeking.

Several hands around a café table passing a folded strip of paper with pencil lines peeking over the fold, cups and pencils nearby — AI-generated image, not a photograph of a real person or place.

Draw one part
Fold to hide it
Unfold together
A drawing nobody planned

The exquisite corpse is a drawing game for a group. Each person adds a part, folds the paper to hide it and passes it along. The Surrealists made it famous in 1920s Paris, but it grew out of an older parlour game.

Updated 19 October 2026

THE SHORT ANSWER

A parlour game
turned into art.

Words came first, then pictures.
The fold is what makes it work.

THE OLD GAME

Consequences

In the parlour game consequences, players write in turn, fold the paper to hide what they wrote and pass it on. The story is read out at the end.

Pick a version

THE SURREALISTS

A corpse that drinks wine

Tate dates the drawing game to 1925 in Paris. Its name came from one of the first sentences the players made: the exquisite corpse will drink the new wine.

See the numbers

TODAY

Anyone can play

You need paper, pencils and at least two people. The traditional figure is drawn in four parts: head, torso, legs and feet.

How to play

PICK A VERSION

Which game
suits your group?

Choose a version of the fold-and-pass game. The bar shows how much drawing it involves.

Versions as described by Tate and in the Wikipedia articles on exquisite corpse and consequences.

Game check

Choose a versionWord consequencesPicture consequencesThe four-part figureWrite, draw, write

Word consequencesWords only

Each player writes a word or phrase to fit a prompt, folds it out of sight and passes it on. The finished story is read aloud.

Picture consequencesThree parts

One player draws a head, the next the body and the next the legs, each hidden by a fold, until the whole creature is unfolded.

The four-part figureHead to feet

The traditional exquisite corpse figure: head, torso, legs and feet, with the paper folded after each part so no one sees the rest.

Write, draw, writeTurn about

A later variation where players alternate between writing a description and drawing the previous one, so the idea drifts as it travels.

Sources: Tate art term, Cadavre exquis (exquisite corpse); Wikipedia, Exquisite corpse and Consequences (game).

TWO NUMBERS WORTH KNOWING

One sheet,
four hands.

One date for the Surrealist game,
one number for a single surviving sheet.

1925

Year Tate gives for the drawing game

Tate says the exquisite corpse was invented in 1925 in Paris by Surrealists including Yves Tanguy, Jacques Prévert and André Breton. Some accounts put the word game earlier, at least 1918.

THE START · TATE

4 artists

Artists on one 1928 exquisite corpse

A 1928 sheet in the National Gallery of Victoria was made by Man Ray, Max Morise, André Breton and Yves Tanguy, in colour crayon, crayon and ink, 30.5 by 20 cm.

ONE SHEET · NGV MELBOURNE

Breton recalled that the game started in fun at a house at 54 rue du Château in Montparnasse, and that it became playful and eventually enriching.

An unfolded sheet of paper showing a strange hand-drawn creature made of mismatched parts, with coloured pencils scattered beside it — AI-generated image, not a photograph of a real person or place.

PLAY IT TONIGHT

Four people,
one strange body.

No skill needed. The fun is in not knowing what the others drew.

Fold the paper in four
Fold a sheet into four horizontal bands and open it out again, so each player has one band: head, torso, legs and feet.
Draw, then hide
The first person draws a head in the top band, lets a few lines cross the fold as a guide, then folds it back out of sight.
Pass it on
Each player draws their part from those few guide lines alone, folds it away and hands the paper to the next person.
Unfold together
When the feet are done, open the sheet with everyone watching. Then give your creature a name.

IN THE MUSEUMS

Party games
on gallery walls.

Sheets from these games are now kept by major collections. The Menil Collection in Houston holds a graphite exquisite corpse of about 1934 by André Breton, Victor Brauner, Yves Tanguy and Jacques Hérold.

The game also travelled: the writer Henry Miller often played it in French cafés in the 1930s, and in 1932 Frida Kahlo and Lucienne Bloch made two exquisite corpse drawings together.

Close-up of two hands folding a sheet of cream paper over a half-finished pencil drawing on a wooden table — AI-generated image, not a photograph of a real person or place.

Questions

Questions people ask

Why is it called exquisite corpse?

The name comes from a sentence made when the Surrealists first played the word version: le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau, the exquisite corpse will drink the new wine.

Who invented it?

It grew out of the older parlour game consequences. Tate credits a group of Surrealists in Paris in 1925, including Yves Tanguy, Jacques Prévert and André Breton.

How many people do you need?

At least two, but the traditional figure has four parts, so four players works neatly: one each for the head, torso, legs and feet.

Do I need to be good at drawing?

No. The game was meant to produce bizarre, intuitive results. Breton said it started in fun, and the surprise matters more than skill.

Is it still played by artists?

Yes. Tate notes that artists since the Surrealists have used it as a drawing approach, and museums such as the Menil and NGV keep historic examples.

Fold it, draw it,
pass it on.