WORKS by Belgian surrealist René Magritte will be Tate Liverpool’s big summer exhibition for 2011.

A show based on Alice in Wonderland will complete the year’s programme, featuring pieces by artists inspired by Lewis Carroll’s famous book.

The events were announced by Christoph Grunenberg, director of the Albert Dock gallery, at Tate’s annual press conference in London this morning.

It was also revealed the recent Picasso: Peace and Freedom exhibition, drew 93,912 visitors over 14 weeks.

Opening in June, the Magritte show will be the third in a series of summer exhibitions focussing on the work of major name artists following the success of 2008’s Klimt, which broke visitor records with 194,000 tickets sold.

It will reveal the inspiration behind the style of one of the most important and revered artists of the 20th century, showng how his practise continues to influence later generations.

The exhibition, René Magritte: The Pleasure Principle, will explore the idea contained in the artist’s own words that there is “very little difference between seeing a work in reproduction and looking at the real thing”.

Renowned for his mysterious and deadpan imagery, Magritte depicted banal objects such as pipes, apples aqnd umbrellas in incongruous settings. He died in 1967 at the age of 68.

Running from November 2011 to January 2012, the Alice in Wonderland exhibition will feature work by artists including illustrations by Salvador Dali and Peter Blake.

A central section will be devoted to the Surrealists, including Max Ernst and Balthus, who saw the Alice books as an opportunity to explore a fantastical world.

The show will lead up to the present day with pieces by Anna Gaskell, Mary Heilman, Sigmar Polke, Paula Rego, Kiki Smith and Diana Thater.